Ever since the first day I started working with TV I have always wanted to make huge landscapes with nice outdoor environments. Something always got in the way. After my work with Dominus and Fiefdom and a few other projects I was forced to learn C# so I took every tool I had ever written in VB and started converting them to C#.
As you can imagine this went on a while and to make a long story short this is the culmination of that process. In most cases the systems have been re-written to be 10x better than what I had original designed or thought about.
Here is the FAQ about Genoardo/Geoworld:
Q:What is Geonardo GeoWorld?
A:Geonardo GeoWorld is a 3 part system consisting of a content pipeline, API (GeoWorld) and World Editor (Geonardo) that specializes in outdoor environments using TV 6.5 as its DirectX layer. It's main function is to provide a seamless landscape object based paging system that will handle any chunking and stretch configuration and display all environmental aspects mesh and actors that go with it.
Q:What can Geonardo GeoWorld currently do and what are some of its key features?
A:Geonardo can do the following:
-Build seamless worlds at any size that you choose sewing together as many landscape objects as your hard drive can handle.
-Start with a flat world or choose a Perlin configuration for a huge random world.
-Allows you to terraform all landscape segments easily and carefree without ever having to worry about seaming or paging.
-Use the Geonardo Landscape Selection system for easy placement of foilage or manipulation of terrain data and more.
-Texture those worlds using our Splat Pack and Custom splatting systems.
-Create a system of roads, ocean bottoms, rock facings and more.
-Create as many water planes as you desire, rivers, waterfalls, streams, oceans and lakes using native TV water and/or choose the enhanced water based on Renaud Bédard's (Zaknafein) HLSL water system. This sytem has been further enhanced with water edge alpha blending and real time Ocean waves for ocean simulations. The possibilities are limitless with the configuration properties extended for the watering system.
-Create a robust skyline using Renaud Bédard's (Zaknafein) HLSL sky system that has been further enhanced to include real time sphere mapped light rays, real earth based moon calculations and a clouding system (volumetric clouds are in the works).
-With GeoWorlds Content Pipeline you have access to every subsystem required to build an outdoor environment and all of the properties that come with it (over 200 configurable settings).
-Place as many static mesh on as many pages of land as you wish. The internal pager will handle all of the mesh rendering.
-Uses the latest HLSL shaders to augment the system or simply use whats in place.
-Create as much foilage as the eye can see with Geonardo's Foilage Pack system. You can use mesh tiles or billboards to create the effect of as much grass/wheat/straw/cornfields as the eye can see. The system will handle multiple grasses and offset positions for tree canopy.
-Catalog and store all of your materials, splats, textures, mesh, and actors for use with each map you create.
-Real time Day/Night/Wind system that ties in to all aspects of your world.
-Managed lighting for real time lighting of day and night effects.
-Configurable Map and Environmental settings (Fogging, sky color, etc).
-With the GeoWorld API you can easily integrate Geonardo GeoWorld map into your application.
-Choose all or some of the systems, and let us handle the presentation or you can just use the data layers and present it yourself.
Q:How do I move?
A: W A S D for basic movement SPACE to fly off the ground and X to snap back to the landscape, hold right button for free/mouselook and use the left button for making selections or selecting landscape vertices. You can also place your cusor over an area and press your middle button to warp to that location. If you look at the sky and press your middle button it will return you to 1,1. Other movement and Object placement commands wil be listed in the appropriate areas in the application.
Q:What shaders come with GeoWorld?
A:Water,Sky,Clouds,Grass,Tree and more to come.
Q:What is the GeoWorld API?
A:The GeoWorld API is a .NET based assembly that works with C#, VB.Net and C++ that will allow you to load, manage, execute and save your Geonardo created Map. The GeoWorld API allows you complete access to the system that drives the world editor. You can load this DLL into your application and use just a little or everybit of what you created in Geonardo. It is truly a turn key solution for outdoor environments.
Q:Does the GeoWorld API have any documentation?
A:YES! Press F1 in Geonardo for the latest help information on the Geonardo Editor and the GeoWorld API.
Q:Can I currently use this to start prototyping my world?
A:YES! But BEWARE! The system WILL change, and thus with changes your prototype maps will NOT work. However when the system is out of beta it you will be free to prototype your world with the Geonardo/GeoWorld system. If you would like to use this sytem for your game please contact:
pat.shearon@gmail.com for permission and arrangements.
There are many other current and future features (Cascaded Shadow mapping, Volumetric Clouding, Weather, Special Effects Library) I have not discussed, but it's safe to say that there is a lot more in this application that what I describe in this FAQ. Most of these systems have already been written but not converted to C# and will find there way into the core soon. The reason I wanted to put this out now was so that people could get used to the environment and make constructive feedback about the process. Plus the build was stable enough to put out without fear of major problems.
On a side note, there is documentation, not a whole lot on the usability side but a good bit on the programmatic and API side.
Please test Geonardo and let me know what you think (do keep in mind that this is not final and that it probably has a few quirks). If you have any requests or comments, good or bad, please leave me a message. If you have a system you've written that you think would be a great addition to Geonardo and want me to implement it for future versions please drop me a message.
REQUIREMENTS
--------------------
TV6.5
d3dx9_36.dll
Microsoft Windows XP/Vista 32/64
Microsoft .Net 2.0+
SM 2.0+ Capable video card
384 megs of ram
*Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 or 2008
* = for GeoWorld API use only.
And now... A few screenshots:
http://www.theregulators.org/g1.jpghttp://www.theregulators.org/g2.jpghttp://www.theregulators.org/g3.jpghttp://www.theregulators.org/g4.jpghttp://www.theregulators.org/g5.jpgAnd finally the link to the Binary/Demo/DLL
http://www.theregulators.org/geonardo.zipthere is a map called "Demo" with this kit that you can load up and run play with.
You can also create your own new world.
**REMEMBER THIS IS A BETA** So expect this to CHANGE!
If you find yourself looking for an answer on how to do something in the system catch me in IRC or shoot me an email.
Happy Coding!
Pat Shearon AKA Hawthorne.
PS: I would like to thank everyone in the TV community who has given me there time and some code snippets along the way.
