Strange shadows on terrain model

(Gringo Starr) #1

Strange shadows on terrain MD3. This was compiled without a shader :slight_smile: Just the texture. I’ve seen this before but wouldn’t know how to search for it. BTW, it seems like this is half the “tris” of an equivalent terrain from EasyGen. Also, the spawnflags 2 method of autoclipping seems to have worked ok (although I didn’t test every vert? :slight_smile: )

(ydnar) #2

Those are shadow seams from the geometry. They’re hard to get rid of. The best plan is to make a shader with the following parameters for the model:

q3map_nonplanar
q3map_shadeAngle 120
q3map_lightmapSampleOffset 8

y

(Gringo Starr) #3

Thanks Y. That pretty much got rid of those other shadows. What about the black marks where objects intersect the terrain model? I’m fairly close to abandoning the terrain model, in favor of good old EasyGen.

(Hewster) #4

Gringo…

The shadows at the base of the pillars (which I know are patches)
are the “edges” of the shadow that is being cast inside the pillar,
you won’t get rid of them unless you either:

  1. don’t use -patchshadows
  2. cut a hole in your terrain model where the pillar intersects
  3. increase _lightmapscale on the terrain to something like 0.001 (not adviseable)

You would also (probably) get this problem using old style terrain.

I would personally suggest that you make the pillars part of your terrain
model, or at least created at the same time, so the verts line-up.
By this I mean you could have the terrain model auto-clipped,
and
the pillar model non-autoclipped (use normal clipping instead)

btw, the terrain looks great… how many polys ?, and how many polys
would it take to create (with the same definition) using traditional terrain ?
You might wana have a chat with Hairy Plums to get the low down on the
dot_product2 shader he used to create the nice meta style blending
he posted on our forums (and here in the ET forum)

btw, what app are you using to model ?

Hewster

(Gringo Starr) #5

I’m using a trial version of Milk Shape 3D. The only thing I can accomplish with it is make terrain. I tried to make the arch in MS3D first, but I simply couldn’t. The 2D views are useless, and there’s no easy ‘shortcut key’ list. It could be just me though :slight_smile: It was far easier making it with patches in Radiant, and that’s probably not saying much. Here is the info from MD3 check about the terrain model:

model file name: terrain.md3
num surfaces/shaders: 1/1
peak verts: 1089 (on surface ‘terrain’)
peak faces: 6144 (on surface ‘terrain’)
average verts per surface: 1089
average faces per surface: 6144

I guess the total polys is 6144 since there’s only one surface? The r_speeds are half of the same terrain from EasyGen. I’m totally new to modelling as you know. I’m gonna download the trial of 3DS Max and see if I can use that any better. What do you use?

And to understand why I sound dispondent, this is the sort of terrain I’m trying to make

(obsidian) #6

I use the commercial version of 3dsMAX, but it’s an awfully expensive program to buy if all that you’re using it for is the occasional game modeling as a hobbyist.

Give Gmax a try - it’s based on 3dsMAX except that its designed for game modeling and it’s a free download.

Other freebies: Maya Personal Learning Edition, Blender 3D