[Nel] Landscapes without 3DSMax

Thu, 13 Dec 2001 15:13:03 +0100

Hi Paul,
+
+> I'm wondering if there's a way to build landscapes without 3D Studio Max.
+> That's some pricey software just to do level editing.  Is anything
+> available, or being worked on?  Or am I going to have to learn how to
+> rewrite the max plugins for Blender?
+
+The NeL 3d library has several user level.
+
+Using the user interface (all u_headers.h in the 3d lib) of the library, you
+can only
+load and display a landscape. This level is used by the game developper to
+abstract
+the game engine from the technology implementation.
+
+Using the 3d lib at lowlevel (all the others header files) allow you to
+quilckly create patches and
+landscape zones. It is really simple to export some bezier quad patches from
+Blender
+(does blender have bezier patches ?) into a .zone file using a small plugin.
+Simple C++ classes
+are provided to "Builb" the ".zone" c++ objects. Then serialisation is used
+to save them
+in binary files.
+
+The hardest part is the patch painter that allow you to paint tiles, vertex
+color and
+displacement map over the landscape zone patches. At nevrax, this is done by
+the artists using
+a 3dsmax plugin (nel_patch_paint). If you can't use 3dsmax, you can perhaps
+generate
+the painting or rewrite a little ingame zone painter or why not, a blender
+painter plugin...
+You have to know that the painter algorithm that put tiles over the
+landscape is not trivial at all.
+If you are short on time, a good solution is to generate painting, as most
+of the heightfield
+landscapes do.
+
+The postprocess to weld the zones together and compute the lighting will
+stay the same
+as far as you generate ".zone" files.
+
+>
+> Paul
+>
+> _______________________________________________
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+>
+
+
+