The Terrain Editor Thread

[Wrench 9,851]

HERE HERE!!! Crosseyed, crazy but still able to load my pistol or rifle or shotgon..or or...or.....

 

Personally, I'd reccomend a semi-jacket hollow point, in your favorite caliber thats LARGER than .38. Or a 12 gauge....

Or anything that leaves are REALLY big hole....

 

wrench

kevin stein

[+GrinchWSLG 24]

Is River List nonfunctional? Doesn't seem to do anything if I try to make a new one.

 

Should I place all my airfields and cities before manually tiling? I mean, does autotiling to update a new entry into say, Cities List, wipe out all my manual work?

[Wrench 9,851]

Re: river list.

Not that I've seen in either the old 'desert' SF editor or the WoV/E/I version. However, in the WoV/E/I, I think Stary or Purblue said the roads function works.

 

As to airfields and cities, do all the 'general' tiling first (mountains, fields, desert, etc). Place the city tiles, using as close to real-world placements as possible -which can be difficult at best due to the utter lack of proper transition tiles (about 15-30 more acutally are needed)

Airfields should also have 'clear' tiles -like the AB1 in WoV. You don't want buildings and trees in the middle of the runway/taxiway/parking ramp. Again, custom made tiles work well here (fer instance, the GrassAB tile I did up for some terrains)

 

Basically, auto tile/auto transition, and HAND tile all airfields and cities. Expect to go back and forth (TE to game to TE) a LOT of times!!

 

wrench

kevin stein

[+GrinchWSLG 24]

Thanks Wrench.

 

After playing with it a bit I think I'm going to make my own tileset from sat images and my usual photoshoppery handywork. Even though it may be a bit over my head, it'll keep me occupied enough.

 

I assume the best way to do rivers is to hand tile them? Roads too I suppose.

 

After playing autotransition all it seems to do is mess up a majority of the map, like putting coast tiles in horizontal lines through where there used to be land.

 

EDIT: Oh yeah, I'm using the latest version of the editor (042106) and using resources pulled from SF2:V. Dunno why the River List doesn't work, just doesn't save anything when I click make new list. Maybe I should make one manually in notepad and see if it loads it.

Edited November 3, 2009 by GrinchWSLG

[Pappa Goat 3]

How can I load the SouthVietnam map into the TE to edit it???

[Wrench 9,851]

There are several way to get a stock terrain into the TE..I'll make the assumption this is the stock VietnamSEA map, if another, we'll need to know that.

 

one is to use the extractor,and pull EVERYTHING out of the terrain cat file. This will have the side effect of not only extracting the inis and tiles you'll need, but all the terrain objects as well. Those can be deleted (that's all the buildings, runways, and their associated bmps and tgas)

 

another is to use the extractor and ONLY pull the files you need. They would be

 

vietnamsea.tfd

vietnamsea.hfd

vietnamsea.ini (alrady out)

vietnamsea_data.ini

 

please note, the _types and _targets.inis aren't really necessary, but they come in handy if you're adding a new location, like a airfield that'll need flattening, or a city (and thereby editing the citylist.ini) or whatever. Might be a good idea, in the long run.

 

Then, you'll need to extract ALL the terrain tiles -there's 104 of them on the stock map, in BOTH bmp and tga formats. Once extracted, you MUST convert the tgas to bitmap (bmp), or the TextuelistWoV.ini won't see them at all. Any good imaging progarm should be able to to that (Photoshop, Gimp). Make double damn sure they are saved as bmp and copy bmp -that happens some times.

 

Then, useing ONLY the WoV/WoE/WoI terrain editor, create a new subfolder, call it VietnamSEA, move all the inis, the tfd and hfd into that folder.

All the tile bmps go in the MAIN TE folder, where the TE's exe is. Along with the city list and texture list

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: if the terrain you're using in NOT the stock map, you'll need the texturelist/city list FOR that map, otherwise it just ain't gonna happen. However, if said map is using stock tiles or tiles with the stock naming conventions, it should be (no garuntees!!) OK. Any terrain-specific tiles will need to be added to the texturelist, via the edit texture list function in the TE, or very strange things happen.

 

wrench

kevin stein

[Pappa Goat 3]

Yeh the SouthVietnam map is from the ground war mod. It's the same as the VietnamSEA Map just the mod uses two copies to split the air war up north from that of down south, so thus the targets are different.

 

Ok I've got it loaded to the point I see the height map. How does one view or control tile placement?

