Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: bustr on January 07, 2018, 02:57:37 PM

Title: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 07, 2018, 02:57:37 PM: The next 10 screen shots are of a type of artifact effect left over from using a terrain tool to create something else on a slope from say 500ft down to 10 feet. I never thought about it much until the GVDAR posts and what about half the GVers in the game really want as terrain to fight other GVs. Safe high spots to shoot each other or hide behind. Hitech making it possible to use bridges introduced some problems in creating the rivers for them to cross with how I shaped the river banks. While building Oceania these were an irritation that I had to smooth away to maintain the elevation around the rivers. My new terrain has many opportunities to use this feature.

The conversation about how GVers like spawning in on a high area over looking the town and airfield, and the untended consequences of a single tank being able to take out all the ack and the vHanger at will from several miles out has made the idea of doing this unattractive. It imbalances the game. On the other hand if you start with an equal elevation say 500ft, then cut a river between the spawn and the airfield, the spawn does not give an advantage to long range the vHanger. It does create a micro terrain for tanks to shoot from high spots, ambush from low spots, and play peek-a-boo all day long. And terrain like this can be found all over the world, so I'm not building a super mario bros fantasy terrain because someone is unhappy and thinks Hitech is screwing GVers.

The small Hills are all about the same volume as the small hill type surrounding the town. I will probably tweak these more to keep testing the limits of the underlying polygon mesh. Otherwise this is very quick to cut into place in a 1x1 mile square and expand the canyons around the 6mile diameter micro combat area called an airfield\town. I stopped worrying about how pretty a stream looks and cam up with a quick method to get nice river banks at a width to easily support the bridges.

I dropped a spawn into the center of these micro canyons and GVs settle in with no problems.

(https://s20.postimg.org/5p08ojq4t/medtst177.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/5c8ui5i31/medtst178.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/bd6jf8k4t/medtst179.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/6raf6vqvx/medtst180.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/qynuz3w25/medtst181.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 07, 2018, 03:00:15 PM: The last 5 screen shots.

(https://s20.postimg.org/aawcwkqzx/medtst182.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/5p08o8d6l/medtst183.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/pwdogjq3h/medtst184.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/f9jvb5zyl/medtst185.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/hfe65ly99/medtst186.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Dundee on January 07, 2018, 07:22:39 PM: Is this like the only bridge to the base......? are there others? With the GV dar that we have now...these bridges are just killing fields now.
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 07, 2018, 08:29:13 PM: Dundee,

1. - This is a test terrain where I test features and I wanted to verify I could produce the terrain sculpting error on demand from building Oceania that I want to use as a rapid production feature with my new terrain RiftVal. It works with this kind of topography.
2. - I needed a bridge for river scaling in producing the micro terrain feature and creating a faster way to make rivers the right width for the bridges in the terrain editor. They take too long if I'm futzing over every mile and how they look. I just need water for a bridge because a Gver is too close to the ground to see anything anyway.
3. - Do you read? I explained what I was doing was a test. I'm months from this type of construction on my current terrain. You should really try building a terrain so you can understand terrain limitations. There are many, and most of this is an artful illusion inside of those limitations.

One quick day of experimenting saves me weeks of wasted work later on.

I became curious later to see what the minimum size of rock strata formation looked like from a tank. The minimum brush size is about 100ft wide. The minimum strata that can be shaped within the polygon mesh limits is 100ft wide 100ft tall. From 0 to 500ft you can reasonably pull 3 of those especially if you want to use them as stepped ramps for GV's and to have enough trees on each level to hide in. An enemy tank on the next level up may not find your tank on one of the two lower levels as you traverse to get up to the airfield's elevation of 500ft. The sound will drive him nutz and aircraft may well face plant into the topo feature trying to shoot or bomb you.

A series of screen shots showing step strata ramps up from the river. The ramps at a distance are subtle but, if you kept crossing a bridge at that location the ramps would be your way up and a way to hide until you could get to the top and at the airfield. Repetition of attacking this field would make it a common fast path up from the river.

(https://s20.postimg.org/uwtyr2yjx/medtst187.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/iuykwyrwd/medtst188.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/vmcr3h9e5/medtst189.jpg)

Up close the minimum flat and vertical width of anything you can create in the terrain editor. And why you can quickly end up with ginormous monstrosity rock formations you didn't intend to create because you wanted realism and lost all sense of scale. That is why you drop an airfield into your terrain and gain perspective by getting a tank or plane up close to your monstrosities like I'm doing with that tank in these screen shots. So if we were all 2000ft tall everything would scale right. Otherwise, you accept this glaring limitation of the terrain editor and create illusions, in this case some trees. On my new terrain I have about 39 candidate fields for a river treatment like this when I finally get to adding feilds and creating GV micro combat areas.

(https://s20.postimg.org/9n6cg9d4d/medtst190.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/djjoc8ayl/medtst191.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Greebo on January 09, 2018, 04:44:40 AM: Thanks for posting this Bustr, it is really good information. Now I have finished upgrading all of my skins that lacked bump maps I am taking another look at an MA terrain I built during beta but never had time to finish. I expect I will put a few bridges in here and there using the sort of setup you describe here. Maybe though I'll limit bridges to V bases if the GV radar has tilted the balance too much in favour of planes.
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 09, 2018, 11:28:22 AM: Can't wait to see some of your screen shots as you produce it.

The bulldozer tool set at the smallest diameter brush is the best tool to massage small areas into shape. A quick way to catch on is drop a cylinder down say 1500ft by 1 mile, then shape it into a small mountain or mesa using only the bulldozer tool. Pulling diagonal across a vertical face depending on the cardinal orientation produces some interesting results. Building a stream for the bridge, define the river bed with the elevation tool set to 1 foot and .5-1 mile wide. Then use the elevation tool at -10 and smallest brush to open dots of travel to be connected. Then use the bulldozer set to the smallest diameter and pull from open dot of exposed water to open exposed dot. You end up with open water spaced perfectly for the bridges and the remaining land set to 1ft is way to massage with the raise hill set to 1ft and the shift key. The bridges will settle in well at about -35.

