Friendlyskies AoI Forum

Yes, I did read the tutorial. It had some good information about creating objects and applying uniform textures, but I didn't notice anything there about either texture parameters or layered textures.

That said, your technique seems to work. Thanks! I'm still not sure how I would take it and apply it to layered textures, though. You seem to be taking the object and looking for a parameter with a certain name, but with multiple textures you could have more than one parameter with the same name (because they're on different layers) that you want to set to different values. Is there any easy way to do this?

I have the scripting documentation, as I mentioned, and I know about LayeredTexture, LayeredMapping, addLayer(), etc. In fact I have been able to make a layered texture and change the mapping properties (like scale and center) of individual layers. That which I have not been able to do is to get the layers to show in any mode but 'blend', and to set the parameter values for parameters of individual layers. In the second case the problem is that I can't easily extend utrrrongeeb's technique because he is searching for a parameter based on no more than its name and object and when using layered textures that is not sufficient precision. In the first case, one thing I should mention perhaps is that the behavior I have seen is also consistent with what I would see if only the top layer existed, so I should ask, is it possible that using the addLayer() function would overwrite an existing layer rather than creating a new one?

utrrrongeeb wrote:

Try yourLayerMapping.setLayerMode(int layerIndex, int mode); where mode is one of LayeredMapping.BLEND, LayeredMapping.OVERLAY_BLEND_BUMPS, and LayeredMapping.OVERLAY_ADD_BUMPS.

Yes, I've tried those. They don't seem to work. They also don't work even if I use their literal values (0, 2, 1). Either the layer mode is still being recognized as 'blend', or the system is not recognizing more than one layer (the top layer), I can't tell which.

For the record, I'm accessing the layer through using addLayer() and then for the 'which' I'm using getNumLayers()-1. I assumed this was the way they would be accessed if they were numbered like a normal array, but just to make sure I did try getNumLayers() and getNumLayers()-2 and both of them failed where the version above succeeded, so I seem to be on the right track there.

I'm not sure if yourLayerMapping.getLayerParameters(int layerIndex); is usable here -- I haven't tried it -- but it'd be worth a look.

Okay thanks, I'll take a look at it.

EDIT: Doesn't seem to work. Where [Object3D].getParameters() works okay, [LayeredMapping].getLayerParameters() seems to return something that results in a null pointer exception when I use [Object3D].setParameterValue(). Unless it's because I'm accessing the layer the wrong way?

Last edited by green_meklar (June 12, 2009, 10:54 am)

No need for that! I'm probably just making some simple noob mistake due to a failure to understand the documentation. You know how 90+% of all bugs consistently turn out to be simpler than what you were expecting, right?

Another thing I should note though is that the version on my machine is 2.5, so if anything said by anyone here is applicable only to later versions, please make a mention of it.

First of all, upgrade to 2.7.2!  2.5 was released close to two years ago, and a lot of bugs have been fixed since then.  It's possible you're running into one of them.  Simply calling setLayerMode() should be all you need to do.

Regarding how to find the parameter you want, there are a few methods of LayeredMapping you should take a look at.  getLayerBlendingParameter() returns the parameter for a particular layer's blending fraction.  getLayerParameters() returns all the parameters for a particular layer.

If you still have problems after upgrading, could you post some code showing exactly what you're doing?  Then I should be able to tell why it isn't working.

Peter

green_meklar wrote:

I know. He scares me.

What, is it the fangs?  I thought they were kind of cute!  Hmph.

Uh huh, but in utrrrongeeb's example he then simply called [Object3D].setParameterValue(). Not only does this by itself not seem to contain enough information to set a parameter on a layered texture, given that it contains no layer index while the TextureParameter[] array was acquired through specifying a layer index (indicating that a different array would be associated with each layer), it also doesn't seem to work in practice.

The argument to setParameterValue() is a TextureParameter object, and that object contains a lot more information than just a name.  It's up to you to figure out which TextureParameter object to use, but setParameterValue() will know which layer that corresponds to.

Regarding setLayerMode(), I see what the problem is.  addLayer() adds the new layer as layer 0, not layer getNumLayers()-1.  This is... um... perhaps not entirely intuitive.  I thought it would make more sense that way, since the newly added layer would be the top one, but it is a little unconventional.  What can I say?  It seemed like a good idea at the time.   Maybe I should look into changing it...

Peter

Thats... thats... so... cute!

Ok, how does this sound?  I'll mark addLayer() as deprecated.  Then I'll add a new method, insertLayer(), that lets you specify the position you want the new layer at.  And it will also let you specify the TextureMapping and blending mode at the same time.

Peter