Terrain vocabulary... edit and suggest!

[BlauK]

We often misunderstand what people are talking about in this forum.. tiles, textures, objects, editors, etc.....

Here is an attempt for a common terrain vocabulary. Please edit it, add to it, make corrections and suggestions

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-grid (?)
25 miles, divided like keypad into 9 sectors

-mile grid / mile square
1x1 miles, 5280 feet (units in "TE" and "OE"), divided in 4 "quadrants"

-quadrant
2640x2640 feet, there is one "transition" on each quadrant lenght

-TE
Terrain editor

-OE
Object editor

-tile
used for both the "texture tile" and the "object tile" (often confusing!!!)

-grid texture / grid tile (?)
placed in "TE", covers the whole "mile grid", made out of 4 "quadrant" sized "texture tiles" and "object tiles"

-texture tile
a bmp file presenting grass, sand, water, etc.

-object tile
a terrain object compilation which is automatically associated with each "texture tile" in TE, made and edited in "OE"

-object definition
defines the purpose and function of the object both in "TE" and "OE"

-object properties
defined in "OE"

-object tags
defined at each level of the object hierarchy tree in Ac3d program or in text editor

[Easyscor]

Everyone in-game understands a 25 mile square grid to be a sector subdivided into keypads.  That shouldn't change when they read this forum.

tile:
This one really needs work but you're fighting the text in the help files.

I suggest continue using tile for the TE and use "pad" as in sketch pad for the OE.  Place an object on the pad and place the pad on the tile.  The correct editor would quickly be understood.

A grid line is something you don't want your pad to cross in the TE and a slice line is something you don't want to land your trees on when building a tile on the pad in the OE.

I understood a tile to be divided into 4 "subtiles" of 2640x2640 feet.

Tab in the TE - aka terrain flap

[NHawk]

-quadrant
2640x2640 feet, there is one "transition" on each quadrant lenght

Not quite right...


NOTE: This should read "All edges of sub-tiles must tile seamlessly"





And for those who might like to change the rules by playing with the plb files...

[BlauK]

NHawk,
That is a good presentation of "transitions". I was merely trying to define "quadrant" and give some extra reference to its size with that comparison to a single transition size.


Easy,
IMO the game terms like sectors are quite ok there. They should not change, but they are not very useful here. For example a sector would be 1/3 of 25 miles times 1/3 of 25 miles.... something uneven for map making reasons.

Easy said:
"Place an object on the pad and place the pad on the tile."

I find the "pad" a bit curious, but what would yo mean with "tile" in that sentence?
Also, have you noticed a "tiles" folder in the editor? It has the .til files for the OE. So it is pretty difficult not to use tiles for OE, unless HTC changes the names.


It seems that even we three understand "tile" differently. And the old help files dont help much. I dont think they have been updated after OE was released.

Here are FOUR interpretations of "tiles".. A, B, C and D:




What would you call them?

A) the texture which fills a quarter of the mile square, a "quadrant"?
(this is the most often called "tile"...  "can someone give me some tiles?")

B) the object tile which produces the terrain objects for the quadrant
(actually only 1/4 of the whole object tile is used for that markes TE corner)

C) the quarter of the mile square in TE... made out of texture and objects
(so is this a quadrant or sub-tile even though it is made out of a texture tile and of a quarter of a object tile?)

D) the whole mile square
(it uses the same terrain type, if C is a sub-tile, is this then a tile?)


So... which one of those is "A TILE"? What are the other then? Should they all be called  "insert name here"-tiles or shoud they be separated from each other with clearly different names and leave the name "tile" only if it really is a tile?

A) texture sub-tile / terrain texture file  (4 files cover a whole tile?)
B) object sub-tile    (the whole blue thing is an "object tile")
C) mile quadrant / terrain tile quadrant
D) mile square / terrain tile


This way it could be said that: "a terrain tile consists 4 quadrants, each of which are made out of 1 terrain texture file and of a quarter of an terrain object tile".

Currently people say: "A tile has 4 tiles which have 1 tile and a part of a tile".

[NHawk]

The terrain texture tiles were called tiles long before the object editor existed and when the terrain was made up of 1 mile square tiles not the current 1/2 mile tile. I think they got their name because they tend to look like tiles on a kitchen floor if not seamed properly.

So I agree, the simple fix would be to call terrain tiles, terrain textures and OE tiles object tiles. And object textures just that, object textures.

But getting everyone to go along with that would be a nightmare. The first post after every request for tile help would have to be something like "Do you mean terrain textures, object tiles or object textures?" and no further responses until that is replied to. Kind of harsh but it would get to the proper topic without confusion.

[Easyscor]

There's only about two dozen of us that respond to questions in here and only 6 or so who really understand most of it.  Why don't you gurus decide and let the rest of us know.  We'll do our best to follow.

Keep in mind language and custom please.

[BlauK]

Actually it would be kind of nice if HTC people could tell us what they call all the different thinggies

[Easyscor]

I like NHawks suggestion for a new forum.  Maybe need one for ac3d too.

[BlauK]

Maybe the ac3d stuff could be under the possible object forum. It leads directly to OE even though that stuff is not required to use OE.

Then again, I dont know how useful it would be to separate things to different forums since this one is not that lively anyways. As long as people can tell what they are talking about, things could work ok in a single forum as well.

[Easyscor]

Ah but if you're looking for stuff specific to the TE or OE, a single forum for each would be better.  I'll bow to your opinion on ac3d.