That micro terrain was created by turning on the grid and using the elevation tool at 250 with the smallest brush. The ground is 500 and I outlined a 1x1 with the 250 that sloped into the river from 500. Then I cut a cross and diagonals and massaged the texture pattern into the elevations and shapes in the screen shot. It's artistically time consuming but, you see the results. :O
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 09, 2018, 01:39:28 PM: Had a new idea for combining the bulldozer with raise hill for fast prototyping. Helps that I want the top to be a cap rock which after forming the runoffs I just pull a wide brush and it puts a cap on top of the canyon face. Later on I just pull a narrow bulldozer down the bottom of this rift and it cleans up the water course. This stuff is easy and quick, it's visualizing the whole area and how I want to treat it. When that image is set in my mind, the fast prototyping takes about 10 minutes for a segment like this. Now the actual final finishing to tie together 100 miles of this rift is another thing as you can see in the lower right corner riftvalley on the CBM map.

(https://s20.postimg.org/mcu33on0d/medtst193.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/5qciu9tz1/medtst194.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Greebo on January 09, 2018, 02:38:40 PM: I do the initial topography and field layout work on my terrains in Paint Shop Pro by creating a detailed multi-layer altitude map, converting it to shades of grey and then gaussian blurring the layers. Converting this into something the TE can see was a lot harder in AH III than in AH II and learning how to do it was the main reason for me starting this terrain. It would probably take me a few days to figure it out again but it involved several stages and an extra graphics program called Krita. Your TE terrain shaping techniques seem very good though and I will try them out when I begin to add bridges and do localised terrain shaping for individual fields.

I am currently converting the terrain from the ETO to Med tile set as I think the ETO set has too many trees for good game play, the Med set seems a lot more open. I'll post a map and some screenshots in the terrain forum soon but I need to change a few more things first, like adding battleships and flak bases and changing the super-large airbases to large. After that I'll go through all the fields one at a time and adjust the local textures and topography more carefully, checking the spawn routes, that there are no trees blocking runways and SBs and so on. To avoid burnout I'll just alternate doing a few fields with skinning, so it will take a while to do all 135 fields plus strat etc.
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 09, 2018, 02:52:38 PM: I create a 1:1 blueprint multiplayer png file so 1mile = 8pixel. Then I layout my exact land masses for 20408x2048 centered on a 4096x4096, field placements and so forth. Then I take the land mass layer and create another 16bit png grayscale where 1000 = 0 feet in the terrain editor and only setup my gross elevation blocks since I carve by hand. I do this in Krita in layers so when I push all the layers down into one there are no light gray pixelization outlines. I'll gaussien blur value 5. Then save it as an r16 rotated right 90 degrees. Then I change r16 to raw and import into ImageJ where I save as a RAW format. This imports into the terrain editor as an unsigned heightmap file. Then I carve my world.

This is one of those angles off the cardinal directions that you can't make look pretty. So you have to make the horrible irregularities look like the dominant rock strata in the mountain range and canyons. I looked at the New Guinea map's high elevations mountain canyons up close one night and saw that even Artik's program ends up with the same irregularities I do creating topography in the bias directions off the cardinal directions. It's all about how well you create the illusion because the terrain editor's poly mesh is chunky..... :lol

(https://s20.postimg.org/ep76law19/medtst195.jpg)

And then I still have to work on this style of step mesa canyons to bring water ways down into the center task group combat pond. The walls look like stacked coins a bit and water runoff makes the cuts. I have to pull 3000ft deep cracks out of the 12,000ft borders of the terrain. Those cracks will be built by facing two of these at each other. First I've got to do the finishing work on these boarder ones to get a feel for creating the look. These are in the bottom right hand corner of that previous map screenshot and it's easy to see how cracks will start from them running to feed those streams.

(https://s20.postimg.org/g5ip3am1p/medtst196.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Dundee on January 09, 2018, 03:24:47 PM: How the heck are you supposed to climb this
(https://s20.postimg.org/g5ip3am1p/medtst196.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Tracerfi on January 09, 2018, 07:02:56 PM: Quote from: Dundee on January 09, 2018, 03:24:47 PM
How the heck are you supposed to climb this
(https://s20.postimg.org/g5ip3am1p/medtst196.jpg)
Uhhh my guess is your not. :ahand :bolt:
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 10, 2018, 12:14:39 AM: Strat runners and bomber missions will look at it as they sail by to hammer an HQ. I have to build a world from scratch and create new techniques to accomplish the terrain themes I impose on myself. Those are just building blocks for step mesas I have to get back to and do the finish sculpting and painting on. I needed them in place to create a logical transition at the top of a rift valley. I have to build everything from those 4000ft tall mesas coming out of the 12,000 ft border around the map, down to those 500 ft topped hills and canyons running down to the river so you GVers can play hide-n-seak and blow each others kesters off.

This is not a simple process if you want to create a world illusion that looks real. What did you think all these years, we just slop a bunch of pixels across a project space and call it a terrain?
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 10, 2018, 03:06:59 PM: Why am I filling this post in with screen shots from a terrain about creating the large scale topographical features? I'm betting 99.1% of players have never seen how their terrains are constructed. There are several ways to do it, this is the most time consuming and hands on intensive like Oceania was. But, then Oceania has a look to it.... :lol

Now I'm fighting the polymesh that the whole arena topography is built from. The 4 cardinal directions carve and shape like butter rendering the best looking shapes. The bias off those cardinals is a PITA to make look good and a slight angle off a bias can make the most effective topo shaping tool in the terrain editor almost useless. In effect I end up having to lay down blobs of terrain larger and rougher than the finished shape and manually carve it all down. The tool I want to use ends up creating textured surfaces something like the micro terrain pictures I posted.

