Why can't you make pretty mountains everywhere?

[ghostdancer]

No kidding NatCigg. I can sort of get them to look like the Cliffs of Dover since they are white and rocky but if you look to long they become the "Steep Inclines" of Dover.

[ghostdancer]

Okay I just corrected the tileset for Newbrit so that it should now be Pacific Summer. I also went ahead and replaced the srtm30 elevations with srtm3 elevations. So the height map should be more detailed and the coastlines should have more definition now from when I free handed it back in 2016.

I also went in and updated bob40 to use the srtm3 elevation map and did what I could about the the cliffs of Dover (even though they sort of look like the steep inclines of Dover to me).

[bustr]

Your problems with the cliffs of dover require going to wire frame, using a very small brush and working the very top line of polygons one at a time. I had a problem in the tank town pit on bowlma with panthers driving up the pit walls and out over the top gallery. That in itself was some interesting testing. It's the reason I made this post about the limitations of the polygon mesh. I wanted vertical walls in the pit because the panther can climb forever on a 70 degree wall which in many cases, is what you get once you start working the top of your cliff to apply detail. It has a polygon plastic morph ripple effect which begins pulling the vertical face towards the work you are doing on the top of the cliff. I spent 6 months fighting with the polygon mesh because I had to create everything by hand on bowlma.

715,

Artik's program pulls in topo maps and renders them as is. It cannot do what I'm doing with my new oceania terrain. I could use real world data or my own data from Country-1 then replicate it. Have you ever tried to identify small areas in a heightmap file that are below 15,000ft? Let alone then copy only that, paste and rotate it 120 degrees? I'm doing my terrain design, not what is forced on you by Artik's program. So I'm doing everything after creating a base level heightmap file by hand, the Michelangelo method.

Like I asked, you guys can't do this by hand? The MA is not the real world like the SEA arena is expected to be. I'm building a fantasy terrain influenced by real world topographical features. It requires doing the work by the Michelangelo method. And that is what I've been documenting.

There is no place on planet earth that looks like this, if there was, yes I would use Artik's program. Artik's program would not have been workable to create bowlma either. Creating custom one off terrains is what I'm documenting. So what is the beef you folks have with "creating custom one off terrains"?





This took 6 months by the Michelangelo method. I let Waffle do what he thought best for the MA CBM in the game, so he applied a photo shop morph to it. So again, what's your beef folks? You don't like me documenting my current terrain, you don't want me to continue with Oceania unless I delete it and start again with Artik's program? You just don't like me doing this for x,y,z unspecified reasons? Who has really screen capture documented creating an MA terrain the old school way since the beginning of this game in this forum? I've been around playing the game and reading the forums since 2002.

[ghostdancer]

bustr

FSO last night I had to fly NOE through the mountains of New Guinea which had been created with Artik's program. So I got to inspect "scale" and how that program resolved it for the terrain editor import and the polygon mesh limits.

My initial comments were basically just to tell you that newbrit was not created by artik's program but by me by hand and then to inform you what terrains you could look at that were created by artik's program so you could look at them to see how it scaled, resolved the import, and polygon limits. After that was to tell you that I updated newbrit so that you new it was different in the next frame of FSO.

The other comments were just responding to peoples comments about Dover, etc.

I do not have a problem with creating things by hand. I understand you are doing everything by hand. That is what we used to have to do in the SEA for AH2 before Artik's program and before the updated for AH3. It was much, much easier when they used a BMP for a height map versus RAW file.

I did a lot of work in the .raw file directly via photoshop so I know what you are talking about. Edit a raw height map is a serious pain. Figuring out what hex value of color went with which color took a while. Also I was never able to figure out how to get the coastlines not blocky via just the elevation map since the resolution of the pixels to feet increased since they went from a 16384 x 16384 pixels down to to 4096 x 4096 pixels. So I always had to come and tween the shorelines by hand.

I have been around since 2001 and doing terrains since 2009. After having done terrains for 8 years I do understand just how much different it was (AH2) and is (AH3 which is actually much harder in my opinion now) to create a MA map versus a SEA / AVA map and how much more effort and time it takes.

But looks like you took my comments not the way they were intended and are projecting things into them that I never said. Since I never said I had a problem with how you were doing things. Working on a MA terrain is more of an art than a science and really can be a process of trial and error. But not to worry no more comments from me.

[bustr]

Ghostdancer,

It was for the other three who seem to have a problem with what you and I have experienced and take for granted as a core skill set in terrain building. And I'm documenting that core skill set.

I could use Artik's program to render a slice of some place in the south pacific. Then take that heightmap, go blind at 10x zoom to pull out topo features and massage them into separate test terrains in the TE. Then take the multiple test terrain heightmaps, clip off the salient parts, rotate how I want them, and recombine into a master 16bit grayscale file. Or create one country, take the heightmap and clip out that country, clone and rotate after pasting 120 degrees.

And I would have three perfect clones, why.. ....and for what reason avoid being creative and create a unique terrain just like my last one.......

Yes, all the islands base layouts look the same from the CBM, it only works in the MA to level the playing feild. Then, once again scale rears it's ugly head. Manually creating the mountain ranges will make the player viewed local scale randomly different. Just like I'm still on the hook for creating the GV game on the terrain after I get this mountain creating mess behind me. Or will Artik's program do that for me? There is always that point with an MA terrain, you have to roll up your sleeves and visit every square mile of it over and over and over. If you are being honest about creating a good MA terrain versus getting overwhelmed and slapping it all together. I reached that point on numerous occasions with bowlma, and then, look how it ultimately turned out because I didn't.

