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General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: Henry Blewer on March 18, 2010, 12:03:38 AM

Title: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 18, 2010, 12:03:38 AM
I have been playing with Suicidator City Generator, for Blender 2.49b.  http://arnaud.ile.nc/sce/ . This is a test which came out okay.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2697/4442579424_b65848931c_o.jpg
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Kadri on March 18, 2010, 12:44:34 AM

Nice ! Njeneb do you know if this will work in the new alpha or build ?
Title: Re: City test
Post by: FrankB on March 18, 2010, 03:00:29 AM
very cool - I have to try that out, too. Thanks for the link!
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 18, 2010, 06:28:41 AM
I don't think the new Blender Alpha's should have a problem. The Python version remains the same.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: inkydigit on March 18, 2010, 06:36:46 AM
looks good from afar at least..may check this out!
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 18, 2010, 07:57:06 AM
I had to export the textures the program makes for the buildings. Then load them in to the objects image areas.

Matt and Oshyan, I use a population for the city. the city must be scaled to the same size as the populations area coverage. This 'fixed' the image maps scales to the correct size for the buildings. Otherwise they remain too small. I found this curious; I wonder why this image scaling does not occur with a single object?
I exported the city object straight from Blender as a Wavefront obj file.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: reck on March 18, 2010, 09:22:42 AM
Quote from: Kadri on March 18, 2010, 12:44:34 AM

Nice ! Njeneb do you know if this will work in the new alpha or build ?

Kadri it says on their front page that porting to Blender 2.5 is planned for their next version.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on March 18, 2010, 11:10:32 AM
i'll have to try that blender plug in sooner or later,

reminds me of when i was using citygen(standalone app), too bad its no longer available for DL
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Kadri on March 18, 2010, 11:14:29 AM
Quote from: reck on March 18, 2010, 09:22:42 AM
Quote from: Kadri on March 18, 2010, 12:44:34 AM

Nice ! Njeneb do you know if this will work in the new alpha or build ?

Kadri it says on their front page that porting to Blender 2.5 is planned for their next version.

Thanks , Reck . I didn't had time to look at the link (work :( ) . I will now  :)

Kadri.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Oshyan on March 19, 2010, 02:03:41 AM
There shouldn't be any image scaling differences between single object and population. Very odd. Have you tried running the object through PoseRay?

- Oshyan
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Dune on March 19, 2010, 04:08:59 AM
A procedural city builder for TG would be nice. I vagueley know someone has been busy with that. If you'd import a mask of  the city location, and TG would take a point somewhere in the whites, make a square area around it, flatten this and then displace it vertically in a random but limited value, you'd get something that would look like a city, good enough for distances. But that's food for the mathematicians among us....
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 19, 2010, 05:23:04 AM
Oshyan, I did not run the city object through PoseRay. I noticed that the object scale settings using the populator scale the images as well. Since the scale settings for a single object does not scale the images, I tried loading the city as a population. When the population size and the object scale settings are the same, this produces one object. I found it strange that a single instance of an object does not behave this way. It would be a nice feature for newbies trying to use objects if the images scaled with the object size.

Anyway, it's a nice work around. I am getting ready to try this with other objects.

Dune, the Suicidator City Generator does a fair job of this. It will also use height fields for building and street locations. I think the city which was being worked on used the shapes shader for buildings.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: bla bla 2 on March 19, 2010, 02:20:17 PM
J'ai une idée. Si tu essayais de faire comme Ace combat et d'ajouté des avions en plein jour ?
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 19, 2010, 03:11:47 PM
I never heard of Ace Combat. But an airplane would be nice.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: dandelO on March 19, 2010, 03:29:42 PM
This looks pretty cool, Henry. :)

I'm been working on an internal TG thing kind of like this, called the 'Dense City Shader'... http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=7897.0
I must get back to that soon, I've been veered away from TG for a week or two since I've been struck by my music muse(album 2 - 'Ambient Occlusion' is well and truly underway and should be a mainly(but not completely) guitar-based effort this time...).

I'll pop back into the city as soon as I get back into TG again...
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 19, 2010, 04:39:34 PM
Thanks. I am glad you linked to your work here. More options are always better. I am looking forward to your next musical endeavor.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: bla bla 2 on March 19, 2010, 04:48:08 PM
Je connais un site qui a des avions en 3D, mais je sais pas si tu pourra prendre dans ce format 3ds.

http://archive3d.net/?category=29
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 19, 2010, 07:43:48 PM
Merci, this looks like a good  site.  Nice find!
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Oshyan on March 19, 2010, 08:44:14 PM
Quote from: njeneb on March 19, 2010, 05:23:04 AM
Oshyan, I did not run the city object through PoseRay. I noticed that the object scale settings using the populator scale the images as well. Since the scale settings for a single object does not scale the images, I tried loading the city as a population. When the population size and the object scale settings are the same, this produces one object. I found it strange that a single instance of an object does not behave this way. It would be a nice feature for newbies trying to use objects if the images scaled with the object size.

Anyway, it's a nice work around. I am getting ready to try this with other objects.