So here is today's problem, this elevation is 12,000ft and I have to sculpt a mountain range upthrust by a tectonic separation pushing away from a giant crack. That smooth sloped area if it was not on a bias to the polymesh cardinal directions would be simple to shape the runoff canyons from the higher elevations. Since it is on an off bias, I get to finger paint in 3D......YaY for me..... :rolleyes:

(https://s20.postimg.org/pnof39ost/medtst197.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/9cob6yk0t/medtst198.jpg)

Here is some perspective. I'm just starting to build that rift valley in the lower right corner which runs all the way to the central pond. These exist in the real world and I'm using the Great Rift Valley in East Africa to model my topographical features. And you can visualize how those step mesas will fill in the boarder of the map and a logical source for the runoff to feed all those streams in the low lands. Those short unfinished runs of the step mesas are so I can create the top of that rift valley. In a few weeks I'll be cutting the canyons for those runoff into the green and tan spotted areas that are 5,000ft after finishing running the step mesas completely around the map boarder. The rest of those bands are 3000, 2000, 1000, and 500. That is not the finished paint job for the terrain, it's just elevation bands so I keep my scale perspective in place.

(https://s20.postimg.org/5qciu9tz1/medtst194.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 10, 2018, 07:16:09 PM: You have got to love the bulldozer tool. You can set it from 660ft up to 6miles miles wide and pull it for hundreds of miles across your terrain, or a few feet to encourage a texture to take place and become a small hill with a canyon. You can use it in conjunction with your map.bmp to rapidly create land mass and building blocks for mountains.

I couldn't get the feel of the transition right no matter how much I pulled up mountain runoff canyons with a raise land tool. So I doodled with the bulldozer and pulled a line from a 3000ft hole I set into the 5000ft highland 25 miles to a 2700ft deep hole to cut a new face in the 5000ft highland that the mountain range canyons would run off into. That created a logical and visually better transition.

So Dundee's step mesas at the top of the new rift valley and the new transition I cut. For a reference, they are about 4000ft high. Visually vertical scale is a bit strange in the terrain editor.

(https://s20.postimg.org/b4qxcn6rx/medtst199.jpg)

You can see I continued the new cut almost 100 miles along the runoff bottom of the mountain range I'm building. You can imagine all the sculpting I have to do for about 200miles of mountain range from that small bit of the top of the valley.

(https://s20.postimg.org/6vm7ahb8d/medtst200.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 11, 2018, 01:39:51 PM: Came up with a sculpting solution to the off bias angle of the terrain orientation for this mountain range. The underlying polygon mesh has good directions and bad directions. Everything ends up being a test to discover a good tool and technique for the location you are building.

(https://s20.postimg.org/x5zamqrfh/medtst201.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/5iml8w6bh/medtst203.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/da3b7sakd/medtst202.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: hitech on January 11, 2018, 02:56:09 PM: Arlo:

Mouse wheel controls speed.
Also you can simply drag the map to where you wish to be. The red square shows your current view size.

You also can save a position so you can jump right back to it.

HiTEch
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 11, 2018, 03:33:54 PM: Since the center line of this valley places every mountain and canyon running to it on a crappy bias angle for easily creating anything, I just accept it is a problem with no real solution other than the overall visual look of the structures. When you build a terrain you are telling a story about where water goes. It dictates how geological structures exposed to the elements will be shaped. Since the Med terrain tile set only has a single rock tile and it is sand stone, I have to get creative to show 3D structures. So I chose to use a light green tile that I completely paint structures with then come back and build layers with tree tiles and the sand stone to highlight exposed rock. There is a tan tile I use with a thin brush at the bottom of runoff canyons to create an illusion of water courses. The four colors enhance the 3D structures.

I've extended the inside of the rift and applied the light green. After this I paint a 3D mountain range into existence. Now I see a space to raise an orphaned upthrust line and make the valley look more interesting just past the leading edge of the light green.

(https://s20.postimg.org/4gh04b2nx/medtst204.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/4gh04auy5/medtst205.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/g5kzsa1cd/medtst206.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/hkmkh0a59/medtst207.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/5vikt1qwd/medtst208.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 11, 2018, 04:42:51 PM: Split the side of the valley upthrust on the north side, need to extend the south side and looks like I can put more orphans in just up to those first two place holder squares for field locations. Sometimes this goes quickly, 30 minutes per each of these segments I cut in today. Once you know your look and have a handle on the polymesh in the direction you are building, it's 3D finger painting in clay. I think I can get one more segment in before my brain shuts down for the day.

(https://s20.postimg.org/4bhu88fjx/medtst209.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/g0ltw7e8d/medtst210.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/hfnekxur1/medtst211.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/v9br9zfml/medtst212.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/m1jit9lf1/medtst213.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 11, 2018, 05:08:21 PM: Last segment in, probably should look at painting this.

(https://s20.postimg.org/rw3in11el/medtst214.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/m7x7w4pcd/medtst215.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 12, 2018, 11:14:19 AM: Painted yesterday's work. 10 screen shots.

(https://s20.postimg.org/c1lv4tqq5/medtst216.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/60o67seel/medtst217.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/w8zax4vx9/medtst218.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/bougyq0rh/medtst219.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/5b5dvflkt/medtst220.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 12, 2018, 11:19:22 AM: last 5 of 10 set.

(https://s20.postimg.org/h09djdpe5/medtst221.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/nqpusu7f1/medtst222.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/juciwuu59/medtst223.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/o3h8z1zzh/medtst224.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/q81m04egt/medtst225.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 14, 2018, 06:41:32 PM: Cracks are fun to make. Base color is on, still have to paint this work.

