Hi Stephen, found a couple of bugs.
Crash after loading a .bt with non square extents. After setting the extents in World parameters, and pressing ok, it crashed. Report sent. The second time I tried it, it didn’t crash but the render extents in the Explorer views are wrong.
Hfz/2 file import problem, it doesn’t load the terrain.
monks
Hi monks,
I will try and get these fixed promptly and have a new patch out soon!
Couple more here Stephen-
When using the clamp device, the output views start displaying square artifacts. This has been quite a long standing issue- also in the commercial release.
In 2.3: 3 the Combiner multiply setting seems busted. I tried the same network I was using in the commerical release in beta 3. It’s leaving holes of 0 height when two terrains are multiplied together. I followed the network through and it looks like the Combiner.
While I’m here. how do I get the Selectors devices onto the toolbar?
monks
Hi monks,
In order:
Re clamp device, can you send me or post a picture that shows what you mean? I’m not aware of any artifacts being produced by clamp (although if you are magnifying something, you may begin to notice patterns in your input that were invisible before).
Combiner: Same situation: After some admittedly quick testing I can’t produce any strange behavior in the combiner in multiply. Can you post an example of this?
Hmm. they should be there in their usual home, under “Selector”. Is that tab missing for you?
The network is simple. Two terrains are combined (1&2), and then put through a clamp (3). The artifacts appear as soon as you advance the view to the clamp device. 4 = the built terrain. See first attach.
I coudn’t show you a comparison with the commercial release because it wouldn’t load - devices are missing. But you can see at the combiner: multiply terrain gets removed to zero, even though non of the inputs are zero. 2nd pic.
Yes, the tab is missing.
monks
Hi monks,
I think I’m beginning to understand – so in #1, are you referring to the large grid-type artifacts where the terrain may not line up, for example? This is a limitation of the methods used to create an infinite display by regular tiling, where the tiles do something on a per-tile basis – if the clamp device, in particular, has “Normalize input” checked, this will occur. Within the current system there is nothing to be done about this, but its very important to note that it is just a display artifact – builds do not exhibit this.
Is that also what you’re referring to in #2 with the multiply combiner – the open seam in the terrain you can see in the 2nd shot there? If you create a new render extent and put it over the effected area, you should not see a seam in the output – if this is what you’re referring to its a display artifact only.
The missing tab is very very strange. In the workview toolbar, try going to “Tools” then clicking the first two buttons in order – they recreate the categories of the toolbar buttons. Does the selectors category appear?
Next, go to the “Devices” menu. Do you see Selectors, and if so, are any listed there?
I just found and fixed a major bug relating to the Work view that I’ve been pursuing for the last several days now – it is responsible for some random UI crashes, and may be responsible for the toolbar issue as well. We’ll see, I will release a bug update very soon.
-the tool bar, yes that worked. I now have all the types. 
The gridding, it’s not a major issue. I tend to use Explorer mode for rt 3D changes to the terrain and also for creating demo images. It saves me having to build the terrain and textures. I’m guessing the problem would either disappear or be minimised if I did that.
The combiner- it only happens in beta 3. It doesn’t happen in the commercial release. The problem occurs at the Combiner: multiply immediately before the clamp (the view in these shots is set to the clamp for clarity). I’ve opened up the same tmd in both versions. The only difference is, is that in the beta version, I’ve had to convert the two input terrains to .bt because of the problem with hfz import.
monks
I’ve lost lighting in the preview viewport. Don’t know how that happened and can’t get it back.
“Output File on Every Build” not working in Bitmap Output or Height Output.
Hi there,
For #1, try making sure that you have the “H+S” button below the preview selected. Your options are heights-only, shading-only, or heights+shading.
#2 I will investigate this shortly!
The solution for #1 wasn’t working initially, but I have it working now. Strange.
edit Ok, now it’s not working It looks like it works fine when I select a node that’s purely heightfield-related. From that node on, I have tons of bitmap nodes, macros, etc. All that leads into the overlay view. The last heightfield node is plugged in there too. That’s where the lighting doesn’t show up in the preview.
Thanks!
This bug has always been present…
When writing out BMPs, unnecessary alpha channels are added which inflate the cost of the image. I always end up having to rip them out to save disk space.
Having it only add alpha when needed in the BMP is a simple fix; I will try to get that in right away.
For the lighting bug, I’ve been investigating and this is part intentional and part bug:
The lightmap generator device adds a flag to its output indicating that it has produced a lightmap and so WM should not apply additional lighting atop its work. The Overlay View honors this request and prevents the viewport lighting from having any effect. If you used the lightmap generator directly or indirectly (for example, in the basic coverage macro with lighting checked) then this would take effect. The bug is that this ALSO takes effect if the overlay input has been flagged as a “mask” rather than a terrain – this should make no difference.
I will fix this; in the meantime you can force lighting to work again by clicking on the device whose output goes into the overlay view 2nd input, then right click and choose “Set device display hint” and choose Terrain.
You might want to check the “output file on every build” Stephen. I just built a world with this checked for multiple output devices (heightfield and bitmaps) and I still had to manually write output to disk.
monks
alpha export fix is done.
I am looking at the output on each build now.
edit:
fixed the not autobuilding issue.