I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean here. Perhaps some rendered example images would help. As long as an object is UV mapped properly, scaling the object should scale any associated texture maps. If it doesn't, then that would certainly be a big, but in brief tests here I can't replicate that problem. Perhaps there is a UV map issue, or UVs are being treated differently in a population vs. single object? Are these objects even UV mapped, or are you using some other kind of projection for textures?

- Oshyan
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 19, 2010, 08:52:02 PM
Oshyan, I think the problem is more a Blender thing. All Blender objects, when imported into Terragen 2 are 1 meter total size. Blender does not use real world measurements.

I am rendering another scene now. I will make a simple object in Blender then import it.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Oshyan on March 19, 2010, 08:53:10 PM
Regardless of the original scale, scaling as a single object or in a population should do the same thing, as far as I know. So even if Blender's scale is messed up, there may still be a TG2 problem being shown here.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 19, 2010, 08:58:39 PM
Ok, let me mess around a bit. I will let you know how I make out (with images). I may not be until tomorrow, I have to go to work soon tonight.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 19, 2010, 10:07:16 PM
I had to run this one through PoseRay. I built the model in Blender and used a cube map for the image texture. If I did not use PoseRay, the image did not have UV coordinates.

Tomorrow, I will try a population test.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 20, 2010, 10:28:15 AM
This is the population test. I had to run it through Poseray. Apparently the city builder creates UV's automatically; something I never bothered to learn in Blender, yet...

Anyway, it's been a fun experiment. Any resemblance to an actual person is purely because I thought it was such a fun picture!
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Oshyan on March 20, 2010, 10:36:45 PM
So the question remains - is there a difference in image mapping between population and individual object? Judging by your examples there isn't, which is what I'd expect...

- Oshyan
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 20, 2010, 11:17:49 PM
I no longer believe there is a difference. But now I am intrigued about learning UV mapping using Blender.

What I do not understand is why scaling works without any extra work in object populations and not for a single object? I read that scaling single objects will change the mapping so it no longer 'fits' the object correctly. This was some time ago.

Anyway, I intend to keep experimenting with this. The T2 render features are too powerful not to be used.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Oshyan on March 20, 2010, 11:21:33 PM
I'm not sure what "extra work" you're referring to.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 20, 2010, 11:22:41 PM
Using PoseRay. It's an extra step.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 20, 2010, 11:29:51 PM
Is the Terragen 2 tgo file format available to people to use in other apps? Maybe the people at Blender will include the import/export of this object format in Blender, if asked.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Oshyan on March 20, 2010, 11:33:30 PM
TGO is a proprietary format for now.

Do you mean that PoseRay conversion is not necessary for objects in a population? This quote from your previous message is confusing "This is the population test. I had to run it through Poseray."

- Oshyan
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 21, 2010, 08:27:27 AM
Sorry. The city object was automatically UV mapped by the Python script. I did not have to adjust that using poseray. I did have to use PoseRay to map the InsaneFrenchie image onto the kiosk object. What was interesting is when I scale the city up, the UV remained the same scale, but when I put the city object in a population of one instance, the UV maps scaled with the object.

I am sorry if this is not clear. I do not talk much; most of the conversation is at work. Usually 'Stop that!'. The guys in the dorm are mostly good people, but like cats easily lead astray.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Oshyan on March 22, 2010, 01:02:34 AM
Perhaps can you provide a rendered example of *that* (scaling up in population vs. single object).

- Oshyan
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 22, 2010, 08:12:03 AM
Okay. It'll be a day or two before the image I am rendering is done. Look for a post Wednesday night on this.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 22, 2010, 09:07:41 PM
I had memory enough to render these. The first is the Blender render.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4038/4456074304_cbbd604a30_o.png

This is the Terragen 2 render. I had trouble getting the camera in the same place.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4002/4455297841_32c55447e5_b.jpg

The Poseray version of the City 2a object is rendering now. I post it when I get off work in the morning.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 22, 2010, 09:54:53 PM
It seems that running the object PoseRay does not map the UV correctly.
Title: Re: City test
Post by: MGebhart on March 22, 2010, 11:03:47 PM
Looks like your having fun experimenting. Once you get this down you may have a cool way to make distant cities.

Marc
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 23, 2010, 07:51:13 AM
Actually, I may be able to use it quite close up. I have been working on using Blender as a way to create image maps. That's been working pretty well. By adding some details to the cube buildings, and having good image maps, this Pythin script could be quite awesome.

First, I have to get so I can use UV from Blender. (which does not behave quite as expected)
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Seth on March 23, 2010, 03:05:32 PM
Quote from: njeneb on March 19, 2010, 10:07:16 PM
I had to run this one through PoseRay. I built the model in Blender and used a cube map for the image texture. If I did not use PoseRay, the image did not have UV coordinates.

Tomorrow, I will try a population test.


hahaha njeneb ! what an awful image map ! ^^
Title: Re: City test
Post by: Henry Blewer on March 23, 2010, 05:51:01 PM
It's the generated map from the Python script.