Elevation Edits (Heightmap aka .raw)
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You can leave the apha 1 channel without touching it. Its irrelevant. Experimantal confirmations by reloading the differently created e0s advisable.
What is required instead is accurate information without loss, especially if you increase a L2 raw to a L0 raw (1024² to 4090²).
For that PS provides the “preserve” while scaling option, whereas the “smooth” option also has some nice sideeffects,
such as smoothening out the zick-zacks in your elevation work (in later processing steps).
Nevertheless, adding temporarily additional alpha channels can be handy aswell; this is how i gave the water a natural decline/flow i.e.Important is to generate the FIRST ACCURATE e0 !!, which you dont have as you work and manual-edits start in L2, and the one in the stock install (L0 file) is completly off from L2 data. Then you generate the theater from that basis (e0) and rest is fine-tuning.
Remember, regardless if you import real data or if you edit, your edits are in L2!!, unless you are insane enough to edit in L0 over a million meshes manually,
thus, if you want to create accurate .mea, map and On (n1, n2, etc) files and recalculate the radars later in tacedit …you need to have first a correct e0.One could generally choose pathes:
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either importing real elv. data and trying to design elevation-appropiate tiles and graphics in respect (NUTS!, because of repetitions and really low quali mesh)
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or using (creating) plain tiles and adjusting the elevation in regards to those (NUTS! too, but with hope for acceptable results, lol).
But carefull with this option aswell, as i have seen couple korea texture mods out there meanwhile where the rivers are not where the bridges are i.e :mrgreen:
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The PS settings that I put up work. I just tested/verified with the original heights and modified heights. Lets take the guess work out of it.
I also got around to checking out the “make elv from loaded terrain” and had no problems with it when I imported it back into falcon.
I’m not sure if I’m importing the elevations correctly. Here’s how I’ve been doing it so far:
In the folder that I’m importing I’ve put all of the exported files into it. Had to change the e2 and e0 files in order to see the changes. I was under the assumption that you’s were creating the L2 from the L0 in Terrain Editor. I had to scale my 4096 image down to 1024 to create the L2 manually. So my modified folder has altered e0 and e2 files only. When scaling I used the preserve edges option.
I also tried the “import elv data from raw” option but that one would quit working on me every time I tried. Looked at monster’s help section but didn’t grasp the concept of how to do it from what I read, anyone have success building the elevations from the .elv file? I would like to use that option since it’d auto build the other L’s and it gives us a few more options.
Also learned to make multiple saves on important PS files, my transitions file was corrupted and now have to start them over, had 16 tiles done. I do periodic backups but have now added in the save copy option whenever I save something important or time consuming.
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Can you please explain at which point ModTerrain failed and if there were any messages about it?
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Stops and gives me the windows app crash window after I click on run;
Settings used;
Command prompt window appears;
Then app crash window pops up.
OS: Windows Vista 64
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Yes I confirm this, I’m very sorry, it was just a little typo in th code that caused this.
I’ve made a new version (v1.3.1) that you can find in http://sakgiok.gr/downloads and must be working.
Just replace the files in TerrainEditor’s folder with the content of the zip file. The new version will be distributed with any future new version of TerrainEditor as well.
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Have never used the import function, but thanks for the quick fix Monster.
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I believe it was Lukas that brought to my attention that our theaters use the Sinusoidal projection which creates a problem for my data set. I need to convert the projection into the mentioned one but have not figured out how I’m going to do it yet. I have QGIS and plan on looking up how to convert from wgs84 to sinusoidal; once I figure that out, I’ll be able to extract the srtm data from the TIFF I made in QGIS and will be able to put it into the raw for TE to use.
The ‘dem2terrain projection’ was discussed years ago. It was written in these posts:
http://tactical.nekromantix.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=20922&start=40 -
Thank you very much, will read through it when I get the time and report back.
The ‘dem2terrain projection’ was discussed years ago. It was written in these posts:
http://tactical.nekromantix.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=20922&start=40 -
Spent my night reading/researching and only thing I came away with is that sinusoidal or similar projection is used with dem2terrain but the original Korea theater does not use this projection. Instead it’s mentioned that possibly Mercator is the projection type. There was talk of some tools being used/made too but nothing published and I doubt they were designed for working with “.raw”.