(https://s20.postimg.org/zcpstji31/medtst232.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/ue2af06kd/medtst231.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/k6jr2ex59/medtst233.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/wl6j2twe5/medtst234.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 15, 2018, 12:57:09 PM: Little bit of paint and I can move on to another topo feature.

(https://s20.postimg.org/x2ygqldu5/medtst235.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/qchzh6ljh/medtst236.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/sttqofial/medtst237.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/tjcj0sy9p/medtst238.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 16, 2018, 06:21:35 PM: Sometimes your day's work is tying up a loose end you have been avoiding like how I was going to merge the two sides of this mountain range. The cap rock seems to do the trick.

(https://s20.postimg.org/5vvj65r65/medtst243.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/dbusryub1/medtst244.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/8pyojllml/medtst245.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/up536thwd/medtst246.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/tzmaugwsd/medtst247.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 17, 2018, 03:00:12 PM: There are times I look at real world pictures of what I'm trying to create and realize I have to be more chaotic. The real world is not a neat well shaped place. Most our game terrains are neat and well shaped.

(https://s20.postimg.org/8mfw0r67x/medtst248.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/qchklt6y5/medtst249.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/b3rn815jx/medtst250.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/hhgqb9nal/medtst251.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/grxxyx26l/medtst252.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 18, 2018, 04:47:57 PM: Mountain range building 101:

In all of the screen shots from building these rift valleys you have seen sand stone colored areas laid in as an elevation block then smoothed down with a smoothing tool to leave a raised bell shaped cross section. Mountains are formed by upthrust then they weather. So I create the foundation slightly smaller or close to the finished mountain range dimensions and use a tool either to cut in runoff canyons or raise up the ridges and peaks above the runoff canyons. Or some combination of both processes depending on how the cardinal lines of the polymesh run to the mountain range run direction.

Prepping an area to lay in the runoff canyons and peaks\ridges. I'll need some kind of logical transition from the edge of that large caldera into the new work I'm doing. When you look at volcanoes in the east africa rift valley area, you see as many lone cinder caldera as one large one and some number of secondary eruptions. I'll take advantage of the secondary to make the transition. Looks like I need to raise the large caldera up about 1000ft. Several smaller caldera down that central line will emulate what I've seen in pictures from east africa.

(https://s20.postimg.org/4phh0n7v1/medtst253.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/9o4zf6yt9/medtst254.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/wcu6ervml/medtst255.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/jlg089tkd/medtst256.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/z6xbs7q31/medtst257.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 18, 2018, 05:54:43 PM: Now I have something to work with. When you are creating something this huge from scratch, it's best to take it in chunks, your creative ability pushed over long periods will end up as mental fatigue before you realize it. Then your work degenerates, especially attention to details that later on can mean upping from every single field on the terrain offline to just wander around looking for boo boos 3 or 4 times. I still find a few boo boos I missed on my other terrains from time to time and I thought I had found them with 3 waves of upping from every single field to look.

Raised the big caldera up by 1000ft made for a better visual perspective.

(https://s20.postimg.org/uenih6ntp/medtst258.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/4vv645wjx/medtst259.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/8s8i05wz1/medtst260.jpg)

Looks like I will have to orphan that field locator square on a mesa with runoff from the calderas cutting that place off. Depending on how I do it, that color band is a 500ft elevation, I can place the GV spawns on the other side of a narrow canyon giving access across by collapsing the sides in a few places. That kind of micro terrain creation won't happen until I create all this macro terrain and then start placing down feilds and GV spawns. As I create the macro terrain it starts giving me ideas for the micro terrain when I build out near the place holder squares that will be field locations.

(https://s20.postimg.org/4vv646jp9/medtst261.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 19, 2018, 03:58:18 PM: After beginning the shaping and cutting that has resulted with orphaning that field location square on a 500ft mesa, I started looking at some of the configurations for field\town and spawn locations vs field with map room and spawn locations. It's amazing inside of the terrain editor how close and small things look even though those squares are 1x1mile and the spawn location rings are 3mile radius. Still don't know what I'll do here but, it helps from time to time to drop in a field and look at things from a field sized perspective. I've planned this terrain to have half the airfields with the map room next to the tower. It's kind of an either or scenario, a fast base steal or, a protracted defense with hot air and ground action. Having two spawns to that location helps balance the fight. Placing some kind of a terrain feature between the field and the spawn helps for a good tank fight.

(https://s20.postimg.org/eloj0khyl/medtst262.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/eyfx6r7y5/medtst263.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 20, 2018, 04:35:30 PM: Transitions from cones jutting up out of gables needing sloped faces are maddening if you are keeping to elevation limitations. The polygon size restricts the smallest shape you can form with the polymesh. So getting this to look somewhat plausible was interesting. The clutter tile paint helps by creating contrasts with color.

(https://s20.postimg.org/e3uan7319/medtst266.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/6b3mv8k7h/medtst267.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/6b3mv8zn1/medtst268.jpg)

That 500ft deep cut to the left of the airfield is a good candidate to create a tank combat feature taking advantage of it being a barrier of sorts. I still don't know if I'll attach a town to this field or, cut in a stream at the bottom of that ravine with a bridge or, pick several spots and collapse the sides of the ravine and make tanks drive down in and up to attack the field.

I flew a Yak inside of the 500ft ravine to show how much room is available for creating tank combat micro terrain. While I'm building out the overall terrain I leave things like this for later cleanup near feilds as ideas for tank combat terrain features. Planning the terrain from the spawn point into the field like this helps enhance tank combat. I think if I make that cut 660ft deep, the walls will be vertical instead of angled, something to test.

(https://s20.postimg.org/6nv11fa71/medtst269.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/q5pohcrp9/medtst270.jpg)

(http://)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 20, 2018, 05:40:13 PM: Testing all the time as you build helps in surprising ways. Since Waffle put only a sand stone tile in the Med tile set, sand stone weathers in very predictable ways. So combining that with testing 660ft for that last mesa elevation, I got a good effect to use up a few miles along a river cut. I spend more time worrying about how what I create will effect tanks and that player's enjoyment than I do anything else on a terrain, go figure. :rolleyes: That is because they will have their noses up close and personal with the features I create around every field.

