New FPV Environment - Rumble Canyon

For questions regarding the models and airports / Bei Fragen zu Modellen und Airports
tweeb
Posts: 6
Joined: 16 May 2014 22:48

New FPV Environment - Rumble Canyon

Post by tweeb »

New FPV environment in the works, need to fix a few things still, but it's coming together and I think it's fun to fly around in. Any suggestions are appreciated, and I'd love to get into a multiplayer session sometime with a couple people in this scene.

FPV is recommended, although its an interesting challenge as LOS (still needs some work in this regard, "omniscient" yet very distant POV)

Mostly using DJI F450 as FPV Quadcopter on this one, so the sizes of gaps between/under obstacles is best for something in this size range.

It's basically a big slot-canyon loop, with a little upper-canyon with arch and narrows, and a little boulder field + some trees and cactus for slalom obstacles. Going to be making another cactus model, maybe another tree, yucca, grass, and some more boulders. Not sure what else, so any suggestions are great. Otherwise should be finished, and polished up soon.

All made in Blender + Photoshop, textures sourced from my images, and various Creative Commons images, which I will attribute in final release.

If anyone is interested in the workflow to make something like this, let me know I can put together a mini-guide. The terrain is 3d-sculpted in blender, exported or "baked" as displacement map heightmap.png, textures are dictated by alpha. Then the models are "appended" onto the original 3d terrain for placement and orientation, and exported as obj individually with coordinates close to 0,0,0 (some tuning may be needed)

Download the .ZIP, unpack contents into "\HELI-X\resources\environments\Scene3D\"

http://t-webb.com/wp-content/uploads/20 ... lpha01.zip

Enjoy!
ThomasC
Posts: 180
Joined: 29 Mar 2012 16:29
Location: Germany

Re: New FPV Environment - Rumble Canyon

Post by ThomasC »

There seems to be a problem with start position - is very far away from pilot position and seems to be in mid air, normal CP models cannot be started as helicopter falls down and crashes. But impressive scenario, looking forward to the final version
User avatar
JS1
Posts: 165
Joined: 28 Jun 2013 14:48

Re: New FPV Environment - Rumble Canyon

Post by JS1 »

I couldn't try it yet but will soon when I am back home. From what I see in the files it is a very well laid out and built and a beautiful and challenging scenario! There will also be a H.250 Quad coming out with Heli-X 6, which could be even more fun zipping through the canyon! 8-)

A mini-guide would be highly welcome!! Don't have much experience in open terrain scenes tbh and would love to learn. Not sure if/when I get to modelling a scene but always good to have. Sure it is easier to do now when it's fresh than maybe much later when it's harder to recall all the important details ;-)
Modelling helis for Heli-X! See model build log here.
tweeb
Posts: 6
Joined: 16 May 2014 22:48

Re: New FPV Environment - Rumble Canyon

Post by tweeb »

Thanks for feedback, I'm still figuring out exactly how the "StartPosition" and Camera Position and HeightOfEyes work, but I changed the start position to <StartPosition edit="no">20,0,-20</StartPosition> and that allows a helicopter to not crash into the canyon.

Played with AH-1Z and a very small Heli, can't remember which, and they seemed to work good with the new position.


-------------------------------------------------------
To-Do List (Known Issues):

Find best StartPosition

Add StartPosition1 - StartPosition10 to some interesting locations for multiplayer, on hoodoo, on boulder, on ledge, etc.

Fix SkyBox (Bottom and Top corners are not distorted correctly, any tips on using Hugin Nona to fix this are appreciated)

------------------------------------------------------

I will start a new thread for a tutorial/guide soon for those interested in making something similar. Using existing models and textures, a simple "Terrain" environment is very easy to create.
ThomasC
Posts: 180
Joined: 29 Mar 2012 16:29
Location: Germany

Re: New FPV Environment - Rumble Canyon

Post by ThomasC »

@tweeb: very fine, works perfectly now, thanks. Gave me an inside view to scenarios, great work, please please more like this :)
User avatar
JS1
Posts: 165
Joined: 28 Jun 2013 14:48

Re: New FPV Environment - Rumble Canyon

Post by JS1 »

@tweeb: Whoa just brilliant!! And all that out of nowhere?! Guess you either do stuff like that professionally or you are a bloody natural! Love how nice you laid the texture onto the canyon with the rock style on steep sides and the sand ripples on slopes. Gotta have a closer look at it in blender but looking even more to the mini guide now ;-). Especially how you made the height map from the blender model.
Modelling helis for Heli-X! See model build log here.
tweeb
Posts: 6
Joined: 16 May 2014 22:48

Re: New FPV Environment - Rumble Canyon

Post by tweeb »

@ThomasC: I have a few other concepts in mind to try out, should be interesting! Any suggestions will be considered and appreciated, so far thinking maybe a cave, or a forest path?

@JS1: Thanks! I do some similar things for work, graphic design and photography/video, but I used to do lots of environment and character design in a few FPS game engines as a hobby, so the learning curve on this wasn't too steep. (*Edit)Just looked at your build log from your signature, and remembered that your "Export Settings" post was very helpful for me in learning to make this environment, so thanks! (/*Edit)

The texture fade from the wall to the floor is very simple to achieve, you can see in heightmap2.psd (I will delete this unnecessary file from future releases) that I have the heightmap itself as bottom layer and guide, and 1 layer each for pure (255) Red Green and Blue. Blue = flat, featureless sandstone. Green = spotted, striped sandstone. Red = Sand. By painting each with varying opacity, I can define which texture is projected onto the terrain pixel by pixel. So for some steep walls I wanted to emphasize, I painted the spotty sandstone (using 0,255,0 GREEEN), some places 50% opacity over the flat sandstone (so here its a bluish-green), and then for the canyon floor, and any other place I imagine sand might accumulate, I painted pure red for the sand texture, some places lower opacity to let the stone show through. This is exported as alpha512.png

There are a few quirks that took some figuring out, with syncing all these different parts together, and I will consolidate some tips and shortcuts into another thread or something.

Is this running pretty smoothly for everyone who has tried it?I want to try to keep the level of detail manageable, especially considering what might happen in multiplayer with the extra complexity of more heli's. I'm getting like 270 FPS most of the time, which seems like more than enough. Anyone experiencing any slowdown? Thanks!
User avatar
Michael
Posts: 1824
Joined: 25 May 2008 16:11
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: New FPV Environment - Rumble Canyon

Post by Michael »

It runs great. It might get a very cool scene!

Michael
tweeb
Posts: 6
Joined: 16 May 2014 22:48

Rumble Canyon Beta1

Post by tweeb »

http://t-webb.com/wp-content/uploads/20 ... beta01.zip

Decided to make it Beta 1, added some trees, another hoodoo, changed start position, added a boulder/cave, and subdivided the cacti so they're smoother. Let me know how this version works for everyone! Almost done, just want to add another type of cactus, and fix the sky. Also reduced sizes and compression of many texture files to reduce overall size.
gedo831
Posts: 2
Joined: 31 Dec 2014 08:22

Re: New FPV Environment - Rumble Canyon

Post by gedo831 »

Hi, tweeb,

I download it and copied the unzipped folder under the designated folder( which is under "Scene3D") but I cannot find the Rumble Canyon in the Airport Selection window.
I am running Heli-x ver.6.0 on Mac. Do I need some other procedure to fly the airport you have been working?
Image

Thank you,
Gen
Post Reply