 

In short, in the SouthVietnam targets there around 4 Fire Support Bases as well as the Khe Sanh Combat Support Base market as target areas on the map. They do not, however have anything on them. I've started to create populated bases, however this now needs the placement of custom made and existing tiles in certain places to create jungle clearings, that are also level. Khe Sanh isn't too hilly but also has an air strip and will take up at least two tiles. The FSBs are all but one in the highlands and only an area of about 300 meters across needs to be flattened.

[Wrench 9,851]

the minium I've been able to flatten is 1-2 km in radius, and even then there's no garuntee (sp?) it'll be exactly where you want it. And it WILL screw up any surrounding hills, etc. So be EXTREAMLY carefull in FSB placements ... sometimes, after flattening you'll find it in a hole or on top a mesa.

 

As to placement, you'll go to View/Texture tile, and us the 'place single tile' tool -- it looks like a pencil

I take it you haven't read Gepard's terrain creation tutorials? If not, give them a look over.

 

you'll need to use maxium zoom, 3200 -- and it ain't NEARLY enough, use costom 1-tile cleared zones, as anything else (G-AB1 and J-AB1 when used properly, in their 4 tile setup) are FAR to large. You'll find just such a tile in the Okinawa map; it also works real good to place Runway3 airbases on (iirc, its VietnamG-AB3, and has an associated TOD)

 

You'll also need the COMPLETE citylist for VietnamSEA WITH ALL the additional target areas that were added from that pak. If one dosen't exist, you'll have to recreate it. Follow the format of the original listings

 

my advice: get VERY familiar with all the functions in the TE first, before messing with anything new.

Make Backup Copies of EVERYTHING Before and After Every Save - there's no 'undo' function. You make a mistake, you're screwed. But, if you've got the backups, you can CYA.

 

and good luck ... you'll be needing it!

 

wrench

kevin stein

[Pappa Goat 3]

hmm ok... yeh the point is when I go to view texture.... there's nothing.

 

None of the guides are a complete step by step walk through, they often say to do something without explaining exactly how.

[Wrench 9,851]

You said you can view the Height Field...so that means it's seeing the HFD

 

Did you load the WoV texture list??? Without doing that, it dosen't know WHAT textures to load (and I totally agree with you ... there be some steps missing. The TE is also one of the worst pieces of s**t software I've ever seen ... it's not intuative in any way, shape or form)

 

The tiling map, if you will, is stored in the TFD file; so when you save you'll see 'newly' creatd TFD and HFD files. You can see that they're 'new', if you have file extensions/date modified columns turned on in Windoze Explorer. Which is HIGLY reccomended...

 

(make sure you back up the original VietnamSEA.TFD and HFDs before dropping the new ones into the game's terrain folder!!!! The good thing with stock terrains, is they'll still exist, albeit in unmodded form, in the terrain cat)

 

wrench

kevin stein

[Pappa Goat 3]

Yeh load the WOV texture list n nout. Wondering if they texture list is synchronized with the new map tiles, but they should be, they're all the same names as the old ones.

[Wrench 9,851]

Yes, the texturelist is sycned to the data ini, which MUST have the tiles in the exact same sequence as the texturelist

 

another thought came to me....you're attempting this in NextGen seies...the TE only works for 1st Gen. Check the coding of any/all inis (and the bmps, if necessary -although I don't think there's a "coding" for image files) you've imported.

Meaning: are they ANSI or Unicode? If Unicode, convert back to ANSI and see what happens.

 

I've never had a problem getting a terrain to open, all things being equal.

 

wrench

kevin stein

Edited December 20, 2009 by Wrench

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Wrench, why won't TE work with SF2? None of the old terrains can be used? Or do they just need manual changing of file types for New Sim.

 

 

Grinch (last page November) ::

After playing autotransition all it seems to do is mess up a majority of the map, like putting coast tiles in horizontal lines through where there used to be land.

Missing transition tiles.

 

We always try to take shortcuts, thinking we don't need to make a transition set, but we do need it. Evidence is the horizontal or vertical strips of the first tile tile listed -- often the sea tile is made first. That's TE's way of defaulting if a transition tile is not there.

 

 

 

This is the new Terrain Editor Icon ~>

 

But then, when the jobs done, the Icon is ~>

[Wrench 9,851]

Probably ANSI vs Unicode.

 

Don't forget, the TE really dosen't even work with 08 level games -- it ain't be updated since 4/2006 for WoV/WoE/WoI version. The SF Desert TE is even older. It's missing most if not all the 'newer' stuff for terrain shaders and the like. All that has to be added later to the _DATA.INI by the builder.

 

Also, the fact that all the 4 stock terrains (not counting the 2 in FE) are all identical, with only new effects added.

