Terrain Editor

[Chilli]

Use the Objects tab. Click in the objects list and press S. The list will scroll alphabetically to saf1m00. Enjoy our new toys!
Remember to set it as a Group Master, set to field, set the base number and zone.

Many thanks again.  Worked fine, except the CBM was all black 

[Easyscor]

I forgot to mention, Chilli, you set the bases country ownership and planesets in the Settings menu.

One thing I've sometimes missed was the ability to insert or delete a base number in the middle of the list without resorting to renumbering the oba file and resetting country and plane assignments. It's rarely needed but if it's in the TE, I never found how to access it.

While I'm here waiting for the kids to be ready to go to the park...

In our AvA terrains, we don't number base 1 as Bish, base 2 a Knit and base 3 as Rook. It's always worked but the question was raised. Are we doing it wrong? Especially for someone building an MA terrain?

[Easyscor]

Many thanks again.  Worked fine, except the CBM was all black 

Was the CBM black when you first loaded it? Is it the patch76 test terrain? I'll be around for another half hour then poof.

Alright I have a couple of min.
You should see both an Editor window and a Map window. If you don't see the Map window you've dragged if off screen or changed your display realestate settings in some unpredictable way.

If you see the Map window but constantly see a black screen, the name of your CBM doesn't match the name of your terrain or isn't in the texsrc folder. The TE's make map.bmp files will work for the Editor and a built terrain once renamed and placed in the texsrc folder.

[Easyscor]

@Chilli
There is one other possibility. Believe this or not, the old TE will load my alpha patch76 terrain. Make sure the correct TE version is shown in the About box.

[Greebo]

In our AvA terrains, we don't number base 1 as Bish, base 2 a Knit and base 3 as Rook. It's always worked but the question was raised. Are we doing it wrong? Especially for someone building an MA terrain?

CraterMA has fields 1, 2 and 3 set to each country and it was accepted by HTC like that. I am wondering now why would this be an issue?

BTW Chilli if it helps this list of objects and groups is what I believe can be put in an alpha MA terrain:

This first lot are all set to group master. The number in the middle of the object name relates to the size of the field, so laf1m00 is 1 mile square and laf4m00 is 4 miles square.

saf1m00         small airfield
maf1m00        medium airfield
laf1m00          large airfield
laf4m00          new very large airfield with built-in town
vb1m00          V field
vb2m00          new large V field that blends to underlying terrain (good for sand or snow areas etc.)
town1m         town for 1 mile square airfields
ttown2m00    tank town
aafac1m00     AA factory
city4m00       city
hq1m00         HQ
amfact1m00  ammo factory
rdfct1m00     radar factory
ref2m00        refinery
trptrn1m00    troop training

bah0             shore battery  (set to hard gun bat)
entpnt          spawn point    (set to veh ent or boat ent)
mpr0            maproom for CV capture (set to map room)

Unless I'm missing something I can't see a way to add CV groups in the alpha TE yet. Possibly this will be added when the supply convoy groups go in.

[Easyscor]

I DIDN'T mean to be insulting here. I was ONLY asking a question.

CraterMA has fields 1, 2 and 3 set to each country and it was accepted by HTC like that. I am wondering now why would this be an issue?

snip

See the original question. I don't believe it's necessary to set base 1 Bish, base 2 Knit, base 3 Rook. THAT was the question since we haven't followed that rule in the AvA!

Unless I'm missing something I can't see a way to add CV groups in the alpha TE yet. Possibly this will be added when the supply convoy groups go in.

Currently when converting a terrain, the TGs make the cut! All 8 TGs are set in the Alpha version of avachanl. Until Waffle adds the Battleships, we don't know the final makeup of a TG. I'm hoping for a BB in the final makeup of the TG but ...

Hence the question. Do the first three base numbes matter?

Edit:
You can create a "Group" for your TGs, but I think it best to wait for awhile. I hope that Waffle's bb will be included. I know you know what I mean and for others, it will become clear by the time this goes into production.

[Greebo]

My bad, I misunderstood your post regarding base numbers.

The converter redid the TGs in my terrain as well, I mentioned it more for Chilli's sake.

I forgot about the forthcoming battleship. If it gets its own TG I'll have to think about how to incorporate it. Wonder if they'll let me add another port per country, not sure if I'd want to drop a CV group to make room for it.

[Greebo]

I've just noticed something odd about spawn points in the TE. I have created some new ones and these are set up with the same parameters as the original ones that were converted over from the old terrain. Specifically in Object Properties they are are all "Set to terrain alt". However the converted ones show the correct terrain alt in the Object Properties Y box, i.e if the SP is at 500 ft, that is what it shows. The odd thing is that all the newly made ones all show 0.000000 in the Y box, whatever the alt of the SP.

