How to manipulate a shaped area of terrain in runtime - Unity 3D
My game has a drawing tool - a looping line renderer that is used as a marker to manipulate an area of the terrain in the shape of the line. This all happens in runtime as soon as the player stops drawing the line. So far I have managed to raise terrain verteces that match the coordinates of the line renderer's points, but I have difficulties with raising the points that fall inside the marker's shape. Here is an image describing what I currently have:
I tried using the "Polygon Fill Algorithm" (http://alienryderflex.com/polygon_fill/), but raising the terrain vertices one line at a time is too resourceful (even when the algorithm is narrowed to a rectangle that surrounds only the marked area). Also my marker's outline points have gaps between them, meaning I need to add a radius to the line that raises the terrain, but that might leave the result sloppy.
Maybe I should discard the drawing mechanism and use a mesh with a mesh collider as the marker?
Any ideas are appreciated on how to get the terrain manipulated in the exact shape as the marker.
Current code: I used this script to create the line - the first and the last line points have the same coordinates. The code used to manipulate the terrain manipulation is currently triggered when clicking a GUI button:
using System;
using System.Collections;
using UnityEngine;
public class changeTerrainHeight_lineMarker : MonoBehaviour
{
public Terrain TerrainMain;
public LineRenderer line;
void OnGUI()
{
//Get the terrain heightmap width and height.
int xRes = TerrainMain.terrainData.heightmapWidth;
int yRes = TerrainMain.terrainData.heightmapHeight;
//GetHeights - gets the heightmap points of the tarrain. Store them in array
float[,] heights = TerrainMain.terrainData.GetHeights(0, 0, xRes, yRes);
if (GUI.Button(new Rect(30, 30, 200, 30), "Line points"))
{
/* Set the positions to array "positions" */
Vector3[] positions = new Vector3[line.positionCount];
line.GetPositions(positions);
/* use this height to the affected terrain verteces */
float height = 0.05f;
for (int i = 0; i < line.positionCount; i++)
{
/* Assign height data */
heights[Mathf.RoundToInt(positions[i].z), Mathf.RoundToInt(positions[i].x)] = height;
}
//SetHeights to change the terrain height.
TerrainMain.terrainData.SetHeights(0, 0, heights);
}
}
}
Got to the solution thanks to Siim's personal help, and thanks to the article: How can I determine whether a 2D Point is within a Polygon?.
The end result is visualized here:
First the code, then the explanation:
using System;
using System.Collections;
using UnityEngine;
public class changeTerrainHeight_lineMarker : MonoBehaviour
{
public Terrain TerrainMain;
public LineRenderer line;
void OnGUI()
{
//Get the terrain heightmap width and height.
int xRes = TerrainMain.terrainData.heightmapWidth;
int yRes = TerrainMain.terrainData.heightmapHeight;
//GetHeights - gets the heightmap points of the tarrain. Store them in array
float[,] heights = TerrainMain.terrainData.GetHeights(0, 0, xRes, yRes);
//Trigger line area raiser
if (GUI.Button(new Rect(30, 30, 200, 30), "Line fill"))
{
/* Set the positions to array "positions" */
Vector3[] positions = new Vector3[line.positionCount];
line.GetPositions(positions);
float height = 0.10f; // define the height of the affected verteces of the terrain
/* Find the reactangle the shape is in! The sides of the rectangle are based on the most-top, -right, -bottom and -left vertex. */
float ftop = float.NegativeInfinity;
float fright = float.NegativeInfinity;
float fbottom = Mathf.Infinity;
float fleft = Mathf.Infinity;
for (int i = 0; i < line.positionCount; i++)
{
//find the outmost points
if (ftop < positions[i].z)
{
ftop = positions[i].z;
}
if (fright < positions[i].x)
{
fright = positions[i].x;
}
if (fbottom > positions[i].z)
{
fbottom = positions[i].z;
}
if (fleft > positions[i].x)
{
fleft = positions[i].x;
}
}
int top = Mathf.RoundToInt(ftop);
int right = Mathf.RoundToInt(fright);
int bottom = Mathf.RoundToInt(fbottom);
int left = Mathf.RoundToInt(fleft);
int terrainXmax = right - left; // the rightmost edge of the terrain
int terrainZmax = top - bottom; // the topmost edge of the terrain
float[,] shapeHeights = TerrainMain.terrainData.GetHeights(left, bottom, terrainXmax, terrainZmax);
Vector2 point; //Create a point Vector2 point to match the shape
/* Loop through all points in the rectangle surrounding the shape */
for (int i = 0; i < terrainZmax; i++)
{
point.y = i + bottom; //Add off set to the element so it matches the position of the line
for (int j = 0; j < terrainXmax; j++)
{
point.x = j + left; //Add off set to the element so it matches the position of the line
if (InsidePolygon(point, bottom))
{
shapeHeights[i, j] = height; // set the height value to the terrain vertex
}
}
}
//SetHeights to change the terrain height.