 

But, like I said above, I haven't had any problems getting older terrains working in SF2 NextGens, other than making a few simple ini edits to bring the fx up to speed.

 

TK's promised us a new one, but I for one, sure ain't holding my breath.

 

btw, those are SUPERB icons for the TE, and right on the money!

 

wrench

kevin stein

[gillg 4]

Hi guys

 

Trying to get back into my swedish terrain after my HD crash so i know how far i got. But TE wont let me open any texturelist at all. I get 2 blue bars then it crashes. I am sure that i have converted all tga's to bmps, all 256x256 bmps, read all posts here and adhered to pertaining ones, including the latest TE version, but it wont work.

 

Any help?

 

It used to work before my HD crash.

[gillg 4]

Well guys, it works. I extracted all the bmp's from germanyCE.cat and overwrote all the ones in my sweden folder. Voila, it now works. Now its back to terrain building........Yeah, wooo!

[Stratos 3,192]

Kevin, how can I load my new "Desert Textures" in order to place the trees on them? I tried to search for explanation about that, but with no luck

[Wrench 9,851]

Statos: Sorry, brother. I could show you via screenies, but I'm not sure this old standby machine will work the TE so good. I guess I'll test it after a while today.... (EDIT: I guess I do work!!)

 

BUT....

I can tell you, that if you're just adding them to the Existing tiles, that's pretty easy.

 

With the TE open, and the Desert terrain (HFD) loaded, load the Desert texture list. YOu should see the map, with all the tiles laid out.

Then, on the tool bar at the top ... Texture List ... it'll open a drop down. "Edit Texture Map List". That'll open the full listing, with all the tiles listed as they appear in the texturelist ini. Scroll until you find the one you want, click on it, and it'll open a popuu window "Texture Map Dialog". Over in the lower right corner, you'll see "Terrain Objects". This is where you activate the buildings and trees that are in the TOD files. Then, in the screenie below, yo can see the arrow ponint to "Place Object", that'll take you to the next screen, when you physically place the trees and buildings. THAT screen is the one I showed in the other Thread.

 

But, if you're ONLY just replacing the desert tiles with your new 'scrub' ones, you'll have to take those bmps, and drop them into the TE with the same names as the existing 2 desert tiles. Then, you can go to into the Texture Map Dialog, and add the trees where they'd fit on the new scrub tiles

 

Better yet, would be to ADD them to the texturelist, keeping the Desert1 and Desert2 tiles -which I reccomend for the more harsh and arid regions), and them hand place the NEW scrub tiles in the border zones between the desert2farm. Unfortunately, this means you'll HAVE to create the 3 new transition tiles for Scrub2Farm25, Scrub2Farm50 and Scrub2Farm75. Then, you'll have to create even MORE tiles for the transition from scrub to desert ... Scrub2Desert25, Scrub2Desert50 and Scrub2Desert75.

So, you can see it's just not as simple as you're thinking it is. Even if you replace the 2 desert tiles with you're new scrub, you must create new transitons for the various regions -- farm to desert, desert to city, desert to sea, desert to mountain, etc. Otherwise, you get the effect of 'tiling' as seen in your screenshot in the other Forum Thread.

 

Again creating 1 tile means you have to create 4 tiles to match .. the main (center square), plus the edges or transition tiles that surround it.

 

In essence, you're completly Rebuilding the Desert terrain, so in the end you'll have a new data ini (with the new tile listings), and 2 completly new TFD and HFD files. These will totally replace the existing units in the Desert.cat.

 

wrench

kevin stein

Edited May 8, 2010 by Wrench

[+Spectre8750 167]

CTD on a Terrain i've made question

 

Hi all

 

I've created a Terrain that is 4000x4000 pix 2000x2000 km grid. It will cause a CTD only if you cycle through the Ground Radar. i've tested Edwards Korea terrain

which is the same size but doesn't have that problem and i''ve ruled out the Hight Field Data file. It seems to be in the Tile Field Data file.

Can you give me any clues to why this happens with terrains at 2000x2000 km or above for future reference?

 

Please help!

Thanks

Spectre8750

[+Major Lee 18]

4:1 not 2:1

[+Spectre8750 167]

Thanks Major Lee

 

but the size is correct. I found the problem though. I'm using seasonal terrain and for some reason putting a tileset in the Mod Terrains root folder

fixed the problem.

 

Thanks

[umm 84]

Is there a TextureList for isreal?

[karl2c 3]

Hi man, I would like to remove one or two 3d house?

 

thx!

 

karl2c

[karl2c 3]

ok 3d tool for, sorry!

 

karl2c