Terrain Editor

[Greebo]

I've spent a few hours learning the new TE. It took me a while to figure out the new coastline editing tool but otherwise it was pretty similar to the old one to use. My first impression is the angle/height filters for texture placement is a great improvement and should be a huge time saver. I also discovered rivers need to be made a bit wider in the new TE otherwise the river banks tend to merge in the middle distance.

I bought L3DT Pro to try out and exported CraterMA's height.raw file to it. It loaded OK but all the ocean areas were displayed as white on the height map, i.e. 65K alt. In the limited time I played with it I couldn't see a way to get round this in that program. I think L3DT Pro will be more useful in creating a new terrain than updating an existing one anyway.

Another thing I thought of was loading the height.raw file into Paint Shop Pro. I figured I could edit the white oceans to black pretty easily using that program. Also I used the old TE height map to create the CBM in PSP so it might be useful for that again. PSP asks for parameters when I try to load the height.raw file but whatever settings I tried caused the file to display weirdly. So is it possible to edit the file using PSP and if so what settings would I put in this window?

[Easyscor]

quote from Hitech:
The system will export or import a .raw file. It is 16 bit signed shorts 4096 X 4096 each sample is 660 feet I.E. 8 samples per mile. Ocean is best set at about -100 feet. And ocean water is always drawn at 0 feet.

Your screen grab from PSP doesn't show an option for a 16 bit raw file.

My impression is that L3DT Pro will handle conversions but hopefully Waffle can clarify the procedure.



jimson, rename your CBM file and drop it into the texsrc folder. 

[Greebo]

Thanks Easyscor, I suspected it wasn't going to work but I thought I'd check. Photoshop Elements supports 16 bit raw but that gave an error message when I tried to load the file.

An odd thing I just noticed about the TE's conversion of CraterMA is that it put three extra city objects in the map, one for each country. Two of these were placed adjacent to the original city and one was directly on top. It is a small map so I'm assuming this is a bug. I realise strat isn't done yet, but I thought I'd mention it.

Are there any new guidelines for building MA terrains I should be aware of? For example should I not overuse the more detailed terrain tiles for FPS reasons?

[jimson]

jimson, rename your CBM file and drop it into the texsrc folder. 

Rename it what? and it's already in there.

[Easyscor]

Rename it what? and it's already in there.

Rename it to the same name as your terrain. Not map.bmp. Ah, have you forgotten? Rename it and put it in your texsrc folder.

LOL, it's too tempting to tease you here my friend. I know this is going to be one of those 'Doh!' moments.
 

[Greebo]

I've found what I think are a couple of bugs with the TE:

First the terrain converter does not check the "set to terrain alt" box for all types of fields, for tank town and the strat objects. It does check it for spawn points but I forgot to look at shore batteries. This means when I move a field to a new location it does not blend to the terrain around it (as per the V field below). This can be got round by just ticking the the box in object properties, but it is a nuisance to have to redo every field.

The second problem is a minor graphical glitch. When I move an object which is not "set to terrain alt" the terrain squares it passes over change colour (as per the white squares shown below). This colour change turns on and off depending on viewing angle and only goes away if you restart the TE. With an object which is set to terrain alt it does not seem to do this.

[hitech]

I've found what I think are a couple of bugs with the TE:

First the terrain converter does not check the "set to terrain alt" box for all types of fields, for tank town and the strat objects. It does check it for spawn points but I forgot to look at shore batteries. This means when I move a field to a new location it does not blend to the terrain around it (as per the V field below). This can be got round by just ticking the the box in object properties, but it is a nuisance to have to redo every field.

(Image removed from quote.)

Hi Greebo, this is intentional so that if you miss move something it hasn't destroyed your terrain .

Anytime you wish the terrain to mate up with the object (always done at terrain build time) is "level terrain on square objects" This is under the file menu.

Your other option is simply to open the object detail window and hit ok, it then levels that object only.


The other bug you describe I must be missing a texture refresh or flag some where. I'll find that one.

I'll also add an unsigned 16 bit exporter/importer which will let it work with photo shop.

HiTech

[Waffle]

My impression is that L3DT Pro will handle conversions but hopefully Waffle can clarify the procedure.

second or third post of this thread on the exporting from AHTE, importing/exporting from l3dt, and re importing to AHTE. 

[jimson]

Rename it to the same name as your terrain. Not map.bmp. Ah, have you forgotten? Rename it and put it in your texsrc folder.

LOL, it's too tempting to tease you here my friend. I know this is going to be one of those 'Doh!' moments.
 

It's a converted terrain and it already has the renamed .bmp in the texsrc folder so that's not it.....this time LOL.

[Greebo]

Hi Greebo, this is intentional so that if you miss move something it hasn't destroyed your terrain .

HiTech

Thanks HT, I've still got a bit to learn about the new TE I guess. Really glad I don't have to redo all those settings as I've been mentally totting up how many of those objects there are in this terrain. With the old TE I spent loads of time checking that settings like this were correct for every object so it is nice that a lot of that tedious stuff is done for you now.

[hitech]

Also greebo, not sure I documented it, but typically you want only 1 , 1 mile object in a 4 mile square (Red Square). Right now I can not remember what happens if you have more.

[Greebo]

Reading that I thought there was bound to be a couple of fields in tank town sharing a red square but more by luck than judgement there isn't. I don't think there's anywhere else that it will be an issue but I'll keep it in mind. Maybe add it to the error check?

[Easyscor]

second or third post of this thread on the exporting from AHTE, importing/exporting from l3dt, and re importing to AHTE. 

Thanks Waffle, I haven't tried that program yet.

I noticed few things. The center point establishing the shadows in the large towns at A1, A22, etc seem to be missaligned. When approaching from the south south west, the shadows don't appear until you're near the center of the town and then they pop into view. No problem from the north. I'm using CM eye or an Fi156. Everything I checked at the small towns was okay.

Also, in CM eye, I am able to go under a few stone bridges at tank town but not all as I'm forced up into colliding with the upper portion. The same is true at the large towns in case that might matter later. In fact, when I skim the water while following the river in the large towns, I'm forced up into the stone bridges and at several points where there is no bridge along the way. In addition, when following the river in CM eye, I'm sometimes displaced slightly from one point of view to another, as if I hit something (when moving at a good clip.)

I'm hopeful that watercraft will be able to travel under all the bridges in the final release.

Also greebo, not sure I documented it, but typically you want only 1 , 1 mile object in a 4 mile square (Red Square). Right now I can not remember what happens if you have more.

It's too early for me to try this out but I'm wondering if I'll be able to build the massive cities I created in avachanl? Each tile was a mile square and there were around one hundred square miles in Paris alone.
Will that still be possible?

[Easyscor]

As every terrain I created for the AvA over the previous couple of years before I retired has custom objects, I'm not expecting any of them to work after this goes live. Ouch!

I tried L3DT Standard edition to get a feel for it. It crapped out before I could load my favorite data base suggesting I buy the Pro edition which still might not work. Yikes.

Between that and AC3d with/without it's AH plugin, I'm looking at $130 plus for the privilege of building high end terrains. I really really hate saying this, but... (deleted)

[USRanger]

Have we lost the ability to change the color of the water?

Have we lost the ability to add textures underwater? Ex. coral reefs