Mediterranean Tile Set Testing and Topo Testing. III

[bustr]

Screen shot upload is slowing down the last POST.


Country-2 completed.

[bustr]

You would think laying in large foundational shapes for mountains would be fun. It's always a chore for me becasue I constantly question how I'll run the ridges and how much is too much before I stop. To a point I'm trying to fill everything in as close to the finished dimensions so I'm not spending days micro sculpting "too large" formations back down to scale for the rest of the mountain range.

[bustr]

Once it's in place, it's in place and you do the best with it. Nature is chaotic and looks horrible close up. Once I get rolling, the mountains just fall in shape. One pass with sand stone to see the contrasts. I still need to do the lower elevation trees and water runs.

[bustr]

Now I have my corner to work out from for Country-3. Looks like I will have to start with the canyon land first then the transitions into the lowlands.

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Another watershed moment. A few dots and a whole day or two of work.

[bustr]

It's always amazed me how simple the terrain editor is if you just define where the water comes from and where it will go with a few lines. Then you use lines to create the heights and low spots and connect them with lines. Once this is done, everything else is some free hand texturing to look like what ever you think should be in each spot where the water runs. Defining elevations first so you know at any give place on the terrain what the relative elevation should be keeps you inside of the master scale of things you decide on before you touch the project space.

In these screen shots below everything is running from 5000ft down to 100ft  so as I run the ridges down towards the 100ft level in the first screen shot, they gradually get lower which automatically keeps the scale of things in place. The screen shots are from the 100ft level going up to the 5000ft level.












You can see on the left I did some free hand transition out of the previous finished work. Once you create the foundation with lines, the free hand work is simple.

[popeye]

Been thinking of getting into terrain building -- you're scaring me, bro!   

Really nice work.  Looking forward to flying it.   

[bustr]

After learning the terrain editor with the first two terrains, I was curious how much detail the terrain editor could support. After doing the full 10x10 sector gross topo layout to define my scale. I first create a 2D topo map 2048x2048 with elevation guide lines I pull out of thin air(fantasy world). The rest has been nibbling away a sector or two at a time by creating a topo profile in 2D with those green lines and dots. Then connecting the dots.  It's like taking a drawing class and one of the exercises is you draw a square, circle and triangle. Then you turn them into a 3D image to see how most of our world can be defined by those three shapes. That is the free hand stage where I flow all the elevations together and throw in my interpretation(pull it out of my whatsis) of the topography at each point I visit.

You can take online topography profiling classes to learn how to turn topographical geo maps into 3D profile maps. Google "topographical profile" and look in the images. What I'm doing is all there in those images. National geographic has a program where you can import topographical maps and it will morph them into a 3D map for you to look at based on the topo lines on the map. I like creating something out of nothing, so this is fun for me.

[bustr]

I always reach this point where the sculpting and texturing is done, then remember I still have to paint it..........

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Got the foundation painting done with this segment. Now I just have to blend it all.

[bustr]

Those dark green tiles don't blend well with anything lower than the dark green tree tile. Makes for a lot of work trying to create an illusion of blending. This segment of Country-3 is done. Even painting the terrain is a compromise with the blending limitations like you have to accept the limitations for creating 3D effects due to the large polygons. You learn to work with it.

[bustr]

Enough work for today. Still have to texture and paint this segment.

[bustr]

The terrain editor polygon workspace is all about illusions becasue the smallest unit you can work with is 660ft or 1\8th of a mile. The brush tool used for everything is a circle, so every time you raise up polygons or reduce polygons it's with a brush you can size between 1\8mile and 6mile. The raise hill tool is an excellent mountain side texture tool to give an illusion of water cut grades and slopes. Which you subsequently paint to enhance the illusion. And if you have a good feel and eye for free form 3D sculpting, you can free hand convincing topographical features like a Michelangelo. Sadly if you don't have something to keep you inside of the scale of your theme, it's easy to quickly let things get out of hand free forming things.

Here side by side is a finished ridge line and one I have just textured to see what I'm talking about. the next screen capture down are the smooth faced triangular cross sectional topographical profiles I constructed that are waiting for me to texture those smooth faces to show water runoffs on the slope.


 

[bustr]

The north half of Country-3 is done, now I will tackle the southern half with that massive canyon land..........

[bustr]

POSTIMAGE.ORG has had an issue, untill it's resolved my images won't show. I'll use an alternate address they provided for links, s20.postimg.cc.

North half of Country-3, now the south half.