And I have to thank the terrain team for creating a New Guinea terrain using Artiks app which has saved me from a scale perspective mistake. But, I have to now revisit all of my previous mountain range work. And change the Tepuis, maybe into high mountain plateaus with a different canyon runoff system. I really need the fixed CBM creating app so I can put grid lines into the map to make sure of my changed plateau locations respective of the strat object and large airfield object locations. How many times over the years Ghost did you have to rebuild a vast amount of work because you introduced something "off" into the original work thinking it looked reasonable? BowlMA had a few of those before I got on the ground and started looking at the scale of things before it made it to Hitech's PC for review.....

That scale of things is a harsh mistress, and that being in the terrain editor, then looking at clip board maps is a misleading doubled edged sword. Until you finally get on the ground offline in your terrain and are willing to be honest with your self. The tank town island and pit on bowlma was flushed back into the ocean and raised back out a number of times over 6 months. Even Hitech had me tweak the final look to get it where it is today.

Please rest assured my response was for the other three, I know your abilities and credentials where terrains are concerned.  

[Easyscor]

Ghostdancer, you could run your cliff tops to match the desired tops at the coastline, then with wireframe on, drop all the verts off the coast (in the water) to -2k or -3,000 feet, ~4.5:1. The drawback is that it stretches the ground texture pretty badly, but it gets the job done if you don't look too close.

In the end, we should still use cliff objects imo, but that's a months long project for each coastline.

[ghostdancer]

Bustr,

Please accept my apology then. It looks I am the one that read into things that were not there.

Your method of working in the 16 bit greyscale is the only real way to do in an editor when working on a raw file by hand. Artik's program output the raw file as a 2 channel file. With one channel being the BMP height map (first 16bit greyscale channel) and then the other channel being the other 16 bit greyscale which adds all the other fine details to the terrain such as the tweening information on coastlines. Trying to edit each and figure out how they affected each other drove me nuts.

Yes, I know what you mean about doing tons of work and then just realizing things are off and having to scrap it and go back and restart. It has driven me crazy at times in regards to shorelines.

Again I apologize for reading into things and going off.

[NatCigg]

Ghostdancer, you could run your cliff tops to match the desired tops at the coastline, then with wireframe on, drop all the verts off the coast (in the water) to -2k or -3,000 feet, ~4.5:1. The drawback is that it stretches the ground texture pretty badly, but it gets the job done if you don't look too close.

In the end, we should still use cliff objects imo, but that's a months long project for each coastline.

ground texture as ice?

[ghostdancer]

Will have to try both suggestions (Bustr and easyscor) in regards working in wireframe mode (not my favorite mode at all to work in) and see if I can get a sheer cliff and a non blocky coastline. I used a mix of rock and snow texture to give it the white look of Dover.

[Easyscor]

Ctrl+z is your friend here.

[bustr]

Will have to try both suggestions (Bustr and easyscor) in regards working in wireframe mode (not my favorite mode at all to work in) and see if I can get a sheer cliff and a non blocky coastline. I used a mix of rock and snow texture to give it the white look of Dover.

When Hitech had me change out my green stone to that white stone tile, at first I thought at a distance I was looking at the Dover cliffs. That frikken tile is naughty in that you will get stuck with trees that don't grow in Dover on the cliffs. And you will need to have very little of your own hand introduced texture in the foundation of the cliff's plolygonal mesh to get the least dolomite textured response from the tile.

Too bad a compromise cannot be made with a custom tile to give you a satin, less reflective white sandish look in the green rock tile. In the euro set that white clay with trees tile that blends into the green rock with trees, if the trees could be removed, it would make a good chalk tile. Throw up a test cliff and paint it with that white tree tile to see what I describing. It's on the bottom row just to the left of the green rock tile on the right end of the bottom row.

[Easyscor]

At 45 degrees the trees are supposed to disappear. ymmv.

[bustr]

Good to know that now...

That is just a strange tile. I like the rock in the Pac set better.

[715]

What I was asking is why does the ground need three-fold symmetry as opposed to just the field layout.  For example the Mindanao (not sure if that's what it's called) terrain has no symmetry and it's in the MA.  I wasn't complaining about your terrain building technique, I was just asking why you couldn't make it easier on yourself.  It's clear we are on different wavelengths so I'll shut up now.

[ghostdancer]

Not sure of Bustr's answer on this but the Mindano terrain is a very old terrain that was first around backin AH1, then imported into AH2, and then into AH3. I don't think it uses the latest elevations or had any really extensive work done to it outside of making the shorelines look acceptable. In AH3 we have a lot more control and options now then we did back then. Used to be in AH2 you had 9 elevation points per mile. That has significantly increased in AH3 allowing for much more realistic mountains, hills, etc.

Its why I have been bring up all the old SEA terrains to the new elevation data because we can actually now use elevation data that is more precise. I could leave the terrain with the old info (Aleutians, and Italy have old elevation data) and I could leave the AH3 terrains I did by hand (blksea, blkseaw, germany, germanyw) but I want to make the most accurate and realistic terrains I can for you guys. I would hazard that Bustr feels the same way even though his islands are fantasy islands he still wants to create realistic shorelines, valleys, hills, mountains, etc. to help the players with immersion. Unfortunately for a MA terrain that is a MASSIVE amount of free hand work. Basically think of him as a artist and I am a mechanic with the SEA terrains, if that makes sense.

Well that is my best guess at his thought process.