[SOLVED] Terrain renders ObjectGrass in four columns unlike node (v2.7.3)

[yanis.lukes]

I prepared a ObjectGrass(Grass -> Base) node with a 4x4 tile diffuse texture image with num textures set to 4. The node renders as expected. Then I applied the node to the landscape as landcover. But the landscape renders it differently. If I switch the Num Textures to 1 for both objects, they render the same in 4x4 tile.

Red - Landcover
Light Blue - Node
Purple - Num Textures setting

Edited February 13, 2019 by yanis.lukes
Unigine version

[morbid]

Hello Yanis,

Landscape Tool creates R8 mask that doesn't work with 4*4 texture atlases, it utilizes only first column from a texture. I think it's easier to show:

The image is taken from Samples -> Vegetation -> grass masks. As you see, with R mask only first column is taken.

Usually, grass node in this case used for trees impostors. If you want to create a grass (I mean, not trees) with Landscape Tool you can make 4 different nodes with different textures and assign them to the one mask. 

Otherwise, you can manually configure grass object bypassing Landscape Tool.

Thank you!

[yanis.lukes]

So that means just that the node's Num Textures parameter is not taken into account when generating the mask: 1 => R, 2 => RG, 4 => RGBA

I feel this is still a bug, as the Num Textures maximum is 4, corresponding to RGBA.

But man, these masks are so powerful. You could have grass go from healthy to dry, from an oasis to the desert from just masks!

Edited February 13, 2019 by yanis.lukes

[morbid]

17 hours ago, yanis.lukes said:

I feel this is still a bug, as the Num Textures maximum is 4, corresponding to RGBA

Well, the grass works as intended. This article could be helpful: https://developer.unigine.com/en/docs/2.7.2/objects/objects/grass/#slots

Please, pay attention, that num textures, texture slots, and masks should correspond to each other. For instance, a texture with 1 column and 4 lines works with num textures = 4 and R8 mask only.

If you feel like something is wrong here - please explain, what exactly you're trying to do, what kind of object you want to create and so on. We'll help.

Thanks.

[yanis.lukes]

1. Documentation for Landscaping tool states to use Nodes to distribute Vegetation, but it does not recreate the Nodes properly => bug
2. When giving a grayscale image to the Landscaping tool it only generates R8 as it ignores Num Textures parameter (not an actual bug)

But fine, I can just make 4 separate grass nodes for each column and apply Min Mask mask values after. [edit] Meaning I have to split up the 4x4 tile grass diffuse into 1x4.

Edited February 14, 2019 by yanis.lukes
spliting 4x4

[morbid]

1. Agree, we'll fix this in the documentation.
2. Not sure what do you mean. Landscape Tool always creates an R8 mask from a landcover file. There's a feature that allows you to use landcovers per channel (you can select color or channel when configuring a tag), but it doesn't change output format for vegetation objects.

Let me summarize:

• Landscape Tool is focused on creating huge terrains. You can easily create pairs of geometry trees (clutters) with impostors (grass object + grass_impostor_base material). This is the major case.
• You can "plant" usual grass in Landscape Tool with grass object as well. In this case, do not use 4*4 textures. The easiest way to do check your grass node final look is adding R8 mask (temporarily). You're free to experiment with settings, regeneration of vegetation objects it's pretty fast.

Thanks!