HT, a few requests

[Devil 505]

Does the water reflect the sky above as in real life? For example, graying out under clouds.

[hitech]

Yes on the sky, a few lines yet for the clouds.

HiTech

[Devil 505]

Sounds good HT. That should take care of the water color issue for most people.

[Easyscor]

Heyaaa Rrrranger!

You interested in Christmas in October?

[USRanger]

 

[Easyscor]

I hate being color blind. It's mostly a reflection of the sky. Still working on a proof of concept.

[Easyscor]

Okay, over the concept hump.

[USRanger]

Okay, over the concept hump.

Yessss!!

[715]

The new river system is a great improvement as it gives nice high resolution smooth edges; no more jagged edged rivers.  However, instead of a WaterD.bmp bitmap file, which allowed water anywhere, rivers are now objects, well paths actually.  That means  you have to draw them on the terrain.  This brings up a wish and some questions:

1) Can we have the current mouse position on the terrain echoed as a little cross cursor on the map window so we know where we are and can trace rivers or features when editing them in the main window?

  1a) Can we have the cursor also have a line that is perpendicular to the current river path direction and whose length is equal to the current river width.  (OK that one seems hard.)

2)  I'm mostly interested creating real terrains, i.e. based on DEM and other GIS data sources like bodies of water.  One thing you learn from looking at those is that the Earth has an awful lot of rivers and lakes and ponds.  If water features that aren't the ocean are going to be objects, is there some limit to the number and complexity of them?  Can we add water features by editing the MyTerrain.tra file so we can essentially import GIS water body data (converted, of course, to AH3 format of X,W,Y)?

[hitech]

The new river system is a great improvement as it gives nice high resolution smooth edges; no more jagged edged rivers.  However, instead of a WaterD.bmp bitmap file, which allowed water anywhere, rivers are now objects, well paths actually.  That means  you have to draw them on the terrain.  This brings up a wish and some questions:

1) Can we have the current mouse position on the terrain echoed as a little cross cursor on the map window so we know where we are and can trace rivers or features when editing them in the main window?

Are you asking for something similar to how the brush is now display but as an cross hair?

  1a) Can we have the cursor also have a line that is perpendicular to the current river path direction and whose length is equal to the current river width.  (OK that one seems hard.)

Not sure what your asking but ,you wish to set the river width other then the mouse wheel, i.e. by line and clicking?

2)  I'm mostly interested creating real terrains, i.e. based on DEM and other GIS data sources like bodies of water.  One thing you learn from looking at those is that the Earth has an awful lot of rivers and lakes and ponds.  If water features that aren't the ocean are going to be objects, is there some limit to the number and complexity of them?  Can we add water features by editing the MyTerrain.tra file so we can essentially import GIS water body data (converted, of course, to AH3 format of X,W,Y)?

I'm not sure about the quantity yet, the limiting factor will most likely be the collision testing. As to editing the .tra file, that should be no problem assuming you keep the correct format. At the moment the reader is not rugidized for abnormalities.

I also plan on adding widgets type functions that carve out terrain for your with rivers, and create switch backs for roads,rr and hills.

HiTech

[715]

Are you asking for something similar to how the brush is now display but as an cross hair?

On my system, when drawing a river in the terrain no cursor shows up on the map window, just the red outline box.  I was asking for a live cursor to show on the map that tracks where I'm moving the mouse on the terrain so I know where the river control points are going.

Not sure what your asking but ,you wish to set the river width other then the mouse wheel, i.e. by line and clicking?

No, I am not asking for a change in the way the river width is set.  I am asking for the width that I am setting be mirrored on the map window by a line so I can sort of trace wide or narrow parts of the river shown on the map window.

I'm not sure about the quantity yet, the limiting factor will most likely be the collision testing. As to editing the .tra file, that should be no problem assuming you keep the correct format. At the moment the reader is not rugidized for abnormalities.

Cool.  I'll start working on ways to convert GSHHG vector data to AH3 river format.  Will you be adding lakes as well?  (GSHHG treats everything, including rivers, as lakes; i.e. it gives the shoreline vector data of each segment of a river.  At least that is how I remember it.)

I also plan on adding widgets type functions that carve out terrain for your with rivers, and create switch backs for roads,rr and hills.

HiTech

Cool! Cool! Cool!

715

[hitech]

On my system, when drawing a river in the terrain no cursor shows up on the map window, just the red outline box.  I was asking for a live cursor to show on the map that tracks where I'm moving the mouse on the terrain so I know where the river control points are going.

Do you see a white cursor in any of the modes? You should have a normal Arrow cursor when in the paths tab.

HiTech

[hitech]

Just had a thought, we are using all custom cursors in the editors. Does windows have an option for larger or smaller cursors based on screen res?

HiTech

[Easyscor]

I like what I'm seeing in the new paths. Ninety percent of my water issues are solved very nicely.

I'm still experimenting, seeing what can do the things I'd try and which might break the program. My comments based only on the editor.

One thing I wanted to see is whether a lake can be made with the rivers. I would level the whole lake to the appropriate elevation of course, but the attached jpg doesn't suggest it will work. 

In the roads, the lowest elevation possible is 0.50... feet. Visual inspection in the editor shows the road much higher then that. For the actual roadbed, I'm hoping for a max around 0.04 (1/2") or 0.08 if not actually 0.0 (which might cause zbuffer issues) feet above ground level. This would allow the visual only roads to meet a bridge, a town road etc or the terrain without the 6+ inch difference and without (an embankment?) on the end of the road. Bridges will look much better with actual roads, and roads going somewhere and meeting the terrain elevation will make more sense. 

[hitech]

I like what I'm seeing in the new paths. Ninety percent of my water issues are solved very nicely.

I'm still experimenting, seeing what can do the things I'd try and which might break the program. My comments based only on the editor.

One thing I wanted to see is whether a lake can be made with the rivers. I would level the whole lake to the appropriate elevation of course, but the attached jpg doesn't suggest it will work. 

In the roads, the lowest elevation possible is 0.50... feet. Visual inspection in the editor shows the road much higher then that. For the actual roadbed, I'm hoping for a max around 0.04 (1/2") or 0.08 if not actually 0.0 (which might cause zbuffer issues) feet above ground level. This would allow the visual only roads to meet a bridge, a town road etc or the terrain without the 6+ inch difference and without (an embankment?) on the end of the road. Bridges will look much better with actual roads, and roads going somewhere and meeting the terrain elevation will make more sense. 

Simply make many more segments,each one short (about 1/4 mile) and wide,  and do not try turn them on them selfs,