As we’ve been working on adding procedural object / vegetation support, it has been necessary to revamp the physical material framework within Grit.  This has required changing the grammar of the tcol files, so if you update svn you’ll have to re-export your tcols using the updated maxscripts or they will give you errors inside Grit.  The maxscript is a bit ‘fresh’ but hopefully no serious bugs, if you find anything, please point it out to us on IRC.

Summary of changes:

Materials are now given by string (none of that hex number rubbish anymore) and users can easily add their own materials (see common/phys_mats.lua for examples).  The materials don’t do much yet but they will get fleshed out with various gameplay and behavioural features as time goes by.

The physical materials are now very similar to the graphical materials, they exist (by default) in the directory of the lua file in which they are defined. Tcol files will look in their local directory for physical materials just like mesh files look in their local directory for graphical materials.

Note: When using the tcol maxscript, don’t try and use the GRIT_PHYSMAT material anymore, just assign a normal material with the name you want.

The new system should be a lot more powerful and user-friendly than the old system so any hassle bringing existing tcol files up to date should be worth it.  Thanks!

Discuss this post and more at the Game Engine Forum now.