[Opensim-dev] Very sensitive terrain adjustment?

[Frisby, Adam]

Let me add my thoughts here since I wrote a lot of that code originally


-          Brush sizes: Yep, this is a problem. In Linden-terms the range of the brush is 2^x where X is the 'brush byte' in meters. I use a 'spherical distance' calculation there which has the habit of making changes for small values of 'x' very small. We possibly need to change that formula (linear distance may work).

-          Flatten: you have it down pat - we could probably record the last value for each user and carry those across, having the options would be nice - there's actually 5-6 terrain tools which the UI does not expose, but we support (use "terrain newbrushes true" to see them).

-          Spikes are usually caused by us doing something wrong - these are cases where averages go to weird values, we divide by very small numbers, etc.

-          Sim boundaries are a *very* nasty problem, because to do effective terraforming with smoothed sides, we need to send a minimum of 16x16 height cells between the sims several times a second, and we need to do it quickly in order for the viewer to see things accurately. I did start some work on this a while ago which I may get time to finish sometime later.

Regards,

Adam

From: opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de [mailto:opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de] On Behalf Of Mike Pitman
Sent: Thursday, 11 September 2008 10:46 AM
To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] Very sensitive terrain adjustment?


I've also noticed the limited utility of the OS terrain editing tools relative to SL. I do a fair amount of multi-sim terraforming on both platforms (SL: Shengri La; OS: Arizona Bay in osgrid, Tardis before smooth tool, and several other smallers stunts) I contributed code an early smooth tool, before the last round of terrain tool reworkings.

A few observations:

        - OS large brush terrain ops are much faster than SL, which is a good thing when you are doing very large terraforming operations.

        - As Melanie mentioned, the smaller brushes are ineffectual. Small has no noticable effect, and medium could be a little larger if small was useful

        -Flatten in SL remembers the height of the original click for the duration of the hold, and brings the land to that height, which is great forming trails at the same height so they reflect the land textures applied to the terrain. In OS, the flatten tool has a moving target that appently attempts to flatten the land around the average height. There are use cases for both, it would be nice to have the option.

        -Occaisionally I see a mode that forms the terrain spikes. It is unfortunately not always reproducible, which is puzzling. For a few versions it was consistant and bad, and reminded me of the bug I saw (missing minus sign on the transform ;-p ) when getting the first smooth tool to work. Currently it happens sometimes, but is repairable with flatten. If I can nail a reproducible case, I'll mantis it.

        -At some point multisim regions in standalone mode had a problem with spikes forming, and a horrible flatten bug when the brush crossed sims (catastrophically flattening the crossed sim to the default height...a bug which took out a quarter of a four sim mountain on Tardis...ugh) The flatten bug has been resolved but recent touches to tardis gave spikes.

        - OS: Flattening and smoothing does not work on sim boundaries, though persistant trickery can cover up the problem for emergency terraforming. Smoothing across sim boundaries on a slope induces a cliff along the border. The convergence of the op appears to give cliff height  that is somewhat related to the slope of the terrain under smoothing (something like a few meters for a 45 degree slope, Higher cliff for steeper slope.) Flatten does not fix the cliff, it mostly reinforces it. They way around it involves crafty combinations of raise with dashes of flatten and smooth...clearly not optimal.

Finally, I'll through a big +N at using the terrain tools inworld where possible. A clear advantage is that fine adjustments can take place in the context of the build and landscaping, and evolve with it. Sunsets and sunrises can be crafted from favorite sitting spots, and more generally, form can better follow function. Consider Shengri La in SL as an example.

...my two cents

-Mike Pitman/Rez Tone




Melanie <melanie at t-data.com>
Sent by: opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de

09/11/2008 11:54 AM
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Re: [Opensim-dev] Very sensitive terrain adjustment?







I did say "Wysiwyg".
L3DT is not. It's algorithm-based.
It's also not 100% linux compatible
There is not tool I know of that you can use to terraform like in SL,
e.g. with a mobile camera and brushes.

Melanie

Dr Scofield wrote:
> Melanie wrote:
>
>> I also see over-sensitive terraforming. The small tools almost
>> useless. The feel of inworld terraforming is nothing like SL at all.
>> It's unusable for me.
>> I terraform SL sims, save the raw and load it into my opensims. Only
>> way I can do it, as there is no wysiwyg terrain editor outside of SL
>> that i know of.
>>
>
> L3DT, see also my blog post about using it:
> http://xyzzyxyzzy.net/2008/03/10/being-slartibartfast/
>
>                  cheers,
>                  dirk
>
>
>> Melanie
>>
>>
>> Ai Austin wrote:
>>
>>> I was just trying the latest versions of Opensim.. and was going to
>>> adjust a little bit of terrain with the edit terrain -> raise height
>>> radio button -> set to small increment.
>>>
>>> As soon as I touch the plot the terrain height SHOT up into the sky
>>> 100m with sheer cliff edges on the touched area, and then an adjacent
>>> area my mouse went over did the same. I had to reload the .f32
>>> terrain file to get it back in shape.
>>>
>>> Are we aware of such a sensitivity in recent builds or is this a new
>>> bug I should try to investigate more and report properly?
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Opensim-dev mailing list
>>> Opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
>>> https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Opensim-dev mailing list
>> Opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
>> https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
>>
>>
>
>
>

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