Riemers3DXNA4advterrainoverview

XNA Tutorial using C# and HLSL Series 4 – Overview

Welcome to this 4th instalment of my XNA Tutorials for C#. In the first series, we’ve seen how to create a terrain. This Series we’ll go over that again – only this time using a totally different approach. Since we’ve learned (a bit beyond) the basics of HLSL in Series 3, let’s put that knowledge to good use.

Note

Find the assets for this series located here

How excellent your latest idea for a new game might be, you’ll hardly impress anyone if you can only move some self-drawn crosses or dots over a 2D board. In this Series, we’ll be creating a terrain that you can use immediately as a start for your game. As this series relies heavily on HLSL, you will like to go through Series 3 before you start reading on this one.

Because a terrain looks a lot nicer fullscreen that it does in a window, you can have a look at this fullscreenshot or at this one. And yes, the water moves and the clouds change shape ;) So, in a nutshell, what will be covered in this series?

• First-person mouse camera
• Multitexturing with high resolution textures close to the camera
• Realistic, moving water with reflections-refractions
• Bump mapping
• Specular reflections
• Perlin noise
• Shape-changing clouds
• HLSL cylindrical billboarding
• Region growing

During this series you will need to download the following resources: Starting code: Series4Effects.fx Starting code: heightmap.bmp Textured terrain: grass.dds Multitexturing: sand.dds Multitexturing: rocks.dds Multitexturing: snow.dds Skydome: dome.x Skydome: cloudMap.jpg Ripples: waterbump.dds Billboarding: bbEffect.fx Billboarding: tree.dds Region growing: treeMap.jpg

Before you move on to the first chapter, you can find a few more screenshots below.

Chapters

1. Starting point
2. Adding a first-person mouse camera
3. Texturing our terrain
4. Multitexturing
5. Adding more detail
6. Drawing a simple skydome
7. The water technique
8. Rendering the refractive map
9. Rendering the Reflection map
10. Perfect mirror
11. Rippling water
12. Blending in refractions using the Fresnel term
13. Making our water move
14. Specular Highlights
15. Cylindrical Billboarding
16. Region growing
17. Billboarding
18. 2D Perlin noise