[Guide] How to Make Outdoor Areas

[Chimera005ao]

Made a castle with a park area. Used various particles and lights to try to make it look like there are stars in a black sky. : 3
Then proceed to put a magic bridge over the fake moon...

[Dinasty]

Chimera005ao i tryed your dungeon...it's pretty good but i can't solve the ladder enigma! And...how the hell did u put one character only in the party? (sorry for bad english, i'm italian)

[Drakkan]

I like the tutorial for making a watchtower, thanks

[mr0wizard]

Well all the previous info was good BUT it seems I have a particular problem that maybe associated with either "The Legend of Grimrock 2", the instance of it from "Steam", my graphics card, or that I'm using Windows XP.

It has to do with adding water in the Editor. I didn't have a problem with a level using the ocean stuff BUT whenever I try to do one of the other waters the wave heights look like from 1 to 2 feet in height. Not at all like in the Game itself.

I'm making a water area using "forest_underwater" tiles set at a "floor" of "-1" surrounded by "forest_ground" tiles set at a "floor" of "0". Then I'm using "water_surface_underground" set at a height of "0" and finally "forest_day_sky" and a "forest_heightmap". Everything looks fine except the water looks like a storm is occurring.

I've exported the project and ran it as a "Custom Dungeon", it reacts the same as in the editor, and like I say when I run the original Grimrock 2 game, the water in, for example the "Forgotten River" or "Sleet Island" levels look OK.

Is there something that I'm missing that may have not been discussed in either the forum or the Guides??

[THOM]

The behaviour of water is partly hardcoded in LoGII. Using watertiles in another way than in the main campaign is not supported.

Only the oceanwater is supposed for using with hightmaps of the underground. Every other water occours in such a setting the behaviour you have realized. The ground under them has to be flat...

Same thing is with waterhight. AFAIK noone has found a save solution for lifting up the waterlevel.

[mr0wizard]

I had just realized that I have not ran the Grimrock 2 levels which I had mentioned in my previous post, on the machine where I'm using the editor. I had played the original game on my much newer gaming machine. So... I tried those actual Grimrock 2 levels on the older machine and saw the same problems with the wave heights. Must be the older (7 years) graphics card.

[minmay]

The behaviour of water is partly hardcoded in LoGII. Using watertiles in another way than in the main campaign is not supported.

Only the oceanwater is supposed for using with hightmaps of the underground. Every other water occours in such a setting the behaviour you have realized. The ground under them has to be flat...

Same thing is with waterhight. AFAIK noone has found a save solution for lifting up the waterlevel.

this is totally wrong, who told you this crap?
the shader for the materials is hardcoded (the "water" shader only works on materials named "ocean_water", "water_surface_calm", and "water_underwater"), but you can mostly imitate any number of materials with the material onUpdate hook now that setTexture is fixed, unless you need more than 3 different depthBias values for water or something
there is nothing special about the water objects, you are free to assign water materials to any model (there is nothing special about the ocean_water model), and different offset and planeY fields to change the height of the graphical water plane work perfectly fine; the only restriction is that the water plane for gameplay purposes is always at the same height, since it is based on the tiles and not any objects
heightmaps work fine with water

[Isaac]

...

Petri [IIRC] has mentioned that tinkering with the water shader is unsupported; and hinted that the implementation of it is platform specific... Unless I totally misread him.

It is possible to move the water, and to change the wave height... but this plays havoc in the editor, and the engine does not apply the reflection shader to the surface of the water if the party is below elevation zero; even if the water surface is below the party.

Also it's a problem that the water level can be beneath the engine's water level, and the party can drown in the open air, for the engine treating them as underwater.

Effects can be managed, but they remain rough around the edges, and none supported.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0bhn1if7mq7po ... l.avi?dl=0

I would not feel comfortable releasing this in a mod.

[minmay]

It is possible to move the water, and to change the wave height... but this plays havoc in the editor, and the engine does not apply the reflection shader to the surface of the water if the party is below elevation zero; even if the water surface is below the party.

Reflection below elevation 0 works perfectly for me, did you remember to change the planeY field of the WaterSurfaceComponent? And what do you mean by "plays havoc in the editor"?

Petri [IIRC] has mentioned that tinkering with the water shader is unsupported; and hinted that the implementation of it is platform specific... Unless I totally misread him.

True (also other shaders, lighting, and a lot more), but I would be very surprised if the water shader only worked at one height on any platform, since the main campaign has water at more than one height! (ocean_water model and WaterSurfaceMeshComponents) I'd also be very surprised if changing the textures didn't work properly, it's certainly worked perfectly for me so far.

Also it's a problem that the water level can be beneath the engine's water level, and the party can drown in the open air, for the engine treating them as underwater.

That's what I meant by "the water plane for gameplay purposes is always at the same height", yeah. Since, again, it's the "underwater" property of the tiles and has literally nothing to do with the WaterSurfaceComponent.

[Isaac]

what do you mean by "plays havoc in the editor"?

One of the effects I've seen is that the water displays as pitch black, in the editor; but looks fine in the game.

... since the main campaign has water at more than one height!

Is it interactive, or decorative? This is news to me; and sounds neat.

The reflection shader ~for me, cuts off once the party drops below elevation zero.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sx9kejg4mn91l ... r.avi?dl=0

BTW: I just noticed for the first time that the underwater tint obeys the height of the water object.
Update: only under certain circumstance, that I don't fully understand as yet.

(Too bad it doesn't move the water mesh.)