Terrain Editor

[bustr]

Greebo,

Laid it down on a 2050ft mesa, took the defaults and made it "structure" [STR].

Setting the tank objects to FUB allows me to change the HE amount needed to destroy it. The best I can get time down to is 120 minutes.  As VOD or STR I could get the down time to 1 minute. Changing the hardness for those two accomplished nothing for the AP ammo. The fuel bunkers will go down from AP, not anything else I set to FUB. When Hitech says "no" it's a nope.....wonder what made it possible for one day that the AP ammo was destroying everything I set to STR.....on well.

So for bombing targets and HE ammo at least, things can be made to go boom. For AP then, the really fantastic hit response is the prize, or set another tank in the drone circle if I want a kaboom. Weeeeeeeee....

[Greebo]

Try setting TT to "groupmaster" instead.

[bustr]

I placing the wrong one of the two objects that make up the total object down. I noticed 70ft accounts for all of the terrain variations in the object itself and only allows the object's lake to show.

[Easyscor]

Patch 84

In AH2, the lines for Boat entry points were blue, not so in the AH3 TE Show Entry. All entry points are yellow(?). It's a small point but worth keeping in mind.

Terrain editor: Building terrain
One of my test terrains with a single A1 base has several custom objects but no 'Paths', TGs or Waypoints.
Check terrain still flags each custom object as an error, as well as my missing Rook and Knight fields and HQs.

When building, (yes it builds) the editing part of the window goes blank with the disturbing message in the window title, "(not responding)". The Map window remains, as well as the tabs of the edit window but the build (Checking for errors...) window may drop behind other windows on the desktop. Sorry, I can't remember what I was doing when it happened and it might have been the Build complete window. I include it in case someone else notices later.

As well as part of the edit window going blank, the Checking for errors window goes blank after displaying the first 4 lines. It's disturbing, but the window starts responding again and displays the missing lines before the build completes after that.

For the first time, I clicked the Cancel button in the Checking for errors window in the middle of a build and it worked.

I'm anxious to see my river paths at least in offline mode. In the meantime I guess I'll keep working on more custom objects. I'd like both features to be uploadable.  

Another collision difference I've noticed between AH2 and 3 is the missing hit sprites in the trees when firing guns at them. The exploding foliage is great but I'm left wondering what happened to the hit sprites when hitting the tree trunks?

I was prompted to notice this when hit sprites appeared in the transparent parts of a surface in an _alpha texture for the Eiffel tower. Just when everything else is working great, the transparent portions cause a plane or bullet to collide. 
Hit a pixel, yes, then I want it to collide but if it's blue sky?  Argh, LOL.
I don't know if it's my flags, the texture or the current state of the AH3 Alpha.

[bustr]

At least now on the terrain after you "build", when you reopen the terrain you see your spawn points. I had to exit then reopen after I ran the build for alpha 84 to see the tiny arrow.

If I place a spawnentry point in the water, does it automatically limit it to PT to use that spawn? And If I give one elevation, say 10,000ft, does that automatically limit it to aircraft? What is the limit on maximum numbers of spawn from a field? 

[Easyscor]

CORRECTION

Patch 84

CORRECTION

When building, (yes it builds) the editing part of the window goes blank with the disturbing message in the window title, "(not responding)". The Map window remains, as well as the tabs of the edit window but the build (Checking for errors...) window may drop behind other windows on the desktop. Sorry, I can't remember what I was doing when it happened and it might have been the Build complete window. I include it in case someone else notices later.

As well as part of the edit window going blank, the Checking for errors window goes blank after displaying the first 4 lines. It's disturbing, but the window starts responding again and displays the missing lines before the build completes after that.

This was apparently caused by improper textures or texture combinations.

[Easyscor]

At least now on the terrain after you "build", when you reopen the terrain you see your spawn points. I had to exit then reopen after I ran the build for alpha 84 to see the tiny arrow.

If I place a spawnentry point in the water, does it automatically limit it to PT to use that spawn? And If I give one elevation, say 10,000ft, does that automatically limit it to aircraft? What is the limit on maximum numbers of spawn from a field?

No.
Remember, the Object Type drop-down menu.

[bustr]

I can spawn a fighter elsewhere on the island but, the y setting seems to have no effect. Even with the arrow now red floating at 10,000ft in the editor. When I use that spawn offline, the fighter spawns on the ground. I used object entpnt and description Ftr Entry. Guess there needs to be something like "airentpnt". Interesting ramification for creating alternate take off strips at some distance from the main field.

[hitech]

I assume you have unchecked set to terrain alt?

HiTech

[bustr]

Yes because I thought that is how it would work. I remembered the problem getting the GV objects up out of the sand. Could not create a PT spawn, or I have not been told how to yet.

Also discovered if you mislabel an object "Tower" that is set near a vehicle spawn. You see a mirror of the airfield object at the location you placed the object if it is owned by the original airfield. The mirror of A1 labeled A1, also faced to the west which is the direction I aimed the vehicle spawn. Found and labeled the object correctly, ran a build, and the mirror airfield was gone.

As I was writing this, my mouse was very slow so I looked in my active processes list. I had exited from the terrain editor but, ahedit32.exe was still running. It may have done that because I forgot once I had minimized the running alpha instead of exiting full out when I opened the terrain editor to change something.

[Greebo]

When I import a height map into the TE the terrain altitudes update to match as they should. However the highlights and shadows that are playing on the terrain do not update. To test this I created a flat plateau where previously there were mountains and I could still see the shadows of the original mountains on the plateau. The new height map changes are also not reflected when I do a "make map" since that uses the highlights and shadows to create the 3D effect in the map.

Exiting and entering the TE updates the lighting, so I can work around this issue now I know about it. It caused me some head scratching for a while though as I couldn't work out why my height map changes weren't working.

[hitech]

When I import a height map into the TE the terrain altitudes update to match as they should. However the highlights and shadows that are playing on the terrain do not update. To test this I created a flat plateau where previously there were mountains and I could still see the shadows of the original mountains on the plateau. The new height map changes are also not reflected when I do a "make map" since that uses the highlights and shadows to create the 3D effect in the map.

Exiting and entering the TE updates the lighting, so I can work around this issue now I know about it. It caused me some head scratching for a while though as I couldn't work out why my height map changes weren't working.

Only a build will update those.

If you don't want them during editing delete the terrshad.htz file.

HiTech

[Easyscor]

bustr is correct. The airspawns aren't working atm. They are set to ground level.

Also, he probably launched the TE and tried to abort it by clicking the close box before it completely initialized. I've found the ahedit.exe running in the background several times when I've done that.

[bustr]

Alpha 85 does not like the terrain I've been learning with since alpha 83. I get the same error as trying to enter the AvA and Special Events arenas. I tried a build to no effect.

[bustr]

Alpha 86 likes my terrain.