micro export to 3dMax problem

Started by dorianvan, May 08, 2017, 07:54:58 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

dorianvan

I have a problem with the geometry that I exported with the micro exporter. I have a beach scene with a water line in terragen, so the slope is downward into the water. I export orthographic straight down, then merge the obj into 3dMax, then I place a flat plane where the water line goes. The problem is the geometry doesn't give me a beach like in terragen. Any ideas?
-Dorian

paq

Maybe because of the planet curvature ? I think Lake object in Terragen is not planar either.
Just an idea ;)
Gameloft

dorianvan

That thought crossed my mind too, but that doesn't seem likely because this is such a tiny area compared to the earth. This is a quite a bit tipped as you can see. These are the exact same camera angles, but the merged obj seems to be tipped to the right. I need this to be precise because I will be doing water with another program and need an accurately level obj mesh. I must be missing something.
-Dorian

Dune

Problem might be that the actual beach is maybe 1-2K from 0/0/0. So a plane perpendicular to Y would have an angle, and the exporter would probably export on this angle too. But I'm not familiar with exporting. Can you relocate in Max to the actual location used in TG? Or use a sphere?

dorianvan

#4
I suppose the subject of this thread really should be "Does moving DEM mess with micro exporter data?"
-Dorian

dorianvan

#5
It appears that the DEM shouldn't be moved when you need to export obj meshes. It seems to tilt geometry and flatten it out some, and make it very touchy to do anything with. The non-moved DEM seemed to work great.

I wonder if there is a way to counter this problem so the DEM can be moved when also needing to export.
Maybe the exporter can't deal yet with moved DEM's, or it's a bug...
-Dorian

Oshyan

Reading this thread now, I realize the "tilt" you're talking about is more subtle, something you might not really notice in a render but would show up in export. In this case I would check the options on the Displacement tab of the Heightfield Shader node. Particularly the Displacement Direction and Flatten Surface First options. See if changing any of those has an effect.

- Oshyan

dorianvan

It actually has tilted quite a bit for such a tiny piece of real estate (height at 200m), and it's the wrong way tilt too! My camera is orthographic aiming straight down 90 degrees. Plus, it flatted the terrain out some and is very "touchy" in 3dMax. At the start, Ulco had relocated the DEM to a different location because of some reason I can't recall, and then he did his work and I tried to export a piece. Didn't work. However, as a test, when it was moved back to the original geo-referenced location, the exported obj worked great, none of those problems.

The question is, has the micro exporter been tested to see if it exports correctly on a moved DEM tiff? We'd rather not move it if we don't have to, because everything is just right now.

-Dorian

Dune

The area is near equator, and the reason for moving the DEM was that trees were all on a nasty angle, and camera's have to be adjusted every time you rotate. Pretty awkward.

Matt

The micro exporter simply exports the rendered geometry. There isn't anything shader-specific that could change this. Whatever is exported is the surface produced by the shader and it will be the same in the Terragen render.

When working on a planetary scale the surface will deviate from a plane, increasingly as you move away from the origin. Also, by default the Heightfield Shader displaces along the local "up" vector, but this changes in space as the planet has a curved surface. If Ulco moved the height field it's going to be different from before. But there are options in the Displacement tab to change the displacement direction to the Y axis and to flatten surface to Y = 0. If you of change both of those things you can simulate a planar world. Alternatively you can render the terrain using a Plane instead of a Planet.


Matt
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.

Dune

Thanks Matt! I put all on two planes and it works perfectly. Off to the next challenge...

dorianvan

Yes thanks Matt! And thanks Ulco for understanding what Matt/Oshyan were saying (sometimes above my head). Also just solved my multi-layered polygon issue with your helping Klaus. It would be great if TG didn't create doubled up polygons at the bucket borders though. Maybe you could program it so the exporter will automatically adjust to the size of the image rendered so that won't happen, who would ever want doubled polys anyway.
-Dorian

Oshyan

We have intentions to improve the export process in the future. Limiting it to a single thread is a pretty non-ideal option though (it makes it a lot slower), so hopefully we can find another option to improve the quality of the exported geometry.

- Oshyan