Monster Terrain tool
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No comments just great.
The negative is that almost every area has to be manipulated by hand. At least is there a way that this editing can be done to be close to the real thing without a look and feel assumption?
Also since monster’s terrain tool can edit elevations couldn’t there be a way to get data from a detailed gps data system and integrate them so the flat get’s as your edits? -
I think that the design direction of using just L2 is the right one. It prevents annoying pop ups and inclusion of mipmaps takes away shimmering. The disadvantage of L2 being crude and having very piramid like cones of mountain/hill formations probable and IMHO forces to seek some additional edits like above and also could be aided with some kind of bump, paralax , normal mapping, or combination of those.
As far as additional edits mentioned above I would love to be in developing some sort of methods of global height maps editing withing Monster’s terrain editor. How this could be done globally and beside manual and time consuming work I do not know yet , but as an initial inspiration and food for thought I would recommend taking look at some formations here:
http://makingmaps.net/2008/04/03/map-symbols-landforms-terrain/ATM I would like to concentrate at least on finding some methods to have roads and rivers naturally looking.
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I believe those are known:
http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/dem3.html
http://www.mission-planning.com/DTED_Part3.htm
http://srtm.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/srtm wrong elevation data
http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/elevmisquotes.htmlalso as I see data can be manipulated in excel? I’m quiet good in excel.
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The disadvantage of L2 being crude and having very piramid like cones of mountain/hill formations probable and IMHO forces to seek some additional edits
I was able to create hills that are for the most part devoid of the pyramid triangle effect by not increasing the elevation to extreme levels from one tile transition to the next.
In extreme low level flight is really the only time you notice the transition to the next level of elevation. Here I’m about 125ft above the ground but below the 2000ft level of the higher terrain in the second pic.
Making the transition less extreme in the amount of distance between one elevation to the next is all that needs to be done to combat the pyramid block/triangle effect and you end up with rolling mountains more so then triangular peaks.
This example was done in a 7 X 9 grid of tiles.
RAM22
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the far views look just amazing and smooth like sand hills… but the close ones are pita…
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the far views look just amazing and smooth like sand hills… but the close ones are pita…
Yes and Yes but with careful attention paid to not allowing the slope to become extreme, the L2 can be manipulated to look less blocky.
I’m not sure at this time that we can totally get rid of some presence of the “PITA” but you can see here it can be minimized.
RAM22
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Just my 2 cents here,
first of all, everyone is right, L0 elevation data are the most detailed, giving 4x4 (or 16:D) points per tile, as opposed to L2 giving only one point per tile. L0 elevation, AFAIK could be used in BMS with no terrain popping up because of the new terrain engine, the downside would be the big cpu work - memory required to display all this data. Maybe a coder from BMS can shed some more light on this. If that’s the case, I personally prefer to have L2 elevation with the benefits of the new engine than the other way round.
Using ModTerrain, one could export and import back only the elevation data. The format of the exported file is very simple, just a dump of short integers, starting from the lower-left corner of the theater and going right. row by row. Someone with some basic skills in programming could write an utility to convert elevation data from any source to the correct format. Even I did it, converting DTED data for emf (so it shouldn’t be so hard ). Just some considerations on this.
For elevation data with accuracy, let’s say 90m, keep in mind that a tile in L2 is 1km wide by 1km long (L0 is 250m x 250m). So you need to read from the source all the data covering this square km, get one value for elevation (either by taking the max value or normalizing the values) and dump it to a file. For the 90m accuracy, you need (1000/90=11.111) about 11 x 11 elevation values to create one in L2. Continuing working that way, you’ll finally have your file to import in L2. Some readjustment calculations may be needed, to adjust for the extra 0.1111 value you’re discarding for each tile, especially for big theaters.
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Hey LazyButt,
Do you have a link for that puppy???
I lost it when my FF HDD crashed.
Just interested in playing with it again.TIA,
DaveSure, check PM for a link to CATE 2/4byte.
Cheers,
LS -
:rofl: Classic stuff LS!!!:nosep:
RAM22
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Yes and Yes but with careful attention paid to not allowing the slope to become extreme, the L2 can be manipulated to look less blocky.
