SurfaceTool, MeshDataTool : confused about how to modify geometry

UnknownUser

Hi everyone,

I'm working to create a terrain generated by code, in GDScript, and I'm a bit confused about how to update the geometry when I modify a parameter. For example, if I want to change the height of the terrain positions with a noise, at the moment I completely delete the previous surface to recreate it with the modification. But maybe it's not the right way.

The terrain surface, vertices, face indexes, vertex colors etc. have already been created once, maybe it is possible and more efficient to change only the coordinates of the vertices ?

If so, can you tell me how to proceed? The documentation only gives indications on how to create a surface, not how to modify it.

Thanks in advance!

UnknownUser

Hi! I too have been looking for a way to dynamically update a mesh, but unfortunately it seems to be impossible to freely modify an existing surface with a script. The implemented ways to affect mesh geometry at run-time are skeletons and blend shapes, but of course these are not suitable for a terrain mesh. There's also this thread about a similar scenario: https://godotforums.org/discussion/comment/37948

Zireael

You can dynamically update a mesh in two other ways: vertex shaders (But this doesn't modify collisions AFAIU) or the classes you mentioned in the topic (but they AFAIK recreate the whole mesh data). Have a look at how I am deforming my car visual mesh on collision: https://github.com/Zireael07/FreeRoamRoguelikeRacerPrototype/blob/cd53cf1695d4bf7bf0079c8dbabebb0108d80434/game/car/car_mesh.gd#L186