Author Topic: Vegetation vs elevation  (Read 1059 times)

Offline Debrody

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 4487
Vegetation vs elevation
« on: March 08, 2012, 12:53:57 PM »
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?
AoM
City of ice

Offline FLS

  • AH Training Corps
  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 11621
      • Trainer's Website
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2012, 01:08:33 PM »
Don't we already have that?

Offline Wmaker

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 5743
      • Lentolaivue 34 website
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2012, 01:17:44 PM »
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.
Wmaker
Lentolaivue 34

Thank you for the Brewster HTC!

Offline Debrody

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 4487
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2012, 01:35:03 PM »
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:
AoM
City of ice

Offline ImADot

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 6215
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #4 on: March 08, 2012, 10:40:43 PM »
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.
My Current Rig:
GigaByte GA-X99-UD4 Mobo w/ 16Gb RAM
Intel i7 5820k, Win7 64-bit
NVidia GTX 970 4Gb ACX 2.0
Track IR, CH Fighterstick, CH Pro Throttle, CH Pro Pedals

Offline USRanger

  • AvA Staff Member
  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 10325
      • BoP Home
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #5 on: March 08, 2012, 11:37:22 PM »
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.
Axis vs Allies Staff Member
☩ JG11 Sonderstaffel ☩
Flying 'Black[Death] 10' ☩JG11☩

Only the Proud, Only the Strong Ne Desit Virtus

Offline Rob52240

  • Persona Non Grata
  • Gold Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3770
      • My AH Films
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #6 on: March 09, 2012, 12:15:33 PM »
Sure, why not?  But tanking on mountains sucks regardless of how many trees there are.
If I had a gun with 3 bullets and I was locked in a room with Bin Laden, Hitler, Saddam and Zipp...  I would shoot Zipp 3 times.

Offline 715

  • Silver Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1835
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #7 on: March 10, 2012, 12:37:03 AM »
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.)

Offline MachFly

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 6296
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2012, 12:39:46 AM »
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
"Now, if I had to make the choice of one fighter aircraft above all the others...it would be, without any doubt, the world's greatest propeller driven flying machine - the magnificent and immortal Spitfire."
Lt. Col. William R. Dunn
flew Spitfires, Hurricanes, P-51s, P-47s, and F-4s

Offline MAINER

  • Nickel Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 607
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #9 on: March 10, 2012, 08:01:19 AM »
+1
Are those our bombers?-famous last words



 Member of the congregation of The church of David Wales

Offline Chugamug

  • Zinc Member
  • *
  • Posts: 56
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #10 on: March 11, 2012, 05:55:40 PM »
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

Offline Noir

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 5964
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #11 on: March 11, 2012, 06:29:42 PM »
now posting as SirNuke

Offline Debrody

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 4487
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #12 on: March 11, 2012, 06:52:13 PM »
that game looks nice, what is it?
Thats a beautiful game called "life". Try it, its addictive, but no new plane in the hangar.
AoM
City of ice

Offline ImADot

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 6215
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #13 on: March 11, 2012, 09:46:07 PM »
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).
My Current Rig:
GigaByte GA-X99-UD4 Mobo w/ 16Gb RAM
Intel i7 5820k, Win7 64-bit
NVidia GTX 970 4Gb ACX 2.0
Track IR, CH Fighterstick, CH Pro Throttle, CH Pro Pedals

Offline Noir

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 5964
Re: Vegetation vs elevation
« Reply #14 on: March 12, 2012, 07:13:46 AM »
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  :D
now posting as SirNuke