What really gives me a headache is I can see the completed terrain down to all the micro terrain features for tank combat but, creating it is like having to build a 1 mile pasture wall 5ft high with only field stones I dig from another pasture by myself. It drives me to drink, and I think my local coffee bean supplier should cut me a break for how much I buy.

(https://s20.postimg.org/w0eq8abgd/medtst271.jpg)

You will notice I had to run a bead down the ridge line to account for how much I raised the ridge at those cinder cones.

(https://s20.postimg.org/9bpj8q1sd/medtst272.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 21, 2018, 02:23:57 PM: Sometimes because of the direction of the bias you will be creating runoff canyons, the only method to do it is one mouse click at a time. Set the brush just larger than a single polygon and use the raise hill tool. Then one 2000ft\sec quick mouse click you start pulling up little ridges while the meeting between each group defines the canyon. Looking up from the base you can make out the canyon and ridge runs. Later on painting highlights them. The polygon size limits everything you make so it had better be a good illusion.

The tops of the ridge runs are about 3000ft and the base is 500ft.

(https://s20.postimg.org/fsmdyjecd/medtst273.jpg)

Another angle and the wire frame version clearly shows a canyon system that painting will reveal.

(https://s20.postimg.org/g5ds4qc1p/medtst274.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/682rboc5p/medtst275.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 21, 2018, 05:00:34 PM: It all comes down to illusions and giving the eye what it wants to see and the brain does the rest.

(https://s20.postimg.org/f7b77hv3h/medtst276.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/pu50cxayl/medtst277.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 23, 2018, 03:24:10 PM: I hate transitions because you cannot go on across the whole terrain with one repetitious topo feature. They change for all kinds of reasons and transition in the real world along with looking chaotic.

Once again a transitional idea, in this case inspired by a lazy mistake from a few weeks ago where I told myself I will clean it up later while I was prepping for this whole run of mountains and canyon runoffs. Truth is, those lazy mistakes give you the seed of a random transition to keep from looking cookie cutter all over the terrain. I kept introducing cap rock starta and stepp strata farther back in this valley. So it's not unlikely some strata would be uplifted and stay intact at the terminus of the range.

I've expanded the foundation for this last work block and will fill it out from here and do the painting.

(https://s20.postimg.org/lqg17whyl/medtst279.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/wq18jig3h/medtst280.jpg)

Just think, when I get this one finished, I get to come up with another mountain range on the other side of the river, weeeeeee.

(https://s20.postimg.org/o7rsf6hal/medtst281.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 23, 2018, 04:33:10 PM: Now it's ready to be weathered out of this base block carved state. All those straight line cuts will get massaged into something else, they are just place holders to work from. If you drop in a small hole at the top and bottom of a cut line target, then pull the bulldozer tool between the two holes, you get a sudden canyon. You can connect the dots that way across flat ground to create a complex canyon system. I will come back in and use the bulldozer tool with it's smallest brush to move the small features of the terrain into their finished look. It works kind of like using your finger to adjust the shape of a subject's nose on a clay bust.

(https://s20.postimg.org/hdm32wtd9/medtst282.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Skuzzy on January 24, 2018, 05:37:24 AM: I don't know about anyone else, but I am enjoying these posts bustr.
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Ciaphas on January 24, 2018, 06:50:25 AM: I really like the look of the terrain in post 29.

I’m wondering if you are treating airfields around multiple enemy vehicle bases as priority targets by placing multiple spawns to the airfield from each vehicle base?

Example:

A53 sets in sector 10,5 and two enemy VB sit in 11,5 and 10,6, both VB have multiple spawns to A53. Allowing for 4 avenues of attack.

Not sure if you have covered this, though you might have.

Cheers,
Ciaphas

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 24, 2018, 11:37:42 AM: Thank you Skuzzy, I'm trying to do my part to encourage the creativity afforded to everyone with our game. And it keeps me on my toes since I'm bringing my audience along with me on this trip as I keep inventing something every day out of thin air. :O

Ciaphas,

First task after I finish the macro terrain process is to create the spawn flow around the terrain and decide which half of the fields will get the map room on the field and which half gets a town. Each country will have only two vBases which will logically support the port. Then I add a third spawn from an airfield since the ports will become primary capture targets due to how small I'm making the central pond as a task group furball arena. The secondary lakes are just that and will not host task groups. Each port will support a CV\BB task group duo. Hitech likes not all airfields having spawns to them as I like routing GV support of air combat initiatives to keep the community together, you see this clearly on my first two terrains. I intend to bring the HQ\strats in closer to the active feilds while still populating the back field and I will have to add three uncapturable airfields to support them back there.

I've learned to wait on the spawn paths until I'm ready to lay down field objects and have to create micro terrain for tank combat. From the screen shot below you can see how much macro terrain is on my mind at this time.

(https://s20.postimg.org/dqu7wfjzx/medtst283.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 24, 2018, 02:49:15 PM: Painted and done, now on to another mountain range and pulling something new every day out of my........ :O

(https://s20.postimg.org/iafn9foct/medtst284.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/92nesq1v1/medtst285.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/56a2wr40t/medtst286.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/qfxp7kpgd/medtst287.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/yy75bxbel/medtst288.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 24, 2018, 07:53:52 PM: Right when I thought it was safe to go in the water.....I came up with some transitions again...... :huh Wonder how I'm going to pull this off....... :confused:

Filled in and made a long crack but it will need vertical water cut side canyons and something logical to transition down from 12,000ft onto that 9,000ft area sitting on that 5,000ft rear area elevation. My head hurts looking at it in this blank state even blocked in to this point. I'll have to doodle on it for awhile, maybe look at pictures from the rift valley in aftica where these kinds of areas in real life don't look for real. More like something a terrain designer would create for some fantasy MMORPG game. Most of this I don't have to make up, just adapt what I find looking at geological formation pictures from the rift valley. I guess it's easier to just let the algorithms in L3DT do their cookie cutter topo creation thing if you like that kind of stuff. You can always tell an MA terrain that was created in L3DT if you pull far enough back and look at the "random" but highly repeating pattern of "randomness". :lol

Even the narrow side cut canyons can be knocked out quickly with the elevation tool and the bulldozer tool. It's first a matter of seeing them in the rock and cutting everything away to reveal them.

