Terrain Editor

[Easyscor]

Terrain Editor
The input focus for keystrokes are still happening in the Edit Window causing it to jump around as I try to type in this post.

Object Editor
Will do the same thing.

I will loose my view of my work while I'm here.

[Easyscor]

When building a sq tile object in the OE, the trees are invisible except for the red highlight.

Once you build the sq tile object and place it in the TE, you still won't see the trees and after you build the terrain, you still won't see the trees. It they are collidable, I haven't run into them.

I thought is that there might be a swa file somewhere that I need to find and move but I don't know where to look for it.

When building terrain tiles, I don't have this problem. For those, the trees show everywhere you'd expect.

[Easyscor]

I've thought of a very good reason to ship the tree files for the default terrsets. If I want to include a single terrain tile but still want to use the rest, currently I must recreate the entire set of trees for all 20 terrain tiles.

Since I already know I want to create at least one terrain tile and shift three existing tiles, it would be immensely helpful to have the default tree set.

Thanks

[Easyscor]

This one's complicated

Using the OE, export rdfct1x1m.

In the export folder I have the following files:
1 rdfct1x1m.ac
2 RDFCT1X1M_EV_d.txt
3 RADARF1M.bmp
4 RADARF1M_A.bmp
5 RADARF1M_E.bmp
6 RADARF1M_N.bmp
7 RADARF1M_S.bmp
8 RDFCT1X1M_CL.bmp
9 RDFCT1X1M_EV.bmp

Now the only change I make is to rename file number 1, the rdfct1x1m.ac file.

Rename it mytest.ac.

Using the OE, Convert the ac file, mytest.ac. Remember, I didn't change anything inside.

My userlib folder now has the following:
mytest.shp
RADARF1M.htx
RADARF1M_NEP.htx

I remembered before this patch of getting _CL and an _EV.htx files as well, they're not here in this patch after a simple conversion.

I install the three files in my texsrc folder and try to install mytest into a terrain with the TE and it crashes upon clicking OK.

I go back to the OE and create a sq tile with one building. I name it mytest2.

I install the mytest version of the radar factory ground into sq tile mytest2 and it looks good. I add a building and build it.

Now I get the two missing _CL and an _EV.htx files in both the userlib and newshps folders. Except for the difference in upper case and lower case, they appear to be the same at 258 KB.


But wait, in the last OE, these four files would have both been RDFCT1X1M_CL.htx and RDFCT1X1M_EV.htx (except for the case) and now they're named MYTEST_CL.htx and MYTEST_EV.htx

I put the six files into my texsrc folder. (mytest.shp, RADARF1M.htx, RADARF1M_NEP.htx, mytest2.shp, mytest_CL.htx, and mytest_EV.htx)

The sq tile shape is mytest2 in the Shapes List
I place it into the terrain but don't click ok yet.
I don't see anything except the building I placed in the OE until I get very very close, then the sq tile ground, mytest, shows.
I click OK and I'm surprised when it doesn't crash the TE.

Now I have the same exact problem I've had with my city0.
Remember, I didn't touch any of the internals here.
At very long distances, and at very close range the ground texture shows, but not for most of the viewing distances in between, it's gone.
I build and test the terrain just to confirm the same problem is in-game.

You can see almost the same effect with the city in avaeto except I managed to force a reduction of the problem by changing the LODs.

[Easyscor]

I think I was supposed to remind you to include the rolling stock in the OE. Trucks, rail cars, planes etc.

[Easyscor]

In AH2, I could change the flags' textures. I've tried to do the same for beta terrains. Is there any way to do this?

[Easyscor]

I was in the middle of adding trees to city0 and double clicked the title bar to maximize the window, it crashed the Object Editor.

[Easyscor]

The Terrain Editor can unexpectedly switch objects.

I was healing the terrain around a vBase and had the object properties window open. I wanted to add a temporary object to the terrain to mark my place. When I selected it in the list, the vBase disappeared and the object I'd selected as a marker replaced it. It took me a minute to realize what had happened and fortunately, when I changed the marker object back to a vBase object, all the vBase properties reappeared, the GMS, even the field numbers and zone. That surprised me because it declared the replacement marker object to be a VOD type.

[Easyscor]

Reminder, in the TE, accidentally hitting one of the number keys instead of the w or q key will switch Elevation filters.

[Easyscor]

I found that the pineforest terrain type tile makes such an obvious boundary line when jumping from any tile type below it to the highmeadow or rockgrass, that I decided to reorder the terrain type tiles. I think I've found a bug in the process.

The pineforest tile type works perfectly well when doing this.

However, both highmeadow and rockgrass have issues with their 3d trees not matching the shadows in the textures when they are reshuffled in this way.

In the jpg, notice the texture's tree shadows vs the location of the 3D trees. The default tile set has this right. You can see the reshuffling I did in the Terrain Type Tab with arrows indicating how the tiles are rearranged.

In the way of further explanation of why I'd do this, the forest tile is likely to be near the rock (cliff face) terrain tile type or one with snow. If forest isn't installed then any boundary caused by the missing forest type looks somewhat plausible at the foot of the cliffs or at the top. In fact, I can't see any boundary at all when forest is skipped and highmeadow or rockgrass is placed at the foot of a rock cliff.

Currently, if you lay highmeadow next to roughgrass, the shadows in the pineforest texture draws a very sharp dark line through the terrain so highmeadow and rockgrass are both to be avoided imo. Hence my effort to reorder the tiles and something I wish to be made reliable going forward.

Thanks

[Easyscor]

Request-

I'd like a new brush added on the Elevations tab. A brush that holds an elevation like brush 3 except that it doesn't level high spots, only fills in low spots to the given elevation. I guess it could operate in revers if you hold down the shift key but right now I'm trying to fill sinks in the terrain.

Perhaps brush 3 could do this with +shift and +ctrl key for both these added functions.

Thanks

[Easyscor]

The 'Alt' slider doesn't track as you use the keyboard to gain altitude.

I'm working on documenting two more issues for the Terrain tab.

Edit: I don't think the 'Time' slider tracks the time of day changes either.

[Easyscor]

This started as a report about the 'Keep Current Merge Type' checkbox box but became very complicated.

If there's an actual bug, it's that the TE has no option to clear the RGB registers before installing a ground type and you must know how to force, it and then remember to manually override the system to set a pure color type with no visible merge in the exported splatmap. I'd call that a user work-around and I doubt it's what you intended though a constant merge appears to work well in the TE. When you start using a splatmap, it becomes very confusing and difficult to deal with most of the time.

Examples: If the current ground type is A0 00 00 (forrest1 in ETO) and the box is unchecked, when cliff 00 C0 FF is primary and sandybeach 10 00 00 is secondary, the new installed type becomes a mix of the selections resulting in 10 C0 FF (the beach)&(the cliff), the original forest appears overwritten and you see cliff but the . Switch the secondary and primary, you get 10 CO 00 and you see sandybeach. The green channel remains just as the red channel remained in the first case.
With the box checked, the results are similar in the splatmap with the primary merged with the current ground type.

Next post, the filters.

Edit: I'll install the newest update first.

[Easyscor]

Setup Circles Bug

The setup circles only work for Group Masters and nothing else.

[Easyscor]

The terrset0x folder for shapesswa.sta etc isn't being made in TE p37.

nm, I see it's working without it.