This topic describes how to create grounds for the object editor.

Location

Available grounds are located at [root]\Content\Assets\vfxNEXT\Grounds\.

All grounds are listed in a Grounds.xml configuration file. This configuration file describes materials for grounds and how to build the terrain grid.

All ground textures are located in the Textures\. This directory is not a season texture directory.

The ground configuration

The XML scheme file for the configuration is located in the same directory and is named Grounds.dtd.

The configuration contains a Grounds root node.

The Item node

Each Ground node has at least one Item node. The Item node has these attributes:

name

Type: string

The name of the ground to display to the user.

uv_segments

Type: uint

The number of texture repeats on uv-axis per tile.

edge_size

Type: uint

The size of one tile. The tile size must be tile-able by 8096 (e. g. 128, 256, 512, ...).

The Property Node

Each Item node may have one or multiple Property nodes. A property node sets a property for the used material. The Property node has these attributes:

name

Type: String

The name of the material property. Use one of these material property names:

Name	Type	Description
DiffuseMap	map	The diffuse / albedo texture. The alpha channel is used for the opacity. Set matHasOpacity to true if the material is translucent.
EmissiveMap	map	The emissive texture color.
NormalMap	map	The sphere-map encoded bump texture.
PBRMap	map	The texture with physical based material properties (rg float: roughness and metalness).
SpecularMap	map	The specular texture with properties (rgb: power, exponent and specular metalness).
ReflectionMap	map	The reflection texture with refractivity (r, float: refraction index).
SubSurfaceMap	map	The sub-surface transparency (r, float: opacity).
matDiffuseColor	float4	The diffuse / albedo color scale.
matEmissiveColor	float4	The emissive color scale.
matLuminousFluxEmissive	float	The light power of the emissive light. Calculate it with: lflux = √( lux / square meter  ). For example, √( 1500 ) is 38.72.
matRefraction	float	The refraction index. It should be greater than one.
matOpacity	float	The opacity of the material. Set matHasOpacity to true if not one.
matAlphaMask	bool	True if alpha-masking is used with translucency.
matAlphaMaskValue	float	The alpha mask value for the material. Set matAlphaMask to true to use alpha masking.
matRoughness	float	The base roughness of the surface.
matMetalness	float	The base metalness of the surface.
matSpecularMetalness	float	The specular metalness of the specular reflection.
matSpecularPower	float	The specular power of the specular reflection.
matSpecularExponent	float	The specular exponent of the specular reflection.
matTranslucentSubSurface	bool	True if the sub-surface itself has a translucent appearance.

 

type

Type: String

The type of the material property. Use one of these property types:

Type	Description	Examples
bool	The material property is a boolean value.	true, false, 0, 1, yes, no
float	The material property is a floating-point value.	3.1415, 0.18f, 1.5e-03
float4	The material property is a 4D-vector.	1.0 → 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0 1.0, 1.0 → 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0 1.0, 1.0, 1.0 → 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0
int	The material property is a signed integer (32 bit).	-5, 0, 10
map	The material property is a texture.	Grid_2x2.map

 

value

Type: String

The value of the property. Match the value with the type given with the type attribute.

Remarks

The grounds configuration file is read only once at initialization of the object editor.

Grounds can be selected in the object editor using shift click on the grounds button in the base panel.

Create texture using makeMap and package them with makeMaps.