Terrain texture blending

[Sonarpulse]

OK. Hopefully he comes back soon.

[zoot]

How about normal maps for texture blends? A mountain path like this would look a lot better if the grass at the sides had more of an edge:

[myconid]

How about normal maps for texture blends? A mountain path like this would look a lot better if the grass at the sides had more of an edge:

You can't add normalmapping to an alphamap (it makes no sense). You can add normalmapping to the grass, and you can add normalmapping to the path.

Actually, now you can even add normalmapping to decals (finished it today!). I'd say we could have a system where you can tile decals to create paths, like you'd tile models to create walls. Something of that sort would look a lot more detailed and much less "blocky".

[zoot]

You can't add normalmapping to an alphamap (it makes no sense). You can add normalmapping to the grass, and you can add normalmapping to the path.

Right, but maybe as a step after the alpha blending has been done? So you would specify an alpha map along with a matching normal map in the terrain XML.

[myconid]

Right, but maybe as a step after the alpha blending has been done? So you would specify an alpha map along with a matching normal map in the terrain XML.

I think I see what you mean. Yeah, that should be possible. It may not even require changes to the engine, just some tweaks in the shaders.

[gab]

Here is an interesting article about texture blending :

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AndreyMishkinis/20130716/196339/Advanced_Terrain_Texture_Splatting.php

The algorithm needs a dept map for each texture(but isn't there already a bump/normal map with most textures ?)