(https://s20.postimg.org/cokhxjshp/medtst289.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/5y40o4krh/medtst290.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/finnb0ht9/medtst291.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/v44yuz1h9/medtst292.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/v44yuyebx/medtst293.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Ciaphas on January 25, 2018, 04:08:28 PM: Thanks for the response Bustr.

I wasn't sure if I articulated what I was referring to proper;y, hopefully this quick image will work.

Maybe swarming Vehciles spawn points around airfields and VH spawn points like shown below would help to get the total war effort going. Kind of like adding do or die bases to the maps.

(http://www.darkhillstudios.com/images/SPAWNIDEAS.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 25, 2018, 04:46:10 PM: Ciaphas,

Please build your terrain and submit it for inclusion.
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 25, 2018, 04:52:37 PM: Now I've had the opportunity to work a bit on blending the terrain boarder into the body of the terrain while pulling something out of my whatsis to build out that crack that begins the south side of the rift valley.

I got to update the tops of these buttresses with nice cap rocks. I didn't like how I originally did the tops weeks ago. Now everything ties together with the rock strata theme for this valley.

(https://s20.postimg.org/odlbhdnxp/medtst297.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/e3iwi5dhp/medtst294.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/dqribyni5/medtst295.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/no2j51ajh/medtst296.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/lji63ygml/medtst298.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Rodent57 on January 25, 2018, 05:08:28 PM: Fascinating!

And you've convinced me that I'm probably NOT going to try to build accurate maps!
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 25, 2018, 05:57:02 PM: Why? I'm pulling this off by setting primary elevations at the beginning and not varying from them as I work from the edges into the pond at the center. That is why when I created the heightmap to import and popup the first time arena, I set broad basic elevations as guides. You can see how I highlighted those with terrain tile clutter bands as my first task just after I ran the import. Because I did the elevations in whole number steps, there is a painting tool in the terrain editor that will allow you to target global elevation bands.

The terrain editor is very simple if you first create a 1:1 blueprint file of your terrain with everything mapped out. Then you don't force yourself to use the terrain editor for that task. It dosn't work very well that way. My 1:1 blueprint file had a layer in it that directly converted to 16bit grayscale and then into an importable hightmap file to popup my land masses in my terrain. You can see my painted topo elevations in the screen shot below. I created the foundational elevations in my 1:1 2048x2048 pixel 8pixel=1mile blueprint file. Then converted that to a heightmap knowing what I would carve once I had the basic terrain in place with the elevation blocks and the water already in place. The theme for this terrain was rift valleys and the internet is full of photos from the east Africa Great Rift Valley. After that it's on me to pull some rift valley's out of my whatsis...... :O

The trick to this is to do about a sector of work a day or some block you define. Setup the basic landscape ready for sculpting one day while working out transitions. Sculpt the landscape the next day and do clean up work getting ready for the next day's painting of that area. Painting usually does not take long, so you move into basic setup of the next work block. Be prepared after developing a landscape creation technique you like to suddenly discover a faster or better technique that can cause you to revisit some of your previous work to touch up to a better quality of outcome. The most foundational thing to remember is the size of the individual polygon in the polymesh will dictate how you build everything. Once you accept that and become familiar with how it responds to the tools, the rest is creating the illusion of a world. Painting helps quite a lot if you work with three colors to provide 3D contrast the eye wants to turn into what it expects to see. Otherwise, the terrain editor's polymesh is clunky as heck to keep from frying the customers FPS. It's all about illusions surrounding the smallest building block of 660x660 which is also your smallest brush. CLUNKY....... :lol

(https://s20.postimg.org/98tsxqml9/medtst299.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 25, 2018, 07:15:55 PM: This mega formations are addictive to futz with....

(https://s20.postimg.org/odlbhdnxp/medtst297.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/k4l6syhrx/medtst300.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 26, 2018, 11:58:39 AM: All of this work on that mega formation was to get a logical cap rock transition in the final screen shot so I can start the mountain range the green ridges and canyons on the left in the last screen shot are the beginning of. You can see in the last screen shot how the mega formation is unfinished to the right, I just needed the 25 miles of that crack and side canyons fleshed out to create an opportunity to put a solution in place for the mountain range transition in the last screen shot. It's a never ending process of everything is connected by the effects of weathering and how you define the rock strata in your theme.

(https://s20.postimg.org/4pro684fh/medtst301.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/408vtugql/medtst302.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/52j2ceezh/medtst303.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/vau71rbxp/medtst304.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/ezu35h20t/medtst305.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 26, 2018, 06:20:28 PM: Ever wondered how to cut a slot or a canyon into a slanted or sloped face?

I was cutting water erosion slots in a stepped sandstone face and realized I could take a few screen shots to show the procedure. There is no rule to this other than the bulldozer tool will connect two points with a plain the width of the brush you choose and the elevation of the beginning and end points. If they are equal elevations you get a level result. If one end is taller, you get an angled result. You can use the narrowest brush and raise an 100ft blip at two ends of a 10 mile line. Then expand the brush to 6 miles and as long as the center of the brush starts and ends on those two blips, you get a 6 mile wide 100ft tall result. Or you can cut two holes and pull a slot or canyon just as easily.

