New Terrains

[gillg 4]

Hi guys,

I have been putting rivers and roads in on my swedish terrain, and using google earth as a guide, there are a load of little rivers. So my question to you modders is how far do you go?

How pedantic do you get when making a terrain. I could sit here for hours, no MONTHS, putting all these little rivers and roads in, but how many people would really notice them?

I have so far done poland and the lower half of the old USSR. Also how ACCURATE do you get?

It is a load of fun but very time consuming.

Me inparticular, i like to go for realism, but this is getting a little monotonous.

 

Also any good tips?

[+Brain32 265]

Your dedication is praise worthy, but I must tell you that I for one don't go over my head accuracy, I place cities and rivers with accuracy ofcourse, but roads and rivers are very few and are mostly about those that are either very typical for the part of Earth I'm doing or have a real and important aerial combat story behind them...

 

IMO the terrain making tools are simply not good enough for accuracy me and obviously you too would like to see in-game...

[Wrench 9,417]

Truth be told, the tiles themselves are FAR from accurate ... right now I'm adding the rivers/river mouths at the Bay of Fonseca, Honduras. The river courses don't come near to being accurate, but they follow the "general lay of the land" (which means, switching back and forth from the "terrain tile view" to the "height field view" to make sure they don't look "odd" in game climping up and down mountain sides).

 

Just to let you know, you can ONLY go striaght or curved (at least with the stock WoV tiles) there is no real way to create a river path that runs 45 deg to the terrain; oh sure, you can have meandering rivers with all the curves, but it's won't be like you see in Google Earth.

But, by using the "riverT" in their various incarnations, you get it to follow a general course approx 45-60 deg off the north/south or east/west axis. Expect to do a LOT of testing and retiling!

Have a look at the ASW map, ver 2 that I just released, and you can see how I got the Rio Grande to (generally) follow it's south-easterly course. I did create some 'custom' tiles for that ,too.

 

Accuracy? Get it "close enough for government work", following a somewhat known course, and I'm pretty sure most folks won't bitch too much.

If they do, tell THEM to learn that cursed TE ... and see HOW they like it!!

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[+ST0RM 145]

The only real use for having all of the rivers or lakes, etc would be for VFR navigation. Il-2 was good for that and I could navigate as necessary. With the modern sims, this isnt such a requirement.

 

It's nice to have a detailed map/terrain, but dont kill yourself over it.

 

-S

[+EricJ 3,929]

And it's going to be nice flying over Sweden! Well actually STORM, in anson2's Germany terrain, I used a river for navigation since the target bridge was on it.

[+ST0RM 145]

Well actually STORM, in anson2's Germany terrain, I used a river for navigation since the target bridge was on it.

 

Understood! And the more I think about it, I do still usesome visual landmarks (roads and rivers) to line up certain targets.

 

Thanks for the memory jog Eric.

[+Jug 99]

Understood! And the more I think about it, I do still usesome visual landmarks (roads and rivers) to line up certain targets.

 

Thanks for the memory jog Eric.

As a non-modder, but as an experienced pilot, the more detail and accuracy you put into your map model the better you will feel about the end product and, more importantly, the better the sim aviators can use it. Old saying is that buildings/town are built and destroyed as are roads, but mountains and rivers rarely change and are the pimary source of visual cues for visual navigation. Having said that, be reasonable. Get the big ones in and do a few odds and ends as you will. I can assure you that your fan club will not hold you to an impossible standard. We are all about enjoying what you do give us all and greatly appreciative of your efforts.