I see a Mercator projection in qgis, but I still have not taken the time to learn how to convert projections and extract them using that program. I keep putting that part on hold.
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You are walking a path i did aswell… trying desperatly to import real elv data… and you cant imagine how hard i tried…till i understood the results will always suck this way and the only way is to create an artificial semi-realistic one. But i also know you are passionate - like i was - and that you have to find your own way.
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I realize that, and I’ll more then likely use what you have and modify it to line up with my placement of tiles.
Still interested in figuring this out and if I do, perhaps it’ll help someone else in the future.
The other reason I want to figure it out is so that I get a better understanding of qgis which will help me whenever I start working on my side project again.
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It will be released soon. Just doint testflight infact.
QGis…never heart of it…but just looked it up - interesting. I have ArcGis here… nice, but complex stuff. -
KR, are you using Zaggy’s converted SRTM data ? They should be available.
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@A.S:
It will be released soon. Just doint testflight infact.
QGis…never heart of it…but just looked it up - interesting. I have ArcGis here… nice, but complex stuff.Free version of what you have then. Nifty program but just like photoshop vs gimp or 3ds vs blender, ease of use and tutorials aren’t really tailored for beginners.
KR, are you using Zaggy’s converted SRTM data ? They should be available.
Nope, I’m using the default korea data at the moment and patiently waiting to get A.S.'s improvements. I searched but did not find anything and from what I read, the data that he has is at a better resolution compared to what I have from nasa. Would love to see it if it’s available though, especially since this projection deal just isn’t working for me.
I’ve tried a slew of projections and nothing is lining up correctly. The only other option I see is to use the “extract projection” function in QGis, which would require me to plot more coordinates on the original image I have of the Korean theater. Than it’s just a matter of how accurate I get the coordinates. But I’ve got to get back to texturing and tiling before I start falling behind.
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I know Zaggy used FME from http://www.safe.com/ . Might do the trick for you, too.
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the data that he has is at a better resolution compared to what I have from nasa
That is because the data was designed by hand…tile by tile…segment by segment …
Richard. The Redflag 4 installer has an export folder under the terrain folder containing:
- Theater.e0
- Theater.e2
- Theater.MEA (not really nessary but there for security)
- Theater-L0.raw
- Theater-L2.raw
for all those who want to CREATE or UPGRADE korea. You, BMS…or others.
The theater is completly rendered and tested, but i just want to wait a little bit and test other things just to be sure with everything.For all others: I do NOT recommend copy pasting the new terrain into KTO or stock korea installs without at least contacting me how to do it or it can ruin your theater.
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I truly do have faith in your work A.S. and I really do hope it meets my expectations of still visually appearing to be true to Korea. In the meantime and as a backup I’ve started building up my reference points in order to attempt to extract my data out of gis.
@Striker, I see that program says it can convert between 5000 projections so I would assume that it’d work, however I have no need to purchase anything for modding falcon, if it aint free and I don’t have a future use for it then I won’t try it. Thanks for looking into it though! I do appreciate it.
I’m probably taking the long route here but oh well. I’ve matched up various points that I could make out in the 500m srtm data to align to the theater image and things are starting to align. Compared a few spots to google earth just to make sure everything is correct and so far so good.
Transparency @50 for the theater image overlayed on top of a equalized height map for visual feedback:
Next is to load in the blue marble images for this area into gis and see what else I can reference. The edges still need some more points since they’re being pulled in, but so far 70% of the theater is aligned. Using a 4096 theater image so things should end up being accurate enough. Once I’m done referencing I’ll just have to figure out how to clip/export the area using the custom projection. I just couldn’t leave this alone and still have texturing/tiling on hold…
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If they would only allow L0 elevations (250m) ingame, while containing the L2 tiles size or sets. Duuuude… we would be able to make magic.
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Talk to the man, AS….
KR, the FME trial is free and still unlimited in functionality, I seem to remember.
Lazystone had some link to Zaggy’s previous works, but it seems to be down ?
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Confirmed, Link is (actually ???) down.
I’ll upload the following feature data by request:
e00 China
e00 RussiaCentralv2
e00 RussiaEast
e00 RussiaWestHave there been additionally files on the server? … I can’t remember.
Cheers,
LS