In this shot I've been creating water cut slots from the cap rock down.

(https://s20.postimg.org/a9h6k7htp/medtst306.jpg)

Just to the right of the last slot you can see I cut in two holes.

(https://s20.postimg.org/k6s7d9hpp/medtst307.jpg)

The results of using the bulldozer tool pulled from the top hole to the bottom hole, a rough descending slot.

(https://s20.postimg.org/97701njkt/medtst308.jpg)

Now a cleaned up runoff gully.

(https://s20.postimg.org/iez8icix9/medtst309.jpg)

Here is the line so far off the cap rock. The terrain editor tools are this simple, you just nibble away a few places at a time until you get your terrain out of the polymesh block.

(https://s20.postimg.org/72mn0l53h/medtst310.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 26, 2018, 07:16:42 PM: And just like that, it's all done except for the painting.

(https://s20.postimg.org/6yxexyeod/medtst311.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/tnmlxiocd/medtst312.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: BuckShot on January 26, 2018, 07:31:30 PM: Quote from: bustr on January 25, 2018, 04:46:10 PM
Ciaphas,

Please build your terrain and submit it for inclusion.

Ciaphas, you should know by now that you're not allowed to make any suggestions about maps unless you make them.

Unless you make maps, the only comments allowed are at-a-boys and nice-jobs.
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 26, 2018, 08:23:05 PM: Buckshot,

Lets see your terrain or terrains and time put into using the terrains to test how players utilize terrains to build future terrains from. Otherwise, cut me a check every week for the next 6 months and I'll build your terrain, say $125 an hour. Do you really believe after this much time, testing, and observation of terrain usage effort on my part I'm interested in building other than my own terrain?

You know exactly where the terrain editor is and how to PM Easyscor to get a copy of the new manual along with his help getting started. If you cannot afford a copy of L3DT, I can help you with creating a hightmap file to quickly create your basic land masses and oceans. Then the rest is up to how much creativity you can muster in a 3D blank space. I have high expectations for you with the caliber of your clockwork derision's. Just look in the root folder Aces High III for ahedit.exe. Once your terrain is finished, if you want clouds, I can give you a hand with that.

I'm looking forward to the results of your efforts or Caiphas efforts, maybe the two of you can collaborate to help each other out.
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 26, 2018, 09:29:27 PM: Gotta stop futzing with this macro formation and call it a night. I'm months away from worrying about laying down game objects and how to orient them to influence players to create activity. If Hitech releases a new train\road\river function, I have weeks of testing to understand what that means to my design ideas and how it works overall. Unless you build a terrain, most players think only about the objects they utilize every night in the arena in a 6x6 mile micro area. In the end they have a myopic view of what a terrain actually is and focus on tiny components that are accounted for as part of the Macro Entity construction called a Melee arena terrain to get it accepted by Hitech for inclusion to the MA terrain queue.

Hmmmm.....I may extend that cap rock as the backbone of the whole range right down to the central pond. It's not like sandstone sea bed strata all over the world haven't been upthrust by tectonic activity.

You gents need to understand something, I started this 3D building project Nov. 12, 2017 after I spent development time creating a 1:1 2D blueprint file with every square mile mapped out. You can see how far I've come creating every square mile out of nothing. None of you have a clue how much more I have to create or what I've designed into the 1:1 blueprint I worked up to completion for every square mile of the arena. Fields\ports\HQ\city\strat\vBases are already in the can as one of the project stages waiting for me to check the layout for that stage. Why else do I put in all of the mapped out field place holder squares in each country so I can create the terrain around them? I post all of these construction screen shots because no one ever has for a whole project. Not to allow anyone other than Hitech to tell me how to build my terrain. Hitech's help has been invaluable over my last two terrains.

Not a bad transition with that cap rock.

(https://s20.postimg.org/qnjjmbc2l/medtst313.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 27, 2018, 04:40:01 PM: Extended the cap rock to the end of the range at the central pond.

Made a nice transition out of the wide cap rock.

(https://s20.postimg.org/6bdu0iyot/medtst314.jpg)

Pulled it down the spine of the range and gave it a terminus. I'll have to randomize breaks in the spine along with blending the outside into the slope to make the face look like an upthrust sandstone strata.

(https://s20.postimg.org/9uzrqc94d/medtst315.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/5lv1o6dkt/medtst316.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/g8outltfx/medtst317.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 27, 2018, 04:48:32 PM: Now I've got my upthrust ridge top and once again I have to pull something out of my whatsis.....

(https://s20.postimg.org/sd8poglgt/medtst318.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 27, 2018, 08:58:06 PM: As much as a terrain is fun feature carving, it's lots of prep work for feature carving. I finished the cap rock canyons transition into the running mountain range. I defined some strata levels in the river valley and prepped for cutting the long running mountain range. That's about 6 hours of work. During all of this I have to remember to let how water will run guide what I'm doing. That simplifies agonizing over how to carve a block of terrain polymesh into a canyon or a mountain ridge.

There is a tool in the terrain editor called a "smooth catmul" that is excellent for applying very slow erosion against features. It's not like the biliniar smoothing tool that can flatten a 25,000ft mountain side in a fat fingered mouse click goof. The terrain editor has just the right tools to shape it's polygon mesh.

(https://s20.postimg.org/ixxfp7avx/medtst319.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/x4d6kg8wd/medtst320.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/c7gyfrvfx/medtst321.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/uzstjccel/medtst322.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/afnzkvjst/medtst323.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 28, 2018, 04:00:06 PM: Terrain is about transitions if you you are creating large contiguous topo features like mountain ranges that change character and elevation down their full run. Changing character is the challenge because nature is chaotic and random. But, elevation, water and even wind have a logic that holds true anywhere on the planet when it sculpts the results of tectonic activity.

