The Terrain Editor Thread

[Wrench 9,848]

Ok folks, as promised, this here a new thread JUST on "How To's" for using the Terrain Editor.

 

This thread has several pruposes, first and foremost on the PROPER use of the TE, and what to do to make those necessary tweeks and twiddles to get things looking the way we want them to.

 

This thread is NOT designed to be used for 'whats it the works' or questions NOT pertaining to the operation of the TE. Those posts WILL be deleted. I do not want this Thread to get derailed with unnecessary BS.

 

Keep it tight, conscise, and focused.

 

We have Gepard's excellent tutorials in the Knowledge Base that gets us started...now, lets focus on the more arcane rituals performed to get that map in-game and looking the way we want.

 

We have some very learned Terrain Gurus here; let's get together and see what we can create. Once we've amassed the data and information, this entire thread will be moved into the Knowledge Base for all to make use of.

 

Thank you one and all!!

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[Wrench 9,848]

Now, this question, I'm sure would probably fall into the "Experienced" category...meaning amatures like can get rapidly over their heads and badly frustrated..

 

I'm going to start this off with the 'tsunami' questions; wherein we deal with the creeping up of the ocean vertically onto the sea/land transition tiles. Also with the odd "humping up" of the ocean that sometimes accompanies the flatten airfeild function, when said airfield is too close the water, as in my Mariana and Hawaiian Islands maps.

 

Is there a proper order of things, with which to prevent or remove this effect?

 

Meaning: you've got your citislst.in, with areaXXX HasAirfield=TRUE

Do you 'flatten airfield' first, THEN "smooth", adjust sea level then "SAVE ALL", and check in game for the proper flattness and sea level?

OR do you adjust the heightfield smoothing, adjust sea level, THEN flatten the airfeild?

 

Does the radius distance of the airfield zone effect the sea level, as I seem to be seeing (or more properly phrased, HOW does it effect this?)

 

As an example;

 

[City010]

Name=NAS Kanehoe

TextureType=3

Randomness=0

PositionX=432.000000

PositionY=424.000000

Width=4.000000 <--

Height=5.000000<--

HasAirfield=TRUE

 

We know the distance is in KM, radiused out from the 0,0 point of the main coordinates. But how short a distance can we get away with?

 

because this airfield is literaly 'on the beach', it creates a massive upwelling of the surrounding sea. Going back into the TE and using the "adjust sea level", creates a cliff which the airfield is hanging off of.

Here's some screenies to illustrate what I'm seeing in game:

 

north shore, nice and smooth (sorta)

 

 

Rotating our view 180 degs, looking toward Ewa and beyond, we have this:

 

 

Going around the island, to Kanehoe...there's an interesting 'water fall'...

 

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[+SidDogg 130]

Now, this question, I'm sure would probably fall into the "Experienced" category...meaning amatures like can get rapidly over their heads and badly frustrated..

 

I'm going to start this off with the 'tsunami' questions; wherein we deal with the creeping up of the ocean vertically onto the sea/land transition tiles. Also with the odd "humping up" of the ocean that sometimes accompanies the flatten airfeild function, when said airfield is too close the water, as in my Mariana and Hawaiian Islands maps.

 

Is there a proper order of things, with which to prevent or remove this effect?

 

Meaning: you've got your citislst.in, with areaXXX HasAirfield=TRUE

Do you 'flatten airfield' first, THEN "smooth", adjust sea level then "SAVE ALL", and check in game for the proper flattness and sea level?

OR do you adjust the heightfield smoothing, adjust sea level, THEN flatten the airfeild?

 

Does the radius distance of the airfield zone effect the sea level, as I seem to be seeing (or more properly phrased, HOW does it effect this?)

 

As an example;

 

 

 

We know the distance is in KM, radiused out from the 0,0 point of the main coordinates. But how short a distance can we get away with?

 

because this airfield is literaly 'on the beach', it creates a massive upwelling of the surrounding sea. Going back into the TE and using the "adjust sea level", creates a cliff which the airfield is hanging off of.

Here's some screenies to illustrate what I'm seeing in game:

 

north shore, nice and smooth (sorta)

 

 

Rotating our view 180 degs, looking toward Ewa and beyond, we have this:

 

 

Going around the island, to Kanehoe...there's an interesting 'water fall'...

 

 

 

Wrench

kevin stein

 

...homey.

 

DO NOT ADJUST THE SEA LEVEL.

 

From experience, that simply seems to just fill all water with terrain...

 

The Key is to take a GOOD LOOK at the vicinity of the airfield's spot...

 

...look for the LOWEST elevation.

 

THEN flatten the airfield.

 

otherwise, failure to payattention to the lowest elevation can result in "plateaus"

 

...sort of the kind that produced your waterfall....

[+Brain32 265]

Well I had huge problems with that, airfields wouldn't get perfectly flat and that was kicking my nuts.

This is how I do it, first I tile "raw terrain" when I'm perfectly happy with the way terrain is tiled and plan to make NO other changes regarding tiles - then I do the HFD work.

First thing I do is airfield flatening, but once I apply it, I save the whole thing exit TE and backup flattened terrain, AFTER that I apply smoothing and finally adjust the sea level.

The thing is when you press "adjust sea level" it cuts a small part of coast which effectively becomes 0m height, that's why it's importan for the terrain to be already fully tiled, if you tile after adjusting SL, the autotiling will ofcourse apply the rule that sea texture is at 0m and you will have the same problem(sea mountains) all over again not to mention inaccurate coast/terrain loss.

 

Hope this helps.

