@ Wrench & Dave re SCal terrain

[+Baltika 85]

Hi there,

 

I've been flying over you guys' SCal terrain tonight (working on a "navalised" version of Operation Mountain Twilight) and I notice that the mountains on this terrain are very, well, mountainous. SCal seems to me to have the biggest visible height differential from sea level to mountain peak, and lots of "jaggy" peaks and troughs in between. Many other maps in SF have plenty of height differential when you look at the height field data (or just an atlas) but without such noticeable mountains in-game.

 

I'm just wondering if there's a setting in TE which limits the top height of a mountain peak - MajorLee's ANW is a case in point, as I would expect many peaks to be higher or lower, but they all seem to to hit an imposed ceiling.

 

Am I barking up the wrong tree, or is there something to this?

 

Cheers,

 

Baltika

[Wrench 9,866]

I haven't a CLUE!!!! Just ask anybody that know's me!!!

 

No, but seriously, I just "targetized" the place. I took Dave's original map and just did the targets ini dance on it. Other than flattening airfields, that's all I can do in the TE.

 

Real Life wise, there really IS that much difference in the terrain around here. As to how it's done...gods, don't I wish I knew (along with how to tile!!!). Maybe someday...

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[+Jarhead1 27]

Hey Wrench, I can vouch for that one, I was stationd at Camp Pendleton for 6 and a half years, and WOW one part is slight rolling hills, then furthr north on the base is mountains, holy crap, lol.

[+Baltika 85]

Cool, might just be a great place to fly over

 

There is a setting "Height Field Resolution" when you open a "New" file in TE which seems to give greater or lesser definition, but I've yet to work out a pattern to it. If you change it too much from the default, it seems to throw the DEM data input right off, so you get half a world when you're only looking for a little bit of it.

 

I'll keep on messing around with it meantime.

 

Cheers,

 

Baltika

[+PureBlue 71]

Hello Baltika,

As you know TE uses 8bit height data which means there will be 256 different height levels.

I think the HeightScale variables in the TerrainEditor.ini governs the highest peak you can have.

Like me, you are most likely using the export/import bitmap function for the height map a lot, for airfield leveling and general geogprahical fiddling. The HeightScale=10 default value under both BitmapImport and BitmapExport will effect your map immensely. It will chop the peaks of your mountains .

 

I found about it last night, after searching the thirdwire forums. Quoting TK: [link]

The HeightScale= variableunder BitmapExport sets the height step for each index. You'll probably want to adjust this to better match your map, you want the max height in the map to be around 256 (so the HeightScale= max height / 256). Try HeightScale=10, that should cover terrain up to 2560 m in height, if you see peaks getting clippped, you can bump that up.

 

I was having a max height of 2560m for the Anatolian Plateau which is very mountainous. So it looked like flat lands. This means I had to use a value of HeightScale=20 to get the highest peak in the region, at 5120m. Ararat / Ağrı Dağı towers over the eastern Anatolia , which is said to be where Noah's Ark landed...

 

[+Baltika 85]

Brilliant, thanks pureblue, that's exactly what I was looking for

 

Although, I am now peeking through crossed fingers to see what happens to Iceland with the new settings - I have already invested a fair bit of time into hand-tiling the existing map, and if I have to start over. . .

[+PureBlue 71]

Well, I created a new project and reimported the DEM files. Then exported the height map with new ini settings and imported it ontop of the current project. Almost all the airfields need to be re-leveled (I dont use the function in TE, doing it manually), the mountain top missile sites need re-locating, etc. etc. Basically back to square 1 But the transformation was huge, the sight of huge towering mountain peaks are awesome..

 

Although I must say, with a HeighScale of 20, you wont have the low range of height steps. Some of the lower hills seem to be much smoother and less intimitading..

 

Also, think twice about using the TE Smooth Height function, it kills the sharp countours of mountains and flattens volcanic lake beds, and so on.. the terrain looks much better in rough form IMHO.

[Wrench 9,866]

WOW!!! That really does look like Arrarat!!

 

So, all we need now is a large, rectangular black 'ship' to place on the glaciar (whose name escapes me now...)

 

or from a crappy Sci-Fi movie, Pteranadon nests....

 

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[+PureBlue 71]

There are a lot of great views in this geogprahy. It's fun just to cruise around..

But this kind of sucks

 

 

nothing terrain wise is rendered up over the clouds.

and then you crash into it.. did you guys know of this bug?

 

edit: on second thought, perhaps i have something missing in my setup.!? hmm

 

Edited June 9, 2008 by pureblue