TerrainMain.terrainData.SetHeightsDelayLOD(left, bottom, shapeHeights);
TerrainMain.ApplyDelayedHeightmapModification();
}
}
//Checks if the given vertex is inside the the shape.
bool InsidePolygon(Vector2 p, int terrainZmax)
{
// Assign the points that define the outline of the shape
Vector3[] positions = new Vector3[line.positionCount];
line.GetPositions(positions);
int count = 0;
Vector2 p1, p2;
int n = positions.Length;
// Find the lines that define the shape
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
{
p1.y = positions[i].z;// - p.y;
p1.x = positions[i].x;// - p.x;
if (i != n - 1)
{
p2.y = positions[(i + 1)].z;// - p.y;
p2.x = positions[(i + 1)].x;// - p.x;
}
else
{
p2.y = positions[0].z;// - p.y;
p2.x = positions[0].x;// - p.x;
}
// check if the given point p intersects with the lines that form the outline of the shape.
if (LinesIntersect(p1, p2, p, terrainZmax))
{
count++;
}
}
// the point is inside the shape when the number of line intersections is an odd number
if (count % 2 == 1)
{
return true;
}
else
{
return false;
}
}
// Function that checks if two lines intersect with each other
bool LinesIntersect(Vector2 A, Vector2 B, Vector2 C, int terrainZmax)
{
Vector2 D = new Vector2(C.x, terrainZmax);
Vector2 CmP = new Vector2(C.x - A.x, C.y - A.y);
Vector2 r = new Vector2(B.x - A.x, B.y - A.y);
Vector2 s = new Vector2(D.x - C.x, D.y - C.y);
float CmPxr = CmP.x * r.y - CmP.y * r.x;
float CmPxs = CmP.x * s.y - CmP.y * s.x;
float rxs = r.x * s.y - r.y * s.x;
if (CmPxr == 0f)
{
// Lines are collinear, and so intersect if they have any overlap
return ((C.x - A.x < 0f) != (C.x - B.x < 0f))
|| ((C.y - A.y < 0f) != (C.y - B.y < 0f));
}
if (rxs == 0f)
return false; // Lines are parallel.
float rxsr = 1f / rxs;
float t = CmPxs * rxsr;
float u = CmPxr * rxsr;
return (t >= 0f) && (t <= 1f) && (u >= 0f) && (u <= 1f);
}
}
The used method is filling the shape one line at a time - "The Ray Casting method". It turns out that this method starts taking more resources only if the given shape as a lot of sides. (A side of the shape is a line that connects two points in the outline of the shape.) When I posted this question, my Line Renderer had 134 points defining the line. This also means the shape has the same number of sides that needs to pass the ray cast check. When I narrowed down the number of points to 42, the method got fast enough, and also the shape did not lose almost any detail. Furthermore I am planning on using some methods to make the contours smoother, so the shape can be defined with even less points.
In short, you need these steps to get to the result:
- Create the outline of the shape;
- Find the 4 points that mark the bounding box around the shape;
- Start ray casting the box;
- Check the number of how many times the ray intersects with the sides of the shape. The points with the odd number are located inside the shape:
- Assign your attributes to all of the points that were found in the shape.