WIP: Add foliage instancer

[TokisanGames]

Fixes #43
Partially addresses #368

This PR extends the asset dock to include mesh assets.
A PackedScene can be dropped in, meaning a .glb, .fbx asset, or a .tscn. It will search the scene for all MeshInstance3Ds and currently selects the first one found.

General Changes Done

• Opacity renamed to strength, and >100 is allowed for all tools (merged)
• Tool settings are now shown instead of hidden, including brush selector (merged)
• CTRL Key negative input for Enable(merged)
• Redesign flexible asset dock that can move to all positions and save settings in EditorSettings
• Rename Terrain3DTexture -> Terrain3DTextureAsset
• Rename Terrain3DTextureList -> Terrain3DAssets

Foliage Instancer Done

• Quadmesh populates where painted into an MMI, with correct height and normal
• Restrict foliage brush to ring
• Instancing evenly distributed within circle indicator, fix square placement
• Remove MM instances (with CTRL, or Enable unchecked)
• Create an Instancer resource class that can be saved
• Create UI for mesh assets and textures
• Create instanceable mesh object
• Create MMIs in chunks
• Move data to Storage
• Create instanced object settings for:
  • Height offset (adjust origin)
  • Quad mesh w/ texture and/or material
  • Custom mesh

To Do

• Tool settings toggle for applying ground normal, height offset
• Improve generated grass: vertex count, pointy, bend
• Smaller MMI chunks 32-64/region
• Undo/redo
• Document
• Check default asset dock position w/ default settings

Pushed to future PRs

• Improve generated grass: Meshless, gradient, wind
• Create & destroy small MMI segments dynamically. Waiting on Make collision generation dynamic #278
• Collision generation
• LODs, except what is provided by MMI and autolod

[Saul2022]

Looking great as far as i tested(ik it pretty early , but couldn't wait to check it out) even with shadows seem's like performance increase a bit as it hiding the terrain mesh, though something i notice is that using transform in terrain changes the grass location

[TokisanGames]

Alright, I have disabled transforms.

[TokisanGames]

I did a major overhaul on the asset dock and need testers. I'll merge this commit into the main tree once it's polished, before this foliage PR is finished.

What should work and needs testing:

• Move asset dock to bottom or any sidebar position
• Resize icons
• Texture selection/adding/removing/editing settings should still work like normal
• Switching between scenes w/ separate Terrain3D instances open the texture list should update
• Save the layout settings and reload them on restart - Note you must save your project before this will work, as this configuration is saved in Project Settings
• Popout to a window w/ following behavior:
  • Pin that window so its always on top or not
  • Saving the project (CTRL+S) while the window is focused
  • Window Focus follows the mouse between godot and asset dock so that the mouse cursor and painting works fine in the viewport

Using these options do work, but they don't fire any signals that I can detect without hacks

But I made my own buttons which should be used for moving position or popping out

Other notes:

• Mesh/Texture buttons do nothing, but will act like tabs
• Needs to be cleaned up and prints a lot of troubleshooting to the console.

This binary can be tested:
https://github.com/TokisanGames/Terrain3D/actions/runs/8587341009

[Saul2022]

Testing:

1 Moving the dock on every sidebar or bottom seem´s to work well through when the terrain 3d node is selected and the asset dock is at the bottom it not possible to see the other tabs, meanwhile when you diselect the node and click on the tab it works well without overlapping the other docks. ( althought that is fixed when you make the editor fullscreen.

2 Resizing works but when you make it way too big it not possible to edit the corresponding texture as you can´t acces the three dots or delete.

3 Works as usual

4 I am not sure what you mean, but as far as i tried having two scenes with the same textures/ material list save to save, for example i add one new material to a scene, then save and then on the other scene the textures remain as positioned and the same as the one i recently saved.

5 Don´t have layout.

6not sure if it fine or made something wrong but sseems that when pinned it stays on screen within other tabs and when saving it stays on the same position it was put before saving, though when minimizing the godot app the screen stays in other programs unless you minimize it too, so maybe when minimizing godot you could make it so the pinned dock is also minimized, same when you open it again.

[TokisanGames]

Thanks for testing @Saul2022 .

