Equador/Peru terrain project WIP, input wanted from Terrain Gurus

[Centurion-1]

Ok, so I might have a case of modding AD/HD, but Stratos PM'd me about my A-37B a day ago, and lamented the lack of a good terrain for the Alto Cenepa war of 1995 . I have been dabbling a bit in TE and thought, how hard could it be?  

 

Ergo, I now have a working prototype of the map that me and Startos are going to try to work into a campaign map for said war, and also other potentially interesting regional conflicts. But before we proceed, I want to check with resident terrain gurus about my workflow and planned approach for this.

 

What I have done so far:

1) Started new project

Terrain Map Size 1000km

Texture Tile Resolution 2000m

Height field resolution 500m

2) Imported my DEMs

Longitude 85W

Latitude 5N

Map scale 75% (I guess we do this to get more manageable distances?)

Height Scale 100%

3) I got this:

I guess by using 75% scale this 1000 in game km map equals 1333km of terrain IRL?

 

The plan:

A) Stratos starts filling out the cities list and targets ini at the same time

B) I do the necessary tile work. The Peruvian coast needs to be more or less desert, so I have started working off of Wrench excellent WOV texturelist, adding some desert tiles and also farm tiles. The tiles are by Stary for the jungle bits from the central america map and the desert bits are JSF Aggies as seen in the Desert 4 map.

C) Once we are more or less satisifed with targeting and cities, I do airbase flattening in TE.

D) Because I cant get the exclusion zones set up so that only the peruvian coast is autotextured with desert tiles, I will then do an autotexture times two, one for the jungles and one for the peruvian coast and by the magic of TFD editor I will cut'n'paste these into one. 

E) I/We will go over the map adding airbase tiles where needed and just generally ensure all cities are kosher.

F) Only then will I do tranisiton textures in Terrain editor. IF all goes well and there are enough transition tiles we should have a beutfiul map.

G) Now we will add all the necessary rivers using the new feature in Gerwins TFD tool (overlaying geographical map). Maybe some roads also.

 

 

 

So what haven't I thought of?

 

[+Menrva]

Awesome project, Centurion-1! You have thought of everything, I'd say. I'm just not sure about the Map Scale thing, if I'm correct according to Wrench it should be around 126%, because a Map Scale of 100% in the TerrainEditor equals to the 63% of the real-world distances in-game. Moreover I'd suggest you try experimenting with the Texture Tile Resolution: a lower value (1000m is good enough) gives more precision than 2000m, meaning that the tiles are smaller and can cover more details of the HFD.

 

I hope this proves useful. BTW (I don't want to hijack this thread) Gerwin's TFDtool new feature might prompt me to resume my tiling work (damned rivers!) with the Iran/Iraq terrain for your mod. I just wanted to let you know in case you were wondering. Thanks and keep it up.

[Antares81]

Very good project .... next terrain can be a Balkan Theater whit Italian Airbase and Mediterrean Sea ?

[Peugeot205]

Very good project .... next terrain can be a Balkan Theater whit Italian Airbase and Mediterrean Sea ?

 

Balkan terrain is WIP

[Wrench]

Indeed, 120% .. because what's 63 times 2???

 

Also, for rivers and their associated valleys, be prepared to export height map as bmp, 'repaint' the river valleys on HM.bmp, import height map from bmp, retile, retest in game, and repeat as needed.  It's a fucking nightmare!! Trust me! (and most importantly .. SAVE A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL HEIGHT MAP BMP!!!!)

 

(btw, this is only for mountain river valleys. on level ground, it don't matter

 

 

For height scale, I us 110%. If one winds up doing a "smooth height field', that will help maintain the altitude of the Andes

[Centurion-1]

Thx wrench, good save! Reimported!

[Centurion-1]

Well things are going rather well in terrain land! As I suspected the new features in Gerwins terrain tool makes targeting a breeze. I am now zipping up the proto terrain and handing it to Stratos for some targeting. 

Below you can see some test shots of the mountains and airstrip plus river, and also lots of action. The tiles are currently WIP of course, some color correction of the mountains will be necessary but overall I'm pleased for it to be this early. And something I created from scratch, no less (tho with a lot of borrowing from the excellent work here at CA).

 

[Wrench]

in picture #1, I see you, like me, have rivers that defy the Laws of Physics!!   You'll have to locate the x/y of that, and remove that hill. Try to keep rivers as FLAT as possible.

Because when you flatten that airfield, the TE will RAISE the land surrounding it to match the hill., So best to remove it. You can resculpt the hill/mountains to some extent on the hm bmp. The various colors define "how high" a given region is.

[Centurion-1]

Yeah I know, just testing. As I said in my plan, I will go over and make rivers as the very last item, just wanted to test how it looks. The river should go  where the airstrip is, it would seem. is there any good really small airstrips in some terrain, like just a single dirt runway?

[Stratos]

is there any good really small airstrips in some terrain, like just a single dirt runway?

I will love to add such type of airstrip for narco ops, maybe even with a small pickup waiting for the drug to be delivered. Man how I will love to see a Super Tucano.

[Wrench]

(hint:)

have you looked in my most recent terrain, the ww2 Formosa??? MontyCZ did me a favor.  Seek out the "landingstrip" item therein. And then, I'll let you in on the other "secrets" ....insert evil laugh <HERE>

 

as to the "clear zone", you'll still need a tile such as the one your using.

[Centurion-1]

Thx Wrench, downloading now!

[lauro rafael]

I just came to say hello...

[Wilches]

I just came to say hello...

Fala Lauro! Porra, teu Avatar é horroroso!!!!

[Stratos]

I'm waiting for Cent answer to my PM guys, maps is more or less completed, it need some refinements on tiles on the coastal parts, but apart from that is more or less completed.

[+russouk2004]

Ive no idea when doing terrains.....for rivers...can u use a 3d mesh cut out ravines etc and add it in terrain to map?

[Wrench]

nope, unfortunately

 

you have to physically cut the gorges by painting them on the exported height map bmp, then reimporting, checking in game, and repeat as necessary. And it's all guesswork

One of the main problems, is a 1 pixel brush creates a 5km wide canyon on maps of standard scale

 

water features is something the terrain engine doesn't handle very well. At all.

 

Been there, done that, lost the hair, etc (example: Yalu river valley in Korea, Panama Canal)

[Centurion-1]

If we only could have tile specific parallax or bump mapping, then the old engine could look 10x better by adding fake depth info. And stratos, sorry about the huge delay RL has been a PITA. WOrking that Dragonfly now, you will have something nice in your PM soon :)

[Stratos]

It's ok, the two terrains will be a great addition If we can get them finished!

[+russouk2004]

reason I asked is because ive found a way to get the terrain into 3ds max...from say SF2 Europe for example...so was wondering if could do the reverse..

I stress that the files are for personal use and not negotiable    ( just my statement of non piracy lol)

if TK would get off his high horse and give us the greenlight....the possibilities are endless...

Edited April 27, 2015 by russouk2004