Splatting and Decal node

[Daath]

Just wanna see if anybody has tried to use texture splatting and possibly Decal node. From comment in decal node class ine can see the same comment as it was in Java3d and that is - no guarantee that children(layears) will be rendered in the specified order... Now if one to use this for splatting then is this dead end approach, if there any better way or has I got this whole thing just plain wrong? .. thanks for any comments

[kevglass]

I think the splatting in cosm is done by generating bespoke textures for each tile based on the materials as opposed to decalling.. at least I thought that from a post on Java 3D mailing list some time ago..

Kev

[endolf]

Hi
 I could be wrong on this, i've not done it myself, but if i recall from the java3d mailing lists and various documentation, a few poeple were doing it by either precombining all the textures on startup/area load, and then just using that one texture, or having the landscape objects duplicated in an ordered group (so you *could* guaruntee the render order) and then applying the different textures to the appropriate levels.

HTH

Endolf

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[Daath]

Yep I was thinking of pre-processing tectures either during actual texture creation or perhaps during strart-up - either ways is ok I think.( even though it is a bit non-flexible).  But then question is why would we have Decal node if there is no practical use for it. No sure but I think there is z-buffer issue associate  with it and that is tied to how many texture unit states can be handled by the card - but that could be programmatically handled, couldn't it?

[Yuri Vl. Gushchin]

But then question is while would we have Decal node if there is no practical use for it.

DecalGroup there for now only for compatibility reasons, and Xith3D now exploits fallback statement from Java3D docs:

An implementation of Java 3D may fall back to treating DecalGroup node as an OrderedGroup node.

BTW, I personally was never using [or even trying to use] actual applications for DecalGroup, so if somebody will explain how it should work and give some example [say, with test code using Java3D] why this node needed, we can add its functionality.

Yuri

[Daath]

Ok I put into subject Decal node, but in fact I was trying to get some smarts from folk how to go about more realistically looking textures. For now I have used one texture and separate spline function to feed boundary based vertex coloring to get some detail on stones and streets and was happy with the result BUT those who saw it are telling me - not good enough - so I have started looking into other methods and thought textures splatting might be way to go. And once I firured it out and testing in jogl I had to move it scene-graph world reality and run into Decal node which I have never used in Java3D either. So I have no special interests in implementing this node in xith3d, I just trying to improve on my texturing. So basically I would welcome any ideas and they may have nothing to do with Decal node whatsoever.

[DavidYazel]

We use bloom's splatter algorithm.  We offline generate small alpha images which are used to blend one texture on top of another for each tile.  The blending is done entirely on the graphics card.

[Daath]

We use bloom's splatter algorithm.  We offline generate small alpha images which are used to blend one texture on top of another for each tile.  The blending is done entirely on the graphics card.

 Thanks a lot Dave. I found link on Bloom's algorithm through vterrain and it is quite interesting! ( been to that site countless time but never noticed that one  )