I tested making rolling hills off a 500ft level down to a river which the angle makes it easy to cut the repeating hill texture. This next test came about from watching hours of the competitions tank combat videos and seeing a repeating theme. All low rolling hills on any of their terrains look the same. The random pattern is not random as much as an algorithm to popup polygons in a texture pattern across an area of the grid. Like L3DT lets you set to happen randomly while you build features.
This test was to see how I can replicate what I saw in the videos. Since in the videos the terrain buiders are targeting a field of polygons in a delineated area, that means a pattern because of the polygon mesh. So I made my first attempt at one of many possible patterns given the width of the brush and the 1x1mile grid overlay. I outlined the average micro terrain area tank combat around a field and town takes place. Through trial and error I found for nice small rolling hills and tank friendly slope angles, the elevation is about 50ft.
I set the town and airfield to 530ft then first ran through on the green grid pattern with 475ft and the tan areas I went back in with a tiny brush at 530ft to increase the number of hills by random clicking. I can see where by zooming down to an area of 2x2 at a time I can get more specific with the patterns. For now this turned out nice giving tanks a back side to hide from view and sneak around while a top under trees or whatever I paint to hide and snipe. The slope angle is conducive to getting more elevation with your main gun to shoot planes looking for you.
Here is the first test I did, a slope on each side of a river with the ground at 500ft. The other side of the town on the flat is where I did the new test texturing hills onto flat ground.
Using green and the smallest brush I outlined the micro combat area and ran grid lines. Then dotted the tan diamonds where i will click 475ft indents while tan areas will be the high spots.
This ground is 500ft so I raised the ground under the town and field to 530ft, and ran a brush over the green grid pattern and dots with a 475ft brush. Then I set the brush to 530ft and clicked randomly into the tan areas and painted to add trees to the tops of hills. No one flying over the rest of the area out side of those two white 3mile radius rings will notice it's flat after I paint it while a tanker trying to run out 6000yds will not really noticing the change. So I only have to texture the combat area that is about 6miles diameter at each field with a spawn.
First look towards the town and airfield at the spawn, spawned in on the top of a hill.