1. when the terrain 3d node is selected and the asset dock is at the bottom it not possible to see the other tabs,

This when Godot is in a window, or maybe a narrow height screen resolution? This is due to the minimum height of the panel. The other bottom tabs do the same thing. Especially click Audio, which has a very tall minimum height. The bar drops way below.

2 Resizing works but when you make it way too big it not possible to edit the corresponding texture as you can´t acces the three dots or delete.

You can right-click to edit or middle click to clear/delete.

4 I am not sure what you mean,

Two scenes open: Demo and imported. Each has a copy of Terrain3D, with different storage and asset dock. Switching back and forth between the scenes, the asset dock should populate with their respective textures, at least if Terrain3D is selected.

5 Don´t have layout.

Layout is the dock position, size, pinned. This is saved to project settings so should be retained when you restart godot, as long as it doesn't crash.

6 not sure if it fine or made something wrong but sseems that when pinned it stays on screen within other tabs

The pin means always on top. It should stay on screen.

and when saving it stays on the same position it was put before saving,

The dock should stay at the position it was in before you saved. I don't understand. You move the doc to bottom right, then save it, it should stay at the bottom right.

so maybe when minimizing godot you could make it so the pinned dock is also minimized, same when you open it again.

That's a good idea. I don't know if I have access to detect that, though.

[TokisanGames]

Updates:

• Reduced maximum size of tiles so the delete/edit buttons don't slide off the sidebar
• Windowed asset dock now hides when Godot is minimized
• Window focusing much more subtle and effective

Bottom bar disappearing I'll ignore for now as I think it's a godot issue, as they all do it.

[darrylryan]

I see no reason why you couldn't also paint trees and bushes using this same system. The only differences would be:

1. The spacing would need to be calculated from the AABB of the mesh
2. The density would need to be capped much lower for large meshes.
3. We couldn't draw complex meshes into the far distance and far away chunks couldn't just "disappear" for items large enough to be seen from miles away or it would look weird. A good solution would be to use this: https://github.com/zhangjt93/godot-imposter to generate an impostor for each mesh and then set the MM to the real tree for closest chunk and all the further away chunks could just be impostors (which in effect work much like the current grass system).

[TokisanGames]

Update:

• The asset dock can now load packed scenes for meshes. It will automatically locate the first mesh to use for instancing.
• There's an option for generated grass, which is currently just the basic green quad.
• Multiple MMIs are created or destroyed when painting, based on location and mesh id. Currently this breaks down by region, but will be smaller segments later. This is saveable.

[Saul2022]

Tested on latest action and seems like when deleting an mesh instance, engine crashes inmediatly.

Also modifying the new properties like color, height etc,seems to not work with neither the generated blade nor a custom mesh.

Furthermore when you try replace the terrain plugin folder on an existing project that had it already(which in this case was the one used to test last weeks grass project) it made the scene corrupted for some reason.

And grass keeps dissapearing whenever i switch between scenes ( in this case a custom billboarder scene)

[TokisanGames]

Tested on latest action and seems like when deleting an mesh instance, engine crashes inmediatly.

Ok, I see, thanks. You mean removing a MeshAsset from the asset dock, not removing an instance with CTRL.

Also modifying the new properties like color, height etc,seems to not work with neither the generated blade nor a custom mesh.

Only the UI elements for the tool settings are there. The functionality hasn't been implemented yet.

Furthermore when you try replace the terrain plugin folder on an existing project that had it already(which in this case was the one used to test last weeks grass project) it made the scene corrupted for some reason.

Not "corrupted", just unparseable because you saved a resource with a different name inside. Easily fixable by editing the file to the new resource name.

Whatever you tested on last week is incompatible. Assuming you're using the demo, reset the project back to the main branch. If using your own project, that's dangerous. Reset your terrain3D resource files.

And grass keeps dissapearing whenever i switch between scenes ( in this case a custom billboarder scene)

Ok, I see.

Thanks for the reports.

[Saul2022]

Tested on latest action and seems like when deleting an mesh instance, engine crashes inmediatly.

Ok, I see, thanks. You mean removing a MeshAsset from the asset dock, not removing an instance with CTRL.

The first yea