| What's your first impression of Grome editor? Post your opinions. |
| Excellent, this is a must-have tool |
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35% |
[ 16 ] |
| Good, it has great potential |
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48% |
[ 22 ] |
| Fine, but needs some improvements |
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11% |
[ 5 ] |
| Rather poor, it needs additional work |
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4% |
[ 2 ] |
| Bad, it needs a lot of changes |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
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| Total Votes : 45 |
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| Author |
Message
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| quad |
 Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2006 10:36 am Post subject: Grome Editor, your opinion. |
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Site Admin
Joined: 06 Sep 2005
Posts: 61
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We are interested in your opinion about Grome. Please feel free to add comments about your poll choice.
Thank You!
Quad Software Grome Team |
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| SeerBlue |
| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 09 Feb 2007
Posts: 1
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Hello, I just downloaded the demo and after just a quick view of a few tut's and a little work with a heightfield I find Grome very easy to use, quite user friendly actually. I have not used it enough to make an informed opinion so I will wait on a bit more usage before posting one, to be fair.
I am wondering if you have plans to add import of existing heightfields of , for example, real world dems for historically based games, or for those of us who have already made heightfields before your app was released (ME-DEM Project).
For the real world heightfields, the available resolution is pretty low for games, but Grome seems to offer an easy route to increase the detail/modify the heightfield quite easily.
SeerBlue |
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| quad |
| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 1:27 pm Post subject: |
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Site Admin
Joined: 06 Sep 2005
Posts: 61
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Hello,
You can easily import any heightmap from various image formats using the Quick Import tool. We also plan to make DEM support by custom import plug-ins. The SDK will allow any developer to make import from any type of data. To make things easier we will have import from various common formats (like COLLADA, DEM).
The editor doesn’t really depend on the heightmap resolution. You can easily work on high resolution for games or on lower resolution for rendering or other types of games. You can also on a terrain with variable resolution so you can give higher resolution closer to the camera.
Regards,
Licu |
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| makit3d |
| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 2:02 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 10 Feb 2007
Posts: 123
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I am still working with the demo and the initial reaction is quite good. I get a sense of ease with the UI layout and a well designed Help file.
My first task I set for myself was to import a HF to see what I can get. So far all is good, but the thumbnail previewer is exceedingly slow. I have several files in a few locations that are huge (easily over 30mb). The display time is easily 3x as long as Windows in generating thumbnails.
I am patient and can wait. However, I can see that this would be an issue for many people. Also, the Help file doesn't remain independent of Grome when it is opened from within it the program.
While writing this I tried to import a .bmp and .png greyscale images for the base terrain. When I choose an image and select OK it does not appear in the 'Source' area of QImport. I assumed it may be I needed to press 'Create' first, but nothing seems to happen.
I'll keep this updated as I go. |
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| quad |
| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 2:45 pm Post subject: |
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Site Admin
Joined: 06 Sep 2005
Posts: 61
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Hi,
Yes for the moment the preview is slow for very large image files. It was meant especially for game images which are smaller, power of two in size and usually DDS compressed. You can also use the list view (not thumbnail mode) in Package Browser without preview. If you want to use the standard open dialog (and choose thumbnails mode from there) you can do that too from the Preferences dialog.
About the heightmap import, you need to select a greyscale square (width = height) image. If the button doesn’t update it means that the image is not valid. In the final build we plan to support non grayscale images too (we make them grey scale on the fly).
Regards,
Licu |
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| makit3d |
| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 7:20 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 10 Feb 2007
Posts: 123
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I am still playing with the various options and tools but I had to post before I continued.
This is sensantional. Being able to bring in multiple tiles and edit them together is just beautiful. My project, so far, has 445 individual tiles that make up the one level and to edit them indiviually was causing me nightmares.
As I said I am still working through the tools and such but for now I am truly enjoying this program. |
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| ALicu |
| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 1330
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Hello,
I’m glad you find this feature (more like a way of editing actually) useful. The idea is that most games (or other 3D projects) contain terrain in multiple zones, while most of tools offer only one piece of land (due to complexity of management and editing).
You can also freely hide or swap-out these tiles from memory. At reloading time the border is automatically stitched. This custom swapping is deactivated in demo version but in the final build you can use it to edit really huge maps otherwise impossible to load in memory. This feature is especially useful for game like MMO.
Also, you can work with different resolution between zones (without worrying about transitions). This is important when you want to give more details for playable areas while background zones are viewed only from far distance (and thus can have smaller resolution). For traditional terrain zones (with constant resolution), even though level of detail algorithms can take care of this at render time, the data still needs to be loaded in memory even though is never used for render.
I hope you find these hints useful while working with zones.
Regards,
Licu |
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| Gareth Fouche |
| Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:48 am Post subject: |
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Joined: 16 Mar 2008
Posts: 6
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Hi,
After playing with the demo I must say this is a fantastic editor. I immediately purchased it, glad you were able to validate me over the weekend as I was itching to play with it asap. 
I really like the layering; the way you can stack heightmap displacements is especially cool. The whole structure reminds me of Photoshop which is a good thing. Very powerful. And I really like the fractal tools, at the moment I only have the standard edition but I'm tempted to upgrade after playing with them in the demo.
All in all a powerful, flexible tool, think this is going to greatly speed up my terrain creation. |
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| makit3d |
| Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 10 Feb 2007
Posts: 123
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Not enough people are using this category!  I've had this for awhile using it on a project that is massive. Also, I've used it to create personal maps for Crytek's Crysis game.
My main use is just for the greyscale heightfield map Grome generates. In this it has proven immensely invaluable. To-date I have not yet found a program that is as easy to learn with so many features for editing terrain.
It is a must have tool. Period. |
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| MaxDmg |
| Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:06 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 29 Nov 2008
Posts: 10
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Grome is without a doubt the most advanced Terrain system I have seen.
Outstanding end product when you are done if you are experienced.
There needs to be more Step by Step video tutorials that start at the
very beginning up to advanced. I would even be interested in purchasing
them if need be for my staff.
This would ez the impact on the learning curve and help ramp up time.
Supporting other game engines like TGEA was a great start but why
stop with them? I would want my product to be the 1st thing game
designers/developers looked for when they picked an engine.
So why not support the top 10-15 Indie Engines like Visual3d.net or
Leadworks, Blade3D, Unigine ect.
That would help me increase my sales and support subscriptions. |
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| JamesW |
| Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 16 Jan 2009
Posts: 5
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I have found GROME to be the best tool in its class by far (although most of the alternatives have a slightly different emphasis). It is powerful and quite easy to work with.
However my very first impressions were mixed. Although most things are quite easy when you know how, they are not very intuitive. I find you have to be quite patient and take the time to learn GROME before you can fully appreciate it. |
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| ALicu |
| Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:34 am Post subject: |
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Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 1330
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MaxDmg, yes we plan to add support for more engines. Work is being done for integration with Ogre3D, 3D Game Studio, Neoaxis and Visual3D.
James, yes we know that, sometimes, some of the Grome features are not intuitive. This the result of the novel approach (mainly regarding layers) but also of the not-so-detailed tutorials. We plan to add more explicative movie tutorials in the future. We also plan to add text step by step tutorials directly in Grome help.
Thanks everybody for all your feedback. |
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