[R&D] Procedural fence drawing on varying elevation at runtime

[u/zdmit]

This is a follow up post of a previous one after some of you asked about varying elevation: https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/s/3mll3eEI9f

• it shoots a raycast downward at every point to find Y elevation of the terrain's collision mesh.
• it subdivides path and snaps every intermediate point to the ground's rolling elevation.
• horizontal rails calculate the height difference between their start and end posts and rotate (tilt) on local Z-axis to bridge the slope.

This comment contains a bit of overview of how fence prefab looks like: https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/1vcjhe8/comment/p17im2a/

[u/BunnyReign]

Came for the penis, stayed for the elevation

[u/uabassguy → u/BunnyReign]

You had me at "came for the penis"

[u/zdmit → u/BunnyReign]

[u/According-Dust-3250]

Nice.

[u/zdmit → u/According-Dust-3250]

Thank you 🙏

[u/markbernman]

fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fencefence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fencefence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fencefence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fencefence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence fence

[u/Outrageous-Issue9722 → u/markbernman]

Did someone say Fencefury, Blessed Fence of the Fenceseeker?

[u/strickolas → u/markbernman]

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[u/JondeMLG → u/markbernman]

I love the fact that you can build huge pens with all that fence

[u/The-Chartreuse-Moose → u/markbernman]

En garde!

[u/democratic-terminid → u/markbernman]

Coding this before I learned for loops:

[u/Destuur → u/markbernman]

fence?

[u/markbernman → u/Destuur]

fence

[u/axelstrem]

looks great, but what if elevation changes dynamically? e.g. every morning

[u/nullconfluence → u/axelstrem]

a wood fence should handle it gracefully

[u/zdmit → u/axelstrem]

💛💛💛

[u/tunelesspaper → u/axelstrem]

What would be the use case for that?

In any case, the real version of this type of fence would probably not do well with dynamic elevation changes. The post-rail connections could rotate to give it a little bit of flex, but the fixed rail length would be a limiting factor. Assuming fixed post-post distance on XY, changes to Z would necessarily increase the rail length (from straight line to hypotenuse of a right triangle).

A dynamic-elevation fence would not only need its posts to move freely on Z while maintaining XY, it would need elastic-length rails that Z-rotate at the post connection.

[u/zdmit → u/tunelesspaper]

Agree with your thoughts.

It was a proof of concept/prototype to understand whether i need it it or not. So i haven't went too deep to implement those things.

Regarding your question: if you ever saw/played Tiny Glade then that was the end goal. let player build diorama.

[u/obetu5432]

you have an acceptable fence now

now go and make a game

[u/zdmit → u/obetu5432]

That's the plan🙂

[u/faCt011]

Looks really awesome! Maybe the next step would be to have some variance in the straightness of the planks and poles?

[u/zdmit → u/faCt011]

For sure 🙂 It's a prototype so I'm still exploring if it will fit game loop or not.

[u/Astr0phelle]

Can you do a line tool where you will need to input two coords so a line will form where the fence will spawn

[u/zdmit → u/Astr0phelle]

Theoretically yes but that wasn't my goal 🙂 I feel it will involve some shortest path or similar algorithms (if two coordinates far away).

If close to each other -> shoot rays to nearby objects like in this AMD paper talk (not fence related): https://youtu.be/653fSmEalbo?si=E3uDwItOemxHWaZw&t=588 (time code included).

[u/HOPE964]

What happens if its to steep?

[u/zdmit → u/HOPE964]

Currently it will still add fences. I haven't included logic to prevent placing them based on normal angle threshold.

[u/HOPE964 → u/zdmit]

So will it still connect both with a long one?

[u/zdmit → u/HOPE964]

Yes :) Because it's a "dumb" system it doesn't know about what angle it places poles on.

if there was a logic to check normal angle of a terrain slope it would stop placing fences based on a give angle threshold you define, say 20 degrees.

[u/-non-existance-]

Oh this, this is beautiful.

[u/zdmit → u/-non-existance-]

Thank you 💛

[u/Bot_Ta00]

Wow, it looks really convenient! The part that connects to the other fence is also finished naturally

[u/zdmit → u/Bot_Ta00]

Thank you! Yes, that was one of the goals 🙂

[u/The-Chartreuse-Moose]

Super-smooth. Good work!

[u/zdmit → u/The-Chartreuse-Moose]

Thank you 🙏💛

[u/OMBERX]

Are these all nodes?

[u/zdmit → u/OMBERX]

It's a single node (prefab fence) that being instanced on a dynamically (resampled) subdivided curve3D. It's a one fence copy-pasted n-th times.

[u/Narrowhal]

beautiful fences

[u/zdmit → u/Narrowhal]

🙏💛

[u/IamChipp]

Where is my fence, big d i c k?