Basic Questions

[badhorse]

I followed Bogie's tutorial which was a great start and printed out and read the TE help file but I still have some questions.

1.   How do you make irregular coastlines, land areas, etc.?  All my tiles are just square blocks.

2.   How do you make gently rolling hills or mountains?  When I change elevations I end up with cone shapes with steep sides.

3.   Is there a list of what all the object codes are?  I renamed the shape filter text file per the TE help file and my list of available objects is quite extensive.  But I have no idea what the majority of them are.

4.    Is there a way to view the objects before saving the file? For example if I want to see the difference between hill3 and hill 7.

5.   In Bogie's tutorial the carrier isn't given a map room, but in the MA they are.  They are usually stuck up on a mountain top some where out of the way.  Since the CV's are tied to a port, what is the reason for giving them a map room?

Okay, I'll quit for now.     Any help would be appreciated.

     thanks

[Bogie603rd]

Q1: You have to change the coast-line variation, which Duh, Blauk, NHawk, or some other people here will be able to help you with.

Q2: To make gently rolling hills you need a larger terrain area. You have to gradually raise/lower the ground on each 9 parts of the tile. That way there is a smooth transition from ground zero, to ground 2,000 or whatever your designated height for the mountain is to be.

Q3: My Best suggestion is to click on all of them (One at a time of course), and add them to your terrain. Just use defualt of "VOID" as properies, and then zoom in to see what the object is. Then once you see, delete it.

Q4: Used to it was rather simple to view your terrain from "God's Eye". You just used your joystick, pressed down a button, used the throttle to control how fast you would move forwards/backwards. And then just moved about your terrain. Some still have that option right now, but you would have to ask skuzzy or easycor how to re-map controls so god's eye will work with the TE.

Q5: For MA maps, the carriers are required to have map rooms, that way the carrier is capable of being stolen. How this works, I do not know. But you can ask NHawk, Raptor, and propably Blauk how to make this work.

[Easyscor]

Originally posted by badhorse

1.   How do you make irregular coastlines, land areas, etc.?  All my tiles are just square blocks.

Hi badhorse

Others will explain better how to make custom terrain tiles but the key is in the alpha bitmap.  Search on alpha.


2.   How do you make gently rolling hills or mountains?  When I change elevations I end up with cone shapes with steep sides.

>Realistic elevations are hard and can be time consuming. The TE has a great feature that allows you to do most of the work using a grayscale bitmap.  Depending on where you are in your project, in the TE, under File, export your current elevations to a bitmap file.  Write down the maximum elevation height, you'll need it later.  Then with photoshop or GIMP, expand the view to the maximum and use the smudge tool to smooth the elevation changes and sculpt wrinkles and canyons, this breaks up those long ridgelines and sharp peaks.  Be sure to work on copies only and expect to fine tune it in the TE afterwards, check for water not zero. When you've done what you can with the bitmap, import the bitmap elevations back into your project, this is where you need to remember the maximum elevation height. It's not perfect but it will save you hours of work in the TE.

3.   Is there a list of what all the object codes are?  I renamed the shape filter text file per the TE help file and my list of available objects is quite extensive.  But I have no idea what the majority of them are.

>The shpfilter is your friend. You can catch on to the basic naming convention in an hour or two.  It might be helpful to open the Object Editor and scroll through the list of shapes in there.  Otherwise, you’ll have to place the objects on your terrain and look at them one at a time. Keep in mind you don’t get a sense of scale in the OE’s preview window. Btw, don’t run the AH, the OE or TE at the same time, it might work for awhile but sooner or later one of them will crash.

4.    Is there a way to view the objects before saving the file? For example if I want to see the difference between hill3 and hill 7.

>Not sure I understand what you mean, just place the shape and look at it.

5.   In Bogie's tutorial the carrier isn't given a map room, but in the MA they are.  They are usually stuck up on a mountain top some where out of the way.  Since the CV's are tied to a port, what is the reason for giving them a map room?

>Give the CVs a maproom.

Okay, I'll quit for now.     Any help would be appreciated.

Enjoy,