Hello,

Our team just switched from A7 to A8, and now our terrain shaders are acting up.

In A7 they work fine, but in A8 over parts of the terrain, the shader basically shuts off and just shows Skin1.

I searched in Bug list and didn't see anything that looked related to this issue.

All of our terrains have over 64k vertices, so they all use terrain_chunk. Just mentioning that incase it is important for some reason.

We are using our own terrain shader, but I have also tested our terrains using the terrain terraintex.fx and terraintex3.fx shaders and those shaders also cut out at same places in the levels in A8.

I dunno what the change is between A7 to A8 that is causing the issue. All the other shaders that are not a terrain still work fine, so it is definitely terrain related. It seems like the normals, in position, maybe terrain chunks or something is causing the issue.

Anyway, here is a video comparing doing the same movements over the same areas of terrain in A8 and A7 and the results. When the terrain is green it is just showing the terrain skin1 and skipping the terrain shader in that area.
A8TerrainShaderIssues Video (2.5mb)

Here is one more in A8 with different level. In A7 works fine. In A8 does this.
Another example on different terrain (.6 mb)

Thanks for help,
Loco

Hey Loco... Looks like there's trouble in Oz...
The problem that you describe sounds like there is probably an issue with the terrain files themselves.
I have had much success using large terrains with the standard shaders and I have never seen such results.
Firstly, I wish that I could view your attached avi files but all I got was sound with no video.
In any case, from the description you've given, I wonder if you are using the alpha channels of your terrain skins?
Could there be a sort of bleeding caused by overlapping skin alphas?
Could you make one of your problem terrains available? I am willing to have a look and try to diagnose the problem...

First, let my try to change the codec of the video files. Tried to get them reduced so no one would complain at size.

Actally, we aren't using alpha channels. We do use 4 skins and 4 materials, but like I said, I tested the terrains with 3DGS standard terrain shaders with the same problem. It's obviously something to do with terrains switching from A7 to A8. I will try to put an exmaple together, although our game code is complex and dynamic, I will try to pull out a level and sample source for you to look at. I will try to change the codecs on the Videos also to show.

Here is WMP versions of the movies:

WMP Terrain Shader Issue from A7 to A8

WMP Another example, different map

I will extract out a terrain you look at also, probably going to have to do that anway.

Thanks, Loco

Hey Man...
You are right about the codec problem with the avi's...
But the wmv's worked good enough...
That is a very strange phenominum...
Is the terrain supposed to stay orangish or greenish?
I don't need any code for testing...
I'll just start by loading one of your terrains into one of my levels and try the 3dgs standard shader and see how it works...
Then we can go from there....
I'll be glad to help...
BTW... I've had no problems with my terrains during the switch from A7 to A8
Lastly... "Spark it up dude!"

No, I can not confirm a terrain bug in A8. We also have no such bug in the bug list. So your problem could have a different reason, maybe the terrain lightmap or something else in your project.

If you can't find the problem reason, please contact Support and send them your terrain with the script that causes the problem with terraintex.fx. They'll look into it.

Ok, thanks JCL, I am testing to try to isolate what it could possibly be.

I will get back with you soon TerraSame. Trying to isolate all the level parts and code into a seperate fly around level to see if I can find the issue. I have a feeling that something changed in MtlFX.c or default.fx that is affecting something somewhere, but not sure yet. Maybe somekind of path issue, I dunno. It's supposed to be orangish actually.

It's weird how it works fine in A7 and not A8, another brain teaser I guess.

Later,
Loco

Alrighty, Good News!

I isolated what was causing the problem.

I changed:
terrain_lod = 1;
to
terrain_lod = 0; // this fixed the issue

That solved the problem. Our game is quite large and is probably using a lot of memory or something and somehow that is causing the issue using terrain_lod = 1?

Anyway, I figured out what it was, so I can move on.

You might look into it though, like I said, the exact same code works in A7 and not A8, so something changed somewhere that effected it. I don't know whether it is a bug or not, but something has definitely changed from A7 to A8 with the terrain cache.

Later,
Loco

Hey Loco...
This is good news but I still think it's something other than the terrain LOD variable...
I suppose it makes sense that it's really a lack of resources like memory but I have not seen this phenomenon and
my latest project is as big as 3dgs is going to be able to handle with more than a million and a half vertices total and that’s just the terrain.
There are over 200 pieces of terrain and I use the LOD variable set at 3.
But, it works set at any setting 1 thru 4.
So, I'm glad you found a work around but if you ever want, I'm still willing to have a look.

Yeah, I will keep playing with it as I move forward. At least it is not holding up production now. I might get an example to you later when I have time to look into it more.

Sorry about the bump, but the same problem appears here... I decided to shift my project from A7 to A8 and the terraintex3.fx shader just doesn't work.
The terrain just stays with its skin_1 (the RGB map). All the required skins (sand.tga. grass.tga ...) are in the game folder, but obviosly there is something that I miss.
The terrain_lod is 0, so that's not the problem, I guess. Any ideas?