Modifying terrain during gameplay

[saindd]

The editors all run in-game... they don't seem to be a separate application or have any kind of baking/processing code. So, in theory, it's possible to create a weapon (or vehicle, or anything else for that matter) that can modify the terrain during gameplay, right? I'm asking this because i'm interested in having explosions that affect the environment.

Also, would it be possible to have a weapon that creates structures, like the polygon editor?

[LukasPJ]

This is not a resource, so I'm moving it to C++.

[saindd]

Sorry, didn't notice this.

[Johxz]

may be is not the answering what you are expecting, but try to use t3d and do something first then come to that ;)

btw check this link maybe is useful https://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/1670 https://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/9293/2

so it is possible. You need to dig more in the subject.

Try to search about Deformable 3D Environment or Voxels

[saindd]

I did saw the research and demos by Bill Vee on T3D and Polyvox, but since the engine already has terrain manipulation built-in, without voxels, i wanted to experiment doing those modifications instead. (which probably is just vertex displacement on a mesh, but where is it persisted to?)

[Johxz]

Just to discard what are you looking for, you what something superficial, or something more like red faction?

If you don't know red faction... here is a video. Obviously no too deep :D

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[buckmaster]

There was a resource to do this back in the TGE days. I don't remember the specifics how how you had to modify terrain, but one significant part of it was the fact that Players cache collision information. So if you modified the terrain underneath a Player, then the Player wouldn't notice until they walked a little way, refreshed their collision cache, then fell to their untimely end. Actually I've just realised it was an exact implementation of Wile E. Coyote.

So yeah, if you end up doing something like this, remember to check for Players near your modification and nuke their working collision set or something.

[Azaezel]

The core of it (and terrain has undergone several revisions, so the older resources won't work. make sure if you find one it's tagged for t3d) is terrains are (short version) a grid. If I recall correctly, prior resources added a second, ghosted grid as opposed to a straight file lookup which contained alterations which were then applied over the non-ghosted ones. An analogy would be taking a rigged model and applying vertex transforms to animate it. (somewhat simpler though, since you only have the Z value to manipulate, with the x/y being fixed points on the grid). That help any regarding conceptualization, at least?

[Johxz]

Updated Terrain Deformer

https://www.garagegames.com/community/resources/view/13884