transform viewSOFTWARE: blendershift + mmb and drag transform (pan) world view MORE INFO:3d height map from usgsSOFTWARE: blenderdownload usgs bil format => microdem => photoshop => blender I'm still working the details of this one out. But here's what I've found so far. Say you want to get a height map of a real area on earth, and then use it to model the place in a 3d tool like blender. (google earth already maps elevation to satellite imagery automatically -- but doesn't give you the control you can get with a dedicated software package like blender.) Seamless Data Distribution Delivery from the USGSThe USGS has a really nifty tool for downloading data about the earth. It's a bit cryptic to figure out. "Images" that you can download come in a variety of funky multi-part files. Options for format are things like: GeoTiff, ArcGrid, BIL and GridFloat. So how do you get the data into something your average monkey can use? Since my goal is simply to get the data into grayscale format to create a height map for use in 3d, I experimented with the formats and found that .bil worked the best in conjunction with microdem (freeware) to convert to something more useful. For some reason GeoTiff kept crashing microdem for me. It is supposed to work, but wasn't, so I just stuck with .bil format. On the "seamless" tool, you basically select an area to download, then review your download format options, then proceed to get your download in the formats you've specified. Takes a bit of playing with to get all the settings right. MicrodemOnce an image is in microdem, you can choose to view heights as grayscale, and then export to photoshop readeable, like bmp. (Microdem is PC only - there might be something similar for mac/nix systems, but I didn't find it right away.) http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem.htm To get .bil format into, and out of microdem:
This got me my bmp version of the height map. For the satellite image itself, the only option for download from the seamless tool was ArcGrid, and that was crashing microdem. Since I wasn't able to successfully grab a nice hirez image from seamless in a format that I could convert, I ended up taking an image from google earth, instead. To line the two up, I did all my selections based on coordinates (see below.) BlenderLast, we have a nice tutorial on using a grayscale height map to create a landscape in blender available here: blender landscape tutorial by Olivier Saraja Note on using CoordinatesOn the seamless tool from usgs, it's efficient to download data based on coordinates, rather than selecting an area manually each time. It's faster, and consistent, and you can map it to imagery from another source based on numbers. For Stafford Lake disc golf course I used:
To download via coordinates, use the keyboard/xz icon tool in the downloads section of the toolbar, and then enter your coords. Then, I could add "my places" (markers) to google earth with the exact same coordinates. This was handy for lining up an image file from google earth with a height map from usgs. Now, I have a nice image from google earth, and a height map from usgs, both aligned to each other based on common coordinates. Onto blender to build a 3d model of the course ... MORE INFO: http://seamless.usgs.gov/blender commands [mac]SOFTWARE: blenderThese notes are all for development on Mac platform. (Some things are a bit different for PC, Linux. IE Save Runtime vs. Save Dynamic Runtime.) Manipulate Objects
Views
Model
Game Engine
AnimationSometimes it's good to create a simple animation for an object, then map that animation to the actuator in the game logic, rather than applying a force directly in the actuator. (IE for "pre-recorded" repeating type actions that you want a game event to trigger.) IPO Animation Basics
UV Texture Notes
Skybox Notes
blender scripts directory [mac]SOFTWARE: blender/Applications/blender/blender.app/Contents/MacOS/.blender/scripts/ To add a script to your blender install on mac OS X. The scripts directory is inside hidden files (prepended with .) So access via the terminal: tree model studySOFTWARE: blendernotes on tree project Notes on building a stylized tree optimized for the game engine.Starting out building everything from scratch by extruding a cube and keeping poly count low. Playing around with flooding as vertex paint for each part, then applying vertex textures from photoshop on top. Cheat
Drop into world
Color Flood Values
Blender to Crystal Space to Game ServerSOFTWARE: blenderhttp://b2cs.delcorp.org/index.php/Main_Page Just starting this, so these notes are raw. Will firm up once I get it actually working. 9/6/2007 updates: still installing all the requirements for my mac system to get an actual game server dev environment set up as well. It would be cool to extract it as a generic framework if that's possible. Shall see. Note that: ...would be a LOT easier. But it's all windows-based, and I'm more interested in seeing how far I can get with nix-based open source tools. The idea is to design a basic environment and some actors in blender and then get the game environment accessible to users via an online server. Blender Foundation is doing and open game in the same spirit as their open movie, so I started by figuring that whatever they were doing was probably well researched and a good way to proceed. Turns out they're going from Blender to Crystal Space first. So I am starting with that approach. System: Mac OSX Tiger. Blender and CS exporter script
This is funky since it's nested inside the Blender directory a bit and lives inside a hidden folder. On my machine (after moving the blender2crystal directory to /Applications) the command was: Crystal Space and PlaneShiftPlaneShift is an open source MMORPG that uses the CS game engine. Probably makes sense to goof around with this game for a while and go from there. Install guide for PS dev instance More detailed guide including server setup - linux Note: I'll be building CS and stuff via macports, so I might need to tweak my path settings which live in ~/.bash_profile and ~/.profile if things don't work out right away... Check mac os status thread for updates on status of current mac client. Install the basic game first, then install the ps dev instance to experiment with the workflow: blender -> cs -> ps -> online access. The PS client connects to the public server via port 7777. Set the PS client to connect to your local dev server (once you have it running correctly) at localhost:13331 MORE INFO: http://b2cs.delcorp.org/index.php/Main_Page |