Do TerrainMaterials need a Material for their diffuseMap?

[Mud-H]

I'm trying to get a rid of the missing material warning for TerrainMaterial:

 [MaterialList::mapMaterials] Unable to find material for texture: [matName]

After comparing with fullTemplate, I realized that all TerrainMaterial have a Material defined for the diffuseMap, what is it needed for? Just to get rid off the warning?

I remember a while back I was making a Material for each of my TerrainMaterial but I lost this habit and I don't see a difference. I just want to know if I'm missing something, is there a use for the extra Material or it's just in case you need the TerrainMaterial as standard material?

If it's not needed, anyone have a solution to get rid of the warning?

[Duion]

Terrain materials don't need a standard material, but there is a case where they do, there are Terrain_FX materials that define some settings like footstep sound, decals, particle effects etc.

So you need a "new TerrainMaterial()" and a "singleton Material(TerrainFX_)

No idea why, but it works that way.

[Mud-H]

Well since I'm lasy and don't like having to write extra Material, I made a TerrainMaterial fix function that check all TerrainMaterial in art/terrains folder. It create a new material file with a pre_ prefix containing all diffuseMap with missing Materials.

Here's the initial version in case someone want to use it, it's a quick scripting job but it do the job and save time writing material. Also you can use the %reset to regenerate all the materials. The %loadNew var is for loading the new Material file instantly once created . For future updates, it will be included in my helpers collection.

function fixTerrainMaterialsStock(%loadNew,%reset) {
%searchFolder = "art/terrains/*materials.cs";

//Now go through each files again to add a brush with latest items
for(%matFile = findFirstFile(%searchFolder); %matFile !$= ""; %matFile = findNextFile(%searchFolder)) {
	%fileObj = new FileObject();
	// Open a text file, if it exists
	%fileObj.OpenForRead(%matFile);
	%folder = filePath(%matFile);
	%fileBase = fileBase(%matFile);
	%newMatFile = %folder@"/pre_"@%fileBase@".cs";
	%fileWrite = "";

	while( !%fileObj.isEOF() ) {
		%line = %fileObj.readLine();

		if (strFind(%line,"TerrainMaterial")) {
			%inTerrainMaterial = true;
		} else if(%inTerrainMaterial && strFind(%line,"diffuseMap")) {
			%lineFields = strreplace(%line,"\"","\t");
			%difMap = getField(%lineFields,getFieldCount(%lineFields)-2);
			%difMapName = fileBase(%difMap);
			%matObj = "Mat_"@%difMapName;
			%matObj = strReplaceList(%matObj,"-" TAB "_" NL " " TAB "_");

			if (isObject(%matObj) && %reset)
				delObj(%matObj);

			if (!isObject(%matObj)) {
				if (!isObject(%fileWrite)) {
					%fileWrite = new FileObject();
					%fileWrite.OpenForWrite(%newMatFile);
					%fileWrite.writeLine("//==============================================================================");
					%fileWrite.writeLine("//Auto generated material for TerrainMaterial in:"@%fileBase@"");
					%fileWrite.writeLine("//------------------------------------------------------------------------------");
					%fileWrite.writeLine("//==============================================================================");
					%fileWrite.writeLine("info(\"Loading generated materials for:"@%fileBase@"\");");
				}

				%fileWrite.writeLine("//==============================================================================");
				%fileWrite.writeLine("singleton Material("@%matObj@")");
				%fileWrite.writeLine("{");
				%fileWrite.writeLine("	mapTo = \""@%difMapName@"\";");
				%fileWrite.writeLine("	footstepSoundId = 0;");
				%fileWrite.writeLine("	terrainMaterials = \"1\";");
				%fileWrite.writeLine("	ShowDust = \"1\";");
				%fileWrite.writeLine("	showFootprints = \"1\";");
				%fileWrite.writeLine("	materialTag0 = \"Terrain\";");
				%fileWrite.writeLine("	impactSoundId = 0;");
				%fileWrite.writeLine("};");
				%fileWrite.writeLine("//------------------------------------------------------------------------------");					
			}
		} else if (strFind(%line,"};")) {
			%inTerrainMaterial = false;
		}
	}

	if (isObject(%fileWrite)) {
		%fileWrite.close();
		%fileWrite.delete();
		if (%loadNew) 
			exec(%newMatFile);
	}

	%fileObj.close();
	%fileObj.delete();
}	
}

You could then simply paster the new material file before your terrain materials or to keep the pre_ material file, I have add a check for that file in the loadMaterials function, if the pre_ file is found, it will execute it before executing the standard material file.

Just add this before the exec(%file) in loadMaterials()

%folder = filePath(%file);
%fileBase = fileBase(%file);
%preMatFile = %folder@"/pre_"@%fileBase@".cs";
if (isFile(%preMatFile))
exec(%preMatFile);

[Duion]

I don't understand what you are doing there, I just create materials by copy and paste by hand and then change the values I need.

[Mud-H]

Yeah, I know but like I said I'm lazy. These days I'm experimenting a lot with terrains and I often change or create materials. With that functions, I can make sure the linked Materials are up-to-date.

It's quite useless for basic use of already develloped materials but it will help me a bit... And I would expand it someday...