[Nel] Landscapes without 3DSMax

Fri, 14 Dec 2001 08:43:24 -0500

> 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.
+
+Ok, this will be my first project.  Besides Blender, I'm also looking at
+OpenFX (www.openfx.org).  Unfortunately, I'm a coder not a graphic artist.
+I can't say I'm too learned on how to create bezier patches using either
+program, so I'm going to have to do a bit of research before I even start
+this.  If there are any artists out there with some input (especially
+something like "Blender doesn't support bezier patches") I'd love to hear
+from you.  Hopefully it shouldn't take too long to make either a file
+translator or some kind of export plugin for one of the apps, once I learn
+how to make the content using one of the aforementioned apps.
+
+> 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...
+
+Right, this will be phase 2.  I was sort of expecting this to be the hard
+part.
+
+> 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.
+
+Can you elaborate on this?  Are you talking about coming up with some kind
+of algorithm to color the geometries instead of using textures?  I don't
+follow.
+
+> The postprocess to weld the zones together and compute the lighting will
+> stay the same as far as you generate ".zone" files.
+
+Right, I'm assuming that once the .zone files are generated, I can follow
+the process used with 3DS Max.
+
+Thanks for the feedback Cyril.  It's nice to see how much input the official
+team has on this list.
+
+Paul
+
+
+