Can't see Base map?

[MikeV]

Hello,

 

So, seem to have run into my first speed bump here. Ahh the joys of being a newbie :-p

 

I've selected an image to use as the base map for a terrain, but it doesn't seem to want to show on the terrain itself.

 

I initially had trouble getting it to load, as I kept getting an error to do with loading abstract::-filename-, etc...

 

I ran the GenMat program on it, it generated the material file and so forth. I was then able to load the image successfully into the editor.

 

However, now it won't show on the terrain at all. I've searched around for info on this, but couldn't seem to find anything specifically about my issue.

 

Curious if there's some setting I need to adjust, etc?

[macklebee]

is the texture DDS? does it have mipmaps? did you make a normalmap for it? and terrain textures dont need you to make material files as the terrain editor is essentially setting up the material file when you are creating the terrain.

 

Edit- ah the base texture... you need to set another texture in one of the available 5 texture layer slots. Then adjust that texture's blendvalue using the slider control... and you should see the basemap start to appear blended in with the terrain texture...

[MikeV]

is the texture DDS? does it have mipmaps? did you make a normalmap for it? and terrain textures dont need you to make material files as the terrain editor is essentially setting up the material file when you are creating the terrain. also make sure you have the latest and greatest drivers for your graphics card. if all that fails, post the file(s)...

 

 

EDIT:

Okay... I figured it out. I didn't have a regular texture layer added. As soon as I did that and reduced the opacity on it, the base texture showed up. I guess the base texture needs something to blend with/against in order to work?

 

So... problem solved!

 

 

Edit of the Edit: lol I just read your edit after editing mine lol. So yeah, that confirms that's all it was

 

Thanks for the help!

Edited August 20, 2012 by MikeV

[macklebee]

read the edited post above... if you are referring to the 'Base Texture' when you say basemap for the terrain then it doesnt show up until you add a terrain texture into one of the 5 Layers. You use the base texture to blend in with your 5 layers using the blend slider control for that texture.

[MikeV]

read the edited post above... if you are referring to the 'Base Texture' when you say basemap for the terrain then it doesnt show up until you add a terrain texture into one of the 5 Layers. You use the base texture to blend in with your 5 layers using the blend slider control for that texture.

 

Yep! Got it working now. I figured it had to be something simple that I was just missing.

 

Thanks again!

[MikeV]

Just a quick update. Thought I'd go ahead and post a couple quick shots of what I've got so far. It's not much, but then I've been watching 'Event Horizon' for the last hour or so.. >.>

 

I had a rough heightmap of the zone in PNG format, which was used by another engine I was checking out, but it caused really bad stair-case effects in LW. So I brought it into L3DT, did some fixing up on it, and exported it to a .raw format. There's still some bumpiness in there, but that can be dealt with as I go.

 

So, I got the heightmap in there, and then overlayed the area map I created in order to give me reference of where I need to adjust the terrain, etc.

 

What you're looking at in the in-editor shot is the SW corner of the map. The overall zone will be about 2 square kilometers overall, with about 1.8 kilometers of actual explorable space. The lines with slight shadows you see are changes in elevation, and that's what I have to go in now and "fill in". Most important thing is I have the rough layout in there, which will make life much easier for me. The darker areas that are drawn "over" the higher areas will be tunnels, created from polysoup models.

 

As it stands, I'm kinda concerned about the performance/frame-rate I'm getting in the editor. I've looked, but haven't been able to find anything to do with enabling LOD on the terrain, or reducing/increasing the clip range. I don't imagine it'll be too much of a problem in the final result, though. At least I hope not. Any tips on increasing/optimizing performance on that? Hopefully I'm not doing something horribly wrong here lol.

 

Here's the pics.

 

[DaDonik]

As it stands, I'm kinda concerned about the performance/frame-rate I'm getting in the editor.

 

Unlike most other graphics engines LE2 uses deferred rendering, which has a high initial

performance impact. The good thing is the performance will not drop as fast as in other

engines if you add models and lights

My guess is that your graphics card is not quite up to date. What do you have?

[shadmar]

Turn off the postfilters like ssao,hdr,godrays,antialiasing, bloom helps alot on the performance.

Also using older cards than 8600 would render slow.

[MikeV]

Hiya folks..

 

Thanks for the feedback.

 

I did try disabling all the post effects, 'cause I thought that might what the issue was as well. The difference was negligible.

 

As for hardware, I'm running on a NVidia GTX 560Ti with the latest drivers. It's not cutting edge (ie. 600 series), but it's still a fairly beastly card that runs all the other demos for LW beautifully. The arctic mountain one with the forest runs at up to 100FPS in some spots, but never drops below 80. Granted, it's probably also a smaller map overall than what I'm using and the visibility isn't as far.

 

That's why I'm wondering if there's some important step I'm missing somewhere. I've gone through tutorials and such, but can't find anything that I may have overlooked.

 

Not sure if it's relevant here, but in case it is, I'm on an AMD Phenom II 3Ghz x4 (unlocked to x6). Also have 8 gigs of RAM. Running on Windows 7 64-bit.

[AggrorJorn]

That graphics card has more than enough power.

 

You also might want to take a look at this.

http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/tutorials/_/design/leadwerks-23-user-guide-r16

[MikeV]

Hiya Aggror.

 

I have actually downloaded and looked through that. Couldn't seem to find anything relating to terrain speed/performance, etc.

 

Could be I overlooked something, though. I can take another look.

 

Thanks!

 

Edit:

 

Curious. I can't test this myself since I'm not at home at the moment, but was just wondering if the size/resolution of the base map can have an effect on performance, etc?

[MikeV]

Just a quick update. I loaded up the map from the screenshots above and now it's running fast and smooth.

 

So, I don't know what was going on last night and why it was running so slowly. Whatever it was seems to have fixed itself.

 

So... Onward and upward!