All the new and old SPs work fine in the alpha game itself and they all display correctly in the TE's viewing window. The only side effect I have found from this is in the TE, where if I move to one of the new SPs using "Go to Object" it takes my viewing position to just above 0 feet, so usually below ground level.

[Greebo]

The new lock button in the cloud editor is not working correctly.  When it was introduced I used it to nudge the angle of some cloud fronts a few degrees, but I only just noticed that all these fronts now have slightly the wrong life time.

Testing it properly I find that with lock turned on, as the angle of the cloud front is altered the V gets progressively closer to A thus shortening the front's life time until it is eventually at 0. Lock has to be turned off to allow the V position to be moved back out again.

[hitech]

Raise/lower: Use left click and drag
This can set build natural looking hills and mountains very quickly. It's very nice. It reminds me of a blur or fractal tool in a graphics program

Raise/loser Hil: Use left click and drag
I'm sure there must be a difference between Raise/lower but I don't understand exactly what it is. This tool feels more like drawning a line across the terrain and feels to me more like my idea of a Biliner tool. Are there any refinement instructions to these last two?

Also Shift left button is lower , left button only is raise.

HiTech

[Easyscor]

I've just noticed something odd about spawn points in the TE. I have created some new ones and these are set up with the same parameters as the original ones that were converted over from the old terrain. Specifically in Object Properties they are are all "Set to terrain alt". However the converted ones show the correct terrain alt in the Object Properties Y box, i.e if the SP is at 500 ft, that is what it shows. The odd thing is that all the newly made ones all show 0.000000 in the Y box, whatever the alt of the SP.

All the new and old SPs work fine in the alpha game itself and they all display correctly in the TE's viewing window. The only side effect I have found from this is in the TE, where if I move to one of the new SPs using "Go to Object" it takes my viewing position to just above 0 feet, so usually below ground level.

I'm glad you brought that up.

On my screen, I can't see the vehicle spawn points. They show on the CBM window but not in the editor window. It must be my flavor of hardware so I'll attach a dxdiag and a screen capture. I'm using a quarter mile setting circle.

[hitech]

Unless I'm missing something I can't see a way to add CV groups in the alpha TE yet. Possibly this will be added when the supply convoy groups go in.

You can add them one ship at a time, just make sure the cv is the first one.

I also have forgoten to add the standard groups with the distribution, i'll include them next version.

Here they are, simply unzip this to the ah3terr folder.

HiTech

[Easyscor]

Thanks for the group files, no problems. I had to hunt for the empty group folder but that won't be a problem after the update.

For the new texture editing...

I won't be able to play with the terrain textures until the middle of the week but I did manage to see how they looked in my test terrain. Once I caught on to replace my terrains empty terrset00 folder with the new one, things were looking golden... for the TE...

Then I tried the OE. Nothing I tried worked and I exhausted every possibility I could think of. I have the impression that if I'd had even one .swa file I could have modified it and saved as, but the OE kept it's focus on building a .til.

I tried to open several of the texture/types in the OE, not the _$.bmp's. No joy. I tried opening the cluttertype bitmap but nothing showed in the OE. I tried setting one of the textures in the Properties windows. The list of things I tried is too long.

I went back and re-read the posted instructions following each step in sequence.

(tried both
C:\Hitech Creations\Aces High Alpha\ah3terr\atest\terrset00\texsrc
and
C:\Hitech Creations\Aces High Alpha\ah3terr\terrset00\texsrc)

One curious thing I ran into when using File/Open Terrain tile, it remembered my .til path and then when trying File/Open Object, it remembered my terrset00 folder path.

Now I have two texsrc folders. The usual one for my CBM and the second one inside the terrset00 folder. I suspected that arrangement might suggest the TE would turn the CBM into a htx file but no clue if it does.

It looks like there are 16 possible clutter objects you can assign to any single terrain type, using the .swa file. Is 16 right and is the assignment supposed to happen in the .swa file?

[Easyscor]

In the TE, after I successfully installed the supplied test textures in my test terrain, I reopenend my current project and the test textures were still showing. I had to save my project and reopen to reset the textures back to the default.



Edit:
When getting back to work on my project, I found that when I saved to reset the path back to my project, my height map had apparently been replaced by the one from the test terrain. Obiously I don't want to try and duplicate it so call this a preliminary report.



Further:
When I decided to create a new blank tiletest (folder etc) terrain, the current oba file was copied into it. That didn't happen before and this was after a clean reboot.
Oh, not the project file, the content from the project's oba file. Figured that would be good to know. hehe



Also, I've had the TE's edit window lock up twice while using the shoreline tool on rivers. I was setting all my points manually so next stop is the auto feature.

[jimson]

There currently seem to be no dumde, dumcv. dumca shapes. Will we be getting any of those back?