Babylon.js: advancedTerrainMateriel with 6 to 8 textures to mix

[dad72]

Feature request

• Discussion : forum

• Would it be possible to create a terrain material that could mix 6 to 8 textures as does the terrainMateriel extension but currently with 3 textures. For example by adding in addition RGB colors, black, white, yellow, pink and cyan.
  It could receive shadows, fog, and lights (like standardMateriel).

• Usefulness of this material :
  This would be a perfect material to create terrain that can accommodate many textures such as earth, cobblestone paths, sand, grass, rocks and snow on the mountain top. (6 textures being the minimum, with 8 we can create several kinds of paved path textures or several types of grass)

• It could be named as : advancedTerrainMateriel()

• It would work with a mixMap like this :
  MixMap
  As on this extension :
  Extension terrainMaterial

Thank you very much, a lot

[julien-moreau]

Really cool!
Do we need a new class « AdvancedTerrainMaterial » or just improve the current terrain material ?

[dad72]

I thought you might want to keep your terrainMateriel as it was designed. But yes it can just be improved the current one that you had done Julien.

[deltakosh]

I think @julien-moreau could update the TerrainMaterial to allow one mode with 3 textures (by default) and one mode with 6(with two mix maps then)

[dad72]

Why 2 mixMap? This could complicate things for users. For example I use a textureDynamic to create the mixMap, I do not know how I would paint on 2 textureDynamic.
6 textures would be easier to use with a single mixMap.
Do you think it's feasible?

[deltakosh]

I don't see how. Texture has 3 channels (max 4). So how could we map 6 textures on 4 channels?

[dad72]

I am really new to all this. I'm just wondering how I could paint on 2 textureDynamic for the 2 mixMap.

I guess it's because of the color mixing history of 4 channels (RGBA)

I hope I can find solutions later to paint on 2 dynamicTextures if it can only be done like this.

[deltakosh]

How do you specify the weight of each map on your current CustomMaterial?

[dad72]

just uniform on indexes for Nasimi's ShaderBuilder and the colors black, red, green, blue, yellow, cyan, pink and white

new BABYLONX.ShaderBuilder().Map({alpha: true, index: 'dyTexture', bias:0.}).Reference(1)
.Black(1, BABYLONX.Helper().Map({alpha: true, index: 'texture1', uv: 'vec2(vuv*'+String(data.uvScale._8)+'.)'}).Build(), {rangeStep: rangeSt, rangePower: rangePo})
.Red(1, BABYLONX.Helper().Map({alpha: true, index: 'texture2', uv:'vec2(vuv*'+String(data.uvScale._1)+'.)'}).Build(), {rangeStep: rangeSt, rangePower: rangePo})
.Green(1, BABYLONX.Helper().Map({alpha: true, index: 'texture3', uv: 'vec2(vuv*'+String(data.uvScale._2)+'.)'}).Build(), {rangeStep: rangeSt, rangePower: rangePo})
.Blue(1, BABYLONX.Helper().Map({alpha: true, index: 'texture4', uv: 'vec2(vuv*'+String(data.uvScale._3)+'.)'}).Build(), {rangeStep: rangeSt, rangePower: rangePo})
.Yellow(1, BABYLONX.Helper().Map({alpha: true, index: 'texture5', uv: 'vec2(vuv*'+String(data.uvScale._4)+'.)'}).Build(), {rangeStep: rangeSt, rangePower: rangePo})
.Cyan(1, BABYLONX.Helper().Map({alpha: true, index: 'texture6', uv: 'vec2(vuv*'+String(data.uvScale._5)+'.)'}).Build(), {rangeStep: rangeSt, rangePower: rangePo})
.Pink(1, BABYLONX.Helper().Map({alpha: true, index: 'texture7', uv: 'vec2(vuv*'+String(data.uvScale._6)+'.)'}).Build(), {rangeStep: rangeSt, rangePower: rangePo})
.White(1, BABYLONX.Helper().Map({alpha: true, index: 'texture8', uv: 'vec2(vuv*'+String(data.uvScale._7)+'.)'}).Build(), {rangeStep: rangeSt, rangePower: rangePo})