[Wrench 9,848]

Which is pretty much how I did it...tiled first, placed airfield, checked position in-game, backed up TFD and HFD (I've got like 8 or 10 backedup!), then back in and flattened the airfields -- EXCEPT, I didn't do the smoothing, then adjusted sea level.

Although, I've did do it several times afterwards ..

 

So, am I screwed?? Meaning, having to start from a fresh retile withOUT the flattening and etc? How would this effect targets placements? It shouldn't, right??

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[+Brain32 265]

No if that airfield is the only thing that bothers you, there's two things you can do:

a) export the .hfd as .bmp and edit it

b) simply adjust the tiles manually to suround the sea mountain

[+EricJ 4,245]

I got a q, can you extend "The Wall" on maps? I've been hankering to check out the water SW of the ANW map, and was wondering if it can be extended so I can check that out..

[Guest pfunkmusik]

OK, on the coastline airfield thing, what I generally wind up doing is going back and filling in the area that is inclining upwards. Yeah, the coastline isn't 100% correct, but it looks better than it did. After you fill it in, just replace the .tfd file with the new one.

 

I know of no way to extend 'The Wall'. Wish it could be taken directly to the edge of the terrain.

[+EricJ 4,245]

Damn, okay thanks!

[Guest pfunkmusik]

Here's what I mean.

 

This is from my new WOI terrain of North Africa/Southern Med. This is a shot of the old Malta.

 

 

The coastline is creeping up, so I go into the TE...

 

 

I fix it, adding some new tiles and work on the coastline...

 

Here's what it looks like after I'm done. No terrain height field data smoothing or leveling needed, just replace the .tfd file with the new one after finishing your work.

 

 

pfunk

[Wrench 9,848]

But don't you loose the 'real world' coastline outline that way?? In this, the coasline at Kanehoe Bay is not correct, due to the lack to detail, but I'd like to keep it ( the bay outline) as close as possible

 

I think what I have is an extreamly "odd" case, as there's no other map, and no other airfield that's, literally, at the water's edge. It being a seaplane base and all...

 

To me, for fixing MY issues (other than several million dollars worth of therapy....) sounds more like HFD editing....which I ain't exactly very clear on. Yet

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[Guest pfunkmusik]

You do, but I'm more of a 'that's close enough' kind of guy. It's not 100% correct, but it's pretty close given the parameters we have to work with in terms of the Terrain Editor and the existing tilesets.

 

pfunk

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

You do, but I'm more of a 'that's close enough' kind of guy. It's not 100% correct, but it's pretty close given the parameters we have to work with in terms of the Terrain Editor and the existing tilesets.

 

pfunk

You *should* get 4x hfd detailing by dropping height field and tile res to 1km, and greatly reduce the coastline errors. I've never tried that, but I'm sure WW1 sim does something like that to bring out flat French terrain. I do however raise my hf/tile res to 4km because I deal in Cold War size strategic maps, and this helps framerates since I use Horizondistance on the order of 200km for high altitude flying -- on ATI-9200.

 

The Great Wall: In FlightEngine, in pre-WoI 2006 game levels, you can make the "wall" zero or even negative (Border=, in meters) and freecam well beyond the map edge. But if you get closer than twice the DetailMeshSize= (in km!) to the north/south map edge you dump to desktop. There is a white abyss beyond the north/south map edge that only I have seen. Freecam east/west of the map, you see the map repeats forever, but the height mapping gets messed up at low levels. AI does not fully perform combat ops beyond the map edge, but they do fly. Offmap AI waypoints have to be set manually in mission text file.

 

This all changes in WoI/Patch2008 so now you dump to desktop before you get into a position to see the map edge...ie...I'm guessing cam distance to map edge is less than horizon distance...but that's just a guess. I dumped Patch 2008 fast and don't care anymore.

 

That's what I figured anyways. Something like that.

[Guest pfunkmusik]

Hey, guys, I just extracted the FlightEngine.ini file in WOI and moved 'The Wall' damned near to the edge of the map without a CTD using Lexx's advice.

 

pfunk

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Please poast that you can see the great White Abyss? Nobody believes me.

[Guest pfunkmusik]

Please poast that you can see the great White Abyss? Nobody believes me.

 

It's actually kinda wierd. It looks a little like reflective tape on the surface.

 

Anyhow, I can now move The Wall. That's nice.

 

pfunk

[+Major Lee 18]

Flatten first, then tile...

[+EricJ 4,245]

Hey, guys, I just extracted the FlightEngine.ini file in WOI and moved 'The Wall' damned near to the edge of the map without a CTD using Lexx's advice.

 

pfunk

 

Nice.

[+Dave 2,322]

Moved to the Knowledge Base.

[+hgbn 91]

 

 

 

How large can a terrain be??? without getting to trouble

 

I was thinking something like this

[Silverbolt 104]

nice hgbn!

but is it possible to cover all europe ?

i mean, portugal and the black sea....

[+hgbn 91]

 

 

 

You mean like this?? The map is 3000x3000 km

[+Gunrunner 314]

No, no, no, you have to cover the GIUK gap ! jk

[Wrench 9,848]

I've been using 1000 x 1000 km. I disremember if I used 500x for Hawaii and the Mariana. The Panama one is 1000.

 

Obviously, that CAN be much larger; example Lexx's 6 Million Meter Map

I guess it's all in "how" you get the DEMs to merge (which I've been unable to do for Iberia)

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[+hgbn 91]

Those cordinates in the target list is that real world cordinates? I mean can I use the target ini from GermanyCE as a base??