Implementing Leadwerks Vegetation via code?

[Scott Richmond]

I'm currently using models rather than a 'terrain' mesh to make up my various pieces of environment and I'm wondering if anyone can give me any advice on how Leadwerks implements its vegetation system, specifically the grass.

Do I need to add a shader to the mat file of the material I apply to the model? Do I need to maybe generate a 'grass mesh' on top of my models, sort of like a decal?

Any documentation or advice would be appreciated.

[Pixel Perfect]

For all things Leadwerks the best starting point is the Leadwerks User Guide however the vegetation system in Leadwerks is based upon the terrain system. So no terrain - no vegetation system!

[Scott Richmond]

Are you saying that the grass in Leadwerks is hardcoded into the terrain entity type and is impossible to deploy anywhere else?

[Pixel Perfect]

I'm saying that all of the vegetation functionality is tied into the terrain system. After all it deploys vegetation over the terrain, either all of it, at the press of a button, or it allows you to paint vegetation layers on the terrain. Either way a Leadwerks terrain is required. You cannot deploy vegetation onto mesh models!

 

Nothing to stop you designing your own vegetation system of course and yes you might be able to use some aspects of the existing code/shaders but none of this functionality is exposed other than through the terrain interface in the editor.

[Scott Richmond]

So, I haven't tried this at all but it does compile:

 

Model m;
m.Load("oildrum.gmf");
Terrain t(m);

 

Any reason why this might not work?

[Pixel Perfect]

I'm not sure I understand what you think you are doing in that code.

 

You have loaded a model and created a function thats designed to convert a model into a terrain? If this is LEO I guess you just created an instance of a Terrain Class based on a pointer to a loaded model? Maybe you'd like to elaborate?

[Scott Richmond]

I'm not sure I understand what you think you are doing in that code.

 

You have loaded a model and created a function thats designed to convert a model into a terrain? If this is LEO I guess you just created an instance of a Terrain Class based on a pointer to a loaded model? Maybe you'd like to elaborate?

 

The constructor for Terrain is able to take an instance of Entity. So, I'm assuming here that if I pass it an instance of Model it'll allow me to apply and use some of the terrain features to the model. I think only Josh could tell us whether this sort of thing could work. Or I could just try it.

Any idea how I enable vegetation over a Terrain in C? I suppose I'll just try it and see what happens.

[Pixel Perfect]

Well, I assume that it's designed to take a pointer to a terrain entity. In Leadwerks all named entity types are fundementally just char pointers so it won't distinguish between a TTerrain pointer and a TModel pointer hence the fact it compiles; but the two are normally pointing to completely different objects.

 

As I previously indicated, outside ot the editor non of the vegetation functionality is exposed. You might check Klepto2's community version of the engine.DLL as I believe that has exposed many more functions but I don't know to what extent the vegetation functionality is exposed ... if at all.

 

Sure Josh could give a categorical answer to this but in the mean time I would assume you will need to implement your own system in totality if not using Leadwerks terrain.

[Admin]

I'm saying that all of the vegetation functionality is tied into the terrain system. After all it deploys vegetation over the terrain, either all of it, at the press of a button, or it allows you to paint vegetation layers on the terrain. Either way a Leadwerks terrain is required. You cannot deploy vegetation onto mesh models!

This.

[Scott Richmond]

So, even if I was using terrain properly, I still cannot use vegetation at all without the editor?