Hiya.

Unless the next version of A7 has a blow-my-socks-off terrain/in-game editor...I think Conitec should create a direct, fully-featured plug-in with the GROME terrain editor ( http://www.quadsoftware.com/index.php?m=section&sec=product&subsec=editor ).

GROME does list "3D Game Studio" as the next-on-the-list for import/export...so maybe this is already in the works. I just wanted to specifically voice my request/support for such a plug-in.

PS: No, I don't own GROME...but there's a good chance I will by, say, tomorrow...I need a new terrain editor ASAP, and GROME already supports one of the engines I'm contemplating using (Torque).

GROME can create Gamestudio terrains and levels AFAIK. At least they have developed a plugin for this, I don't know if it's in release yet.

No disrespect Paul, but why not use blender. It is superior to any terrain editor...as far as I can tell, and I thought GROME to be the holy grail of terrain editing.

Just look at the features:
http://www.quadsoftware.com/index.php?m=.../features_video

I doubt that Blender calculates terrain with fractal algorithms or applies natural erosion for you. And then there is procudural mapping and texturing, depending on parameters like altitude, slope and more. There is a terrain LOD edit mode, you can paint layers like vegetation or water.
And you do all this in real-time.

By the way: I did not find any comment towards Gamestudio except a remark that they want to support Ogre and 3D Game Engine soon. Maybe it is a typo though.

Hiya.

I'm going to look at Blender as soon as I see 2.5 for Windows7 64-bit with a GUI/Interface that works like *I* want to and not the other way around. I think that's the main point of 2.5 (to be customizble so it can work more like just about every other 3d app out there).

As for GROME, I saw their 'to-be' plugin list too...I just wanted to remind Conitec of it I guess...and secretly hope there already was a direct plugin link dohicky for it.

Another terrain program I'm looking at is GeoControl. Although it pretty much does ONLY terrain/materials. But it's easy to use and you get great results...but it's only about $90 (after conversion) less than GROME II and you get less functionality. Still...

Bigest hang up I have over not buying GROME II right now...I have the demo, but it doesn't allow any form of exporting...so I can't tell how easy/good the exporting actually *is*.

Hiya.

Update!

I just bought GROME II yesterday. No time to play then, but I have all day today and tomorrow...and on Monday I should be receiving a beta version of their GROMEII --> A7 plugin...

Right now I'm trying to get my head around how the program organizes itself for terrain manipulation (it uses a sort of "Photoshop layers" approach). You make layers for different terrain effects you want (hills, planes, mountins, etc.)..and you can blend these together. You have to do some 'pre-selecting' of layers before using most tools, and those tools will only affect the layers you wanted it to. It has some pretty sweet selection tools you can use, however, using height, layer and angle/slope to select parts in your terrain that you can then tweak. So, if you wanted to add rolling plains to a terrain filled with mountains, you could use the selection 'procedural' to have it select only the parts of the map that are under, say 100 meters. Then you apply smoothing or other heightmap generators to only that selection...giving you mountains that smoothly flow out into gentle, rolling plains.

Oh, and the terrains can be *FRICKIN HUGE* if you don't watch yourself. My first test of a 2 tile by 2 tile map (at a resolution of 256 per tile) ended up being something like 5km x 5km in size! O_O

I can't wait to figure out how to texture, paint grass, bushes, trees, etc. ,add some models, and export.

Grome allow to make erosion, vertical cliffs :

How will it be xported to A7 ? in a simple model format i think : not optimised, caus because it's not terrain system it won't have LOD and not as fast to render it it is very complicated, it will have millions of polygons !

Caus with terrain system of A7 (it's standard terrain not voxel), you can't have verticall cliffs or erosion like Grome.

For the grass ,and trees you draw in Grome , onec again do you really think you push export button , and have trees , and graas taken accont like multi instance on terrain of same object ?
Same for multitexture ,can you do it in Grome, and not sure A7 will detect that it must apply a terrain shader and use the textures of the folder ?

Same thing for water, not sure shaders are compatible , neither sun parameters and other things.

Can't wait to have your answer on all that
But if it would work, for 200$ it would be some outstanding new way to make terrain for A7 indeed !

Hiya.

The plugin *is* beta right now. I can get a terrain exported that has the terrain as both a wmb and a hmp file, but only the top most texture layer is exported; eventually, the plugin will allow exportation of the texture layers for use as a multitexture shader (maybe it already does that, but I don't know multitexture from multipass as far as shaders are concerned, really).

Object information is exported, but because GROME II uses .dae (COLLADA) as it's primary object file format, you have to have these models as .md7 or .mdl files...then when the terrain is read into WED/GED, the referenced objects are automatically 'replaced' by the equivalent mdl (so, yes, when you push the export button, all the trees, grass, etc. with multi-instances on the terrain is 'exported'...as long as you have those objects as .mdl format for when you open the terrain in WED/GED).

Not sure about the water, but it's probably going to be relatively easy to implement; just a plane, really, with a shader applied to it. Sun parameters are also probably do-able; just info, no real 'model', so that makes it easier I would think.

So far, I'm still comming to grips with GROME II and how to use it to get what I want. It's a wonderful program though...beautiful results. And the company is one of the good ones (the type of guys who go that extra mile when trying to help you out with a question or concern), so I have no doubt that when the A7 plugin gets finalized, it probably will be REALLY easy to get you GROME-created, multi-textured, fully populated world out of it and into A7 with minimal effort.

I'm also looking forward to seeing their plugin solution for Torque3D, Realmcrafter and C4!

I have not been back here in a while...at the time of my previous posting I was well aware of grome features...it is not "new" software. I think it is a really nice piece of software, but if you get really deep into blender you CAN do erosion with some weight painting...there are a million tricks you can do with blender that is just not supported by other apps. I stand by my word.