The latest version of Twirl! can be found on the projects page at the UDHQ site: Twirl Project Page or through this Direct Link
[/color]Update 8/25/11
I've been seeking to address a couple known issues with Twirl!.
1.) Twirl! takes up 100% cpu usage when the mouse is pressed. This is because of an unintended recursive call happening in Windows that is triggered by my code.
> This issue has been addressed. I now have a way of capping the framerate to a flat 60. This frees up the CPU to a large extent (decreased to ~25-30%).
2.) The mouse sometimes escapes the window. This bug can be reproduced by holding down both mouse buttons, releasing only one of said buttons, and moving the mouse rapidly. The mouse will escape the window and the program loses focus.
> This issue seems to have been addressed. I think that it had to do with some errors in OpenGLUT (the windowing API) that I've recently fixed. After applying the OpenGLUT fixes it seems that the escaping mouse problem is no longer present in Twirl!.
No release date is set for another revision of Twirl!, but I'm definitely still at work on it.
Update 8/23/11
Twirl v1.0 is out! It can be found on the projects page at the UDHQ site: Twirl Project Page
... and if you're like me and hate going through sites: Direct Link
I added a bunch of stuff to Twirl before finally deciding it was release worthy. Upon exporting the terrain, a heightmap is also exported which may prove useful for those who wish to hand tailor a texture to display on the mesh. Users can now also cycle between different draw modes to get a better feel for the terrain. I am aware that lighting would also help give depth to the terrain, but at the moment it doesn't seem critical enough to further delay the v1.0 release.
As always, any feedback is appreciated. Have fun!
Update 8/21/11
Got the exporter working and beta tested a massive terrain in Unreal! (64k+ polygons) I'm happy to say that the performance with static meshes was more than I would have hoped for -- my FPS dropped from 62 -> 47 when viewing all 64k polygons at once, and when actually on the ground and walking around I did not notice any performance drop at all!
a render of the terrain in GLC_Player (an OSS obj viewer)
screen 1 -- corner view of the terrain
screen 2 -- casey wants the source to galaxy?!?
screen 3 -- random bot on the terrain
I think that Twirl is very close to a v1.0 release. For reference, the above screenshots were taken by simply throwing Unreal's default texture on the terrain and lighting it with a sunlight actor.
Update 8/20/11
Generated terrains now have correct normals. This is important for correct lighting (though I'm not sure if Unreal uses vertex normals for lighting as opposed to goraud shading with triangle normals). The next step is to get the file exporter functional, after which a formal release can finally be made.
normals calculated per vertex
Update 8/19/11
Managed to mess around with the heightmap generation algorithm and (after reading the fine print, for once) have confirmed that the "spiky" behavior of the terrain is indeed a property of the Diamond-Square algorithm itself. As such, this is deemed "expected behavior" of this algorithm and I will not seek to correct it. This is not to imply by any means that this will be the only algorithm implemented!
I also got the UV mapping applied and have provided screenshots of a couple textured terrains. Note: yes, I know that one of them may be considered offensive. I will understand if the image is removed, but I thought it was hilarious so I left the texture on. :p
a texture mapped onto the terrain displayed previously (the 180x180 one)
another texture mapped onto the same terrain
Update 8/15/11
Fixed a few bugs with the heightmap generator. It was overflowing on certain randomized vertices, causing vortexes or spikes to appear randomly in the terrain. This has since been fixed, but I believe there to be another possible bug regarding smoothing of the terrain. I believe that I'm reducing the random number range too quickly and will investigate into a smoother randomization function.
large terrain (180x180 -the max- resolution)
As you can see, the terrain is still riddled with smaller spikes. This definitely has something to do with the randomization threshold, which I'll be soon looking into.
Update 8/13/11
I've been working a lot on the rendering aspects of the program, but the terrain generation method is implemented in full. I finally have a render of a simple 4x4 grid of a randomized terrain:
random bs terrain
cool topography that got generated by a bug
I have recently begun work on a new standalone application that will enable users to automatically generate random terrains for Unreal.
I have recently had some success in implementing a simple algorithm and should be able to create full T3Ds (importable to Unreal Ed) in the next few days. Ideally, I will support a range of algorithms and let the user decide which they wish to try, but there is always the possibility of having extra features. As such, I would like to know if there are any specific features for the generator that mappers in the Unreal community would benefit from. One immediate consideration is the output of the actual heightmap in BMP format so the mapper could perhaps use the heightmap information as a "minimap" of sorts.
I'll update this thread with the progress on the generator (hopefully with some awesome images
as it comes along.