RAM22,
I think your smoothness of the slopes and edges is eased by presence and workings of the surface shader. My GPX card is with some problems , one of which is: I cannot for example run BMS with HDR lighting enabled. :sad:
I am not sure if HDR or something else has to to how edges are smoothed , but as an experiment make your dune more extreme and see if you see your edges sharp or smooth. However , the peak may be sharper and this is what precisely you suggesting by telling not to go too high.
Do you have HDR enabled? What card is what you using? -
RAM22,
I think your smoothness of the slopes and edges is eased by presence and workings of the surface shader. My GPX card is with some problems , one of which is: I cannot for example run BMS with HDR lighting enabled. :sad:
I am not sure if HDR or something else has to to how edges are smoothed , but as an experiment make your dune more extreme and see if you see your edges sharp or smooth. However , the peak may be sharper and this is what precisely you suggesting by telling not to go too high.
Do you have HDR enabled? What card is what you using?Those others were not with the HDR Lighting on in the Config Editor but these shots are with it on.
I’m running a nVidia 9500GT. Actually I think they look better with the lightning of course closeup is where you notice the points. At some distance they look nice.
At 13000 going down to 10000ft
Then 5000ft
3000ft
Under 1000ft, you can see the points now clearly and the plateau of the one hill
I’m positive that using more than one row or column that is the same elevation will reduce the cone head shape. Using one row will result in the peak. These shots have one hill with one row and the other with two at the apex, plus like noted, the amount of next level elevation was not extreme.
The three levels from 300ft ground were, 600ft, 1200ft, 2000ft.
Most mountains have some sort of area or plateau at the top, sloped or not but an area that is not an extreme rigid peak with a 150-170 degree slope down, I’m sure there are some unusual peaks that have some jagged tops like the Matterhorn at Disneyland.:D
RAM22
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I have a problem with the Edit Tile. When I want to define the areas “Thin Forest”, I have got it:
Any idea?
Cheers,
Eghi -
Should you not just leave it at Plains. AFAIK no more of Thin Forest or any other types of terrain, only Plains and Water.
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Unfortunately, I can’t reproduce the error. Is it happening after you insert the area or after pressing OK to save the changes? Also, did you insert the area using the Ctrl button or by pressing the “Add Area” button?
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Should you not just leave it at Plains. AFAIK no more of Thin Forest or any other types of terrain, only Plains and Water.
Ted,brush, thin forest and thick forest areas will be used for “auto generated” trees, bushes and gras in future releases.
A few months ago Naldo had already a “planting trees, … lot’s of them” in his sig, so I think it’s already done for korea terrain.Please read the “INTERGRATING EXISTING THEATERS INTO BMS.docx”
(could’nt find the originally DL, so I upped it for you on mediafire)
http://www.mediafire.com/?tldaaecwcqs8p47Cheers,
LS -
Unfortunately, I can’t reproduce the error. Is it happening after you insert the area or after pressing OK to save the changes? Also, did you insert the area using the Ctrl button or by pressing the “Add Area” button?
This happening after insert pressing OK to save. Ctrl button and “Add Area” button, it works well. Just by pressing the “OK” this error happens, and only in “Thin Forest”. The rest works fine.
I’ll check on another computer….Thanks for your help,
Eghiedit: problem solved :headb:. ( reinstalling TE)
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A small problem……
I’m trying to edit tiles in the BIN Editor (add Areas/ Paths). Problem is the resolution tiles, 1024 is not working properly, I will see only the tile … I do not see the option:512, 256 is fine:
So, what do I do? I reduce the resolution to 512 and edit Paths……:
Going back to 1024 resolution, and everything is ok:
TE-BIN editor does not work with high resolution?
Cheers,
Eghi -
If the only problem is that you don’t see the controls, it’s more a problem of your display resolution, it’s just not enough to display everything. Going 1024x1024 for a tile resolution is high even for HD (1080 in vertical resolution). That’s why I added the zoom functions and keyboard shortcuts.
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That’s why I added the zoom functions and keyboard shortcuts.
Monster -+…? It works :headb: I lost two nights … solve this trivial problem.
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If I may Eghi,
You do not need to draw these roads with all these different path entries or the different directions trying to follow the exact road within the artwork.
You’re creating a bunch of path nodes that bog the code down.
There should be only one path for the road, one path for a bridge or one path for river, depending what is contained on the tile. And they don’t need to be drawn across the entire texture. A simple small path entry is the only thing required for each and the code will read it fine. Doesn’t even matter what direction, N/S-E/W you draw the small path entry either.
RAM22