More detail on this PG :
http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#ICIAGK%2324

However I confess that for the mixture of colors to have fades on the joins of textures it is not really top

[deltakosh]

So here is my proposal: two mix maps and 8 channels:
texture0 to R channel of mixmap 0
texture1 to G channel of mixmap 0
texture2 to B channel of mixmap 0
texture3 to A channel of mixmap 0
texture4 to R channel of mixmap 1
texture5 to G channel of mixmap 1
texture6 to B channel of mixmap 1
texture7 to A channel of mixmap 1

You can easily paint on each mip maps with dynamicTexture (literally 3 lines of code)

Perhaps we call it MixMaterial. Thoughts? @julien-moreau

[dad72]

Yes it seems good to me like that. (roughly according to the textures that I select (0 to 3 and 4 to 7) to paint I activate mixMap 1 or mixMap 2 is that it?

[deltakosh]

Correct

[dad72]

:+1:

[julien-moreau]

Agree !! Beginning the material :)

[dad72]

Cool, Thanks Julien. I am sure you will do a great field material with great use.

[dad72]

I hope that the update of this material does not cause you too much problem Julien.

[julien-moreau]

Absolutely not, just looking for a moment to focus on. That would appear tomorrow :)

[dad72]

Ok, where will it appear ? I can not wait to test. :)

[dad72]

An idea of ​​when will the material be available? I did not see it appear as you said for the next day or I misunderstood.

[julien-moreau]

Hey I just finished with up to 8 textures. My problem is regarding normal mapping. I have to perturb normals but I'm not sure the way I have to do that:

• In terrain material, it is a mix between bump textures 1, 2 and 3.
• Now, I have two mixmaps, mixing bump textures 1, 2, 3, 4, ... doesn not make any sense for me.

Any idea ? :)

@deltakosh to the rescue: lighting calculation is done according to the "normalW" vector. Do you have an idea ? Maybe the mix material should not compute normal mapping to the its first version

[deltakosh]

For me the normal mapping should remain unchanged. Only diffuse should come from the textures

[julien-moreau]

Then the designer will create 8 diffuse textures and only one normal map which is a mix between the 8 textures ?
If yes, I need a designer for the demo of this material ^^

[deltakosh]

I get your point..Perhaps first release does not support bump :)
Because else it will require 16 textures channels :)

[dad72]

I did not think about the Bump textures. Personally, I never use them on a terrain. She adds indeed an extra luxury, but is not of great necessity I think.

In any case, thank you Julien for the news of this material.

[dad72]

Hey Julien, you said you finished the first version (without the bump) but I did not see it published. Have I missed his publication? Thank you

[julien-moreau]

No no it hasn’t been published, I’m polishing the code. I’ll let you know once done

[dad72]

Ah, ok, do you have an approximate date of its release? I have many projects that I must review using this new material because CustomMateriel is extremely buggy and all my projects are broken for several months. Thank you Julien.

[julien-moreau]

Just created the PR here: https://github.com/BabylonJS/Babylon.js/pull/4331
I'm about to polish some functions and add the doc
Would be cool if you can test it and give me feedbacks :)

[dad72]

No problem, I'll add this to my terrain editor and I'll tell you what he has on the forum.

[julien-moreau]

Cool thanks! :)

[dad72]

I have a small question for the colors. There are 8 textures. 4 for each mixMap. So red, green and blue. but what about color 4? (I see transparent but it's not a color. - Gray or black?)
Thank you for the info and this material.
I would probably be testing tomorrow.

[dad72]

It's good, I look at the mixMap_2.png and I saw the color black which is the color 4.

I will do a complete test before you make a report with what works and if I encounter any problems tomorrow or as soon as it will be available .

[deltakosh]

@julien-moreau will just create a doc and we can close this issue :)

[dad72]

There is still some bugs on the material or options can be added before doing the doc I guess.

[julien-moreau]

@dad72 can you let me know if everything is fine for you ? :)

[dad72]

It seems that everything goes well with the material. For the moment I do not encounter any problem anymore. Apart from serializing the terrain, but that's another question that does not depend on the material I think.

Thank you Julien