Vegetation vs elevation

[Debrody]

Just a thought.
The vegetation (trees, bushes) are placed by a random generator, right? Or are they drawn by the creator of the map?
Either way, i would luv to see them as a function of the ground elevation. Nope, im not thinking about deep forests (FPS killer), but an open ground on the plains, a light forest on the lower mountains, lets say, 2-7K, then "alpin meadows" above them. The consistence of the trees could be determined by a curve with a peak around 5k altitude.

This could add a large boost to the visual impression.
Thoughts?

[FLS]

Don't we already have that?

[Wmaker]

I'd like to see an automated system where trees would be palced over forest textures (darker green) and that fields would be devoid of them unless there is a small patch of green somewhere. I can imagine that it could probably be rather big coding effort. This could allow map makers to make tiles which would have nice variety of scenery with bigger "blotches of forests and smaller rows of trees between the fields for example. Kanttori has done something similar with his latest map. I'm not quite sure if he has laid a lot of it by hand or used some other technique, I don't know enough about the map making to say.

Also, snow over higher peaks would be nice.

[Debrody]

On some maps we already have white, or at least light textures on the peaks, and yes, that looks real nice. Still, there are many trees in the snow, just as many as on the plains. Check it on the trinity map, for exaple.
I was studyig geography a couple years ago, maybe thats why it hurts my eyes.

This is a picture of the highest mountains of the old (large) Hungary, the Magas Tátra (now Velky Tatra, Slovakia)

That walley in the foreground is about 450-550 meters high, the highest peaks are just above 2500m. You can check what i said, plains with less trees, forests, alpin meadows, then rocks and ice.

Or this pic, same place


A summer pic:

[ImADot]

I believe the ground clutter is different for each terrain texture type. So perhaps more care should be taken by the map creator when he paints the textures to make them more logically applied to simulate the real world. I'm hand-tweaking the elevation map of my terrain and hand-painting every tile so it will look the way I want it to look. No shortcuts of painting blobs of grayscales in Paint or Photoshop to set terrain textures.

[USRanger]

The clutter (trees & such) for each terrain type is allowed to be rearranged to better match the texture in an MA terrain if the maker takes the time to do it.  You can't take away or add anything, just rearrange it.  For SEA/AvA terrains, redoing the ground clutter to match the texture perfectly is allowed, including taking away or adding objects.  It's not hard & doesn't add much to the file size, the map maker just needs to take the time to do it.

[Rob52240]

Sure, why not?  But tanking on mountains sucks regardless of how many trees there are.

[715]

I started writing a program that would automatically read USGS DEM files (elevation maps), stitch them together, and then algorithmically choose terrain textures for each pixel based on the elevation and slope.  For example, it would paint farmland on low lying flat areas (no barns on the sides of mountains), forest land on foothills, alpine meadows at high altitude, rock on steep slopes, snow at high elevations etc.  However, I gave up because AH only allows 12 textures (and their 12 clutter sets) per entire terrain, so I figured I'd do all that work and the terrains would just end up looking the same anyway.  (The other problem was water: the elevation data is trivial to read, but the data that specifies where water is located is a pain and an half.)

[MachFly]

Just a thought.
The vegetation (trees, bushes) are placed by a random generator, right? Or are they drawn by the creator of the map?
Either way, i would luv to see them as a function of the ground elevation. Nope, im not thinking about deep forests (FPS killer), but an open ground on the plains, a light forest on the lower mountains, lets say, 2-7K, then "alpin meadows" above them. The consistence of the trees could be determined by a curve with a peak around 5k altitude.

This could add a large boost to the visual impression.
Thoughts?

+1

[MAINER]

+1

[Chugamug]

I have a question for the Map Makers, why aren't there any trees or vegetation on any of the berms? Its not a very natural look, especially from the ground.

Chugamug

[Noir]

(Image removed from quote.)

A summer pic:
(Image removed from quote.)

that game looks nice, what is it?

[Debrody]

that game looks nice, what is it?

Thats a beautiful game called "life". Try it, its addictive, but no new plane in the hangar.

[ImADot]

I have a question for the Map Makers, why aren't there any trees or vegetation on any of the berms? Its not a very natural look, especially from the ground.

Chugamug

Berms, those little hills that seem to stick up like blisters to hide your tank behind? Those are added by the map compiler and we don't have any control over their placement or look (as far as I know).

[Noir]

Thats a beautiful game called "life". Try it, its addictive, but no new plane in the hangar.

Last time I heard about that "life" thing I didn't need any