How to program a terragen plugin?

Started by Sami, June 01, 2008, 08:52:45 AM

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Sami

Hi,
   
  My name is Samuel Didier and I should use Terragen to generate skyboxes and terrains into my game created with the Torque Game Engine Advanced.
 
  I should program a DLL plugin (.tgp) for Terragen to help me in this job. We have some stuff to automate for the exporting.

  But I cannot find any source code or documentation about that. But I just find release plugins.

  So, I will very happy if somebody can give some informations around this problem.

  Thanks you very much.

Best Regards

Oshyan

Hello Sami,

The SDK for Terragen 0.9 was never publicly released so unfortunately you will not be able to create a plugin for your needs. An SDK for TG2 will eventually be available, however this will not be for a while yet.

Perhaps the functions you need would not require a plugin? Can you describe more specifically what you are trying to accomplish?

- Oshyan

Sami

Hi Oshyan,

  At first, I should generate a skybox. I found a Terragen script to help me for this case. But in the same time, I should generate a .dml file. It's a file used to load the skybox in Torque Game Engine.

  At second, I should export the terrain into Atlas system specific file format at Torque.
    The process :
      - Export a heighmap
      * for an unique terrain texture :
         - Export a terrain texture
      * for a terrain with blended textures :
         - Export the ground textures.
         - Export an opacity map.
         - Export a detail texture.
         - Export a lightmap.
      - Generate the Torque Script and run the Torque Game Engine to generate the Atlas files.

  The exporting steps can be done manually in Terragen.

  Can I create a program to run Terragen to do these steps?

Best Regards

Oshyan

I would think you could use a 3rd party automation tool like AutoHotKey to perform something like this, since it is possible to do manually in Terragen already. There are other scripting-based automation tools that may be even more appropriate. If you are familiar with coding you may already know of some.

- Oshyan

Sami

Hi Oshyan,

   Thanks you for your help.
   I didn't use a tool like AutoHotKey. But it will more faster to create a script than to program a plugin in C++ or VB.

Best Regards