Two transitions, on the left, why does the water run down between those two formations to the river and how much will be eroded away in that short steep run. On the right, the step strata were being water cut and now they have blended into something else at a lower elevation. This is where I create the character of the lower elevation mountain range run. I'm sure many of you in Jr. High science class did a project where you place sand on a board and tilted one end up with the low end slightly over a bucket. Then drizzled a slow stream of water from the top to watch the properties of water and erosion. It's the same principle, you just do it in your mind and doodle away at the 3D formation until you get something that looks plausible within the constraints of the polygon mesh.

(https://s20.postimg.org/9qb7vws8d/medtst325.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 28, 2018, 06:01:28 PM: Playing with a different technique that allows me to cut really deep or build up with less refined edges and not have to worry so much about making everything perfect with a micro tool. Once do the smoothing passes, the canyon paths are in place and I can use a cutting tool back over the canyons to make them stand out. I'll refine it as I go along with this mountain range. When you create a lot of mountains, ridges and canyons, you notice how the polymesh reacts to the tools. Eventually something clicks and you have a newer more efficient technique.

The easy part of this is cutting into a basic block shape. It gets hard smoothing the rough cuts to meld into a finished weathered shape that sclaes to the surrounding shapes and makes sense.

(https://s20.postimg.org/o62bluwrh/medtst326.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/fcbf4rhil/medtst327.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 28, 2018, 06:45:13 PM: Painting in the rough canyon run lines then cutting in holes at all junctures to pull cut lines between really does speed up mountain building. You can see in the second picture how I set a runoff merge from the strata lines into the different terrain face and accounted for water runoff.

(https://s20.postimg.org/nyja2zo0d/medtst328.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/pqc8xwf31/medtst329.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 28, 2018, 07:56:48 PM: One whole day of work for one tiny transition...... Some days turn out like that, others miles of work just falls in place.

(https://s20.postimg.org/kmz7yumnh/medtst330.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/6gjh3mji5/medtst331.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Ciaphas on January 29, 2018, 08:18:25 AM: Quote
Buckshot,

Lets see your terrain or terrains and time put into using the terrains to test how players utilize terrains to build future terrains from. Otherwise, cut me a check every week for the next 6 months and I'll build your terrain, say $125 an hour. Do you really believe after this much time, testing, and observation of terrain usage effort on my part I'm interested in building other than my own terrain?

Bustr,

This is what he is referring to. I actually just asked a simple question and ignored your answer because it was born out of arrogance or at least that is the way it came across.

on another note,

good job on the terrain

Ciaphas
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 29, 2018, 12:47:11 PM: Ciaphas,

I didn't see it as arrogance, you thought you saw an opportunity that never existed from my position. Which I hoped with my third terrain now posting pictures with construction commentary, the community had gotten the message to enjoy the show and not opine expecting me to jump and do what they demanded or implement their ideas for the perfect AH3 terrain. Amazingly with the first two terrains I was treated like I did something terribly wrong to the opiners and by them as proxies, the community, because I was not allowing them collectively to force their opinions to take command over my production and be their unpaid construction drone.

Here in the forums if someone posts something like this, some have automatic opinions and believe their opinions are the icing on the cake, and superior to anything the owner of the post could imagine or ever create. And so far, none are willing to go through all of the effort and trouble I have to reach this point as a content creator for our game. But, they will interject themselves at a convenient opening to opine in a less than warm manner, that "somehow I am a bad person" for creating content and posting the ongoing results without allowing them creative control at any juncture they want to take over.

As always my response is please, if you have a superior idea to mine, create "your" terrain and show me a superior way of doing this. You can contact Easyscor to help you get started and access to the latest manual which Easyscor and Greebo worked on for all of us during the alpha\beta testing of AH3. As I stated to Buckshot, if you don't want to purchase a copy of L3DT, I will help you create a heightmap file to get your basic land and ocean setup in the terrain editor with a single file import.

Here is a tip from my testing it on my last terrain. Too many GV spawns to a single target is not guaranteed a GV combat turn out as fewer do because of the way our tank combat takes place across all terrains. You can look at buzzsaw for an excellent test case which I tested on my last terrain. Less combat takes place in an area as the numbers of spawns go up. The exception is a high value target like a port because it's not only a port but the task groups assigned to it and it's a very vulnerable target hosting so many valuable assets with no attack aircraft and only a single GV hanger. So more than two spawns makes it a GV attack destination. There is a balance of transit time and distance between spawns and target that is more critical to good GV combat than the number of spawns. Fewer spawns means you have a good idea where most of the bad guys are. And now that I have more experience with micro terrain creation, and more testing of that kind of terrain, the overall micro terrain design really effects GV combat enjoyment more than spawn numbers. So with this current project I have much more work than I experienced with my previous projects and the requisite testing that has to take place with a GV at every single spawn I create.

I have my plate full and post these on going screen shots to show the community how terrains are built, my hopes of inspiring new terrain builders, and to show case Hitech's incredible work because this is a BBS open to the public.

At least with this project it's only been a single person voicing a detracting opinion opposed to the many with my previous projects. This project is already fully designed in a blueprint project file and any changes will either be Hitech requesting changes or he rolls out the train\road\river paths. If you think your ideas have merit, I'll give you what help I can if you want to produce a terrain for the Melee arena.
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Ciaphas on January 29, 2018, 01:33:48 PM: Bustr,

I don't demand anything, I ask questions for my own understanding and to try and see things from the creators perspective, after all, I am on the outside looking in. Sometimes it not about having a more superior idea than what you have, it may be a harmless question to simply get a feel for the direction you are heading in. Many people have no idea what goes in to level/map design, fortunately for us Hitech and crew have created everything for us and we are just assembling the blocks and sculpting the board to get a product released.

As for me I have more than 10 years in level design, 3D asset creation and Texture design. I understand the fundamentals and concepts that go in to large projects like these maps.

I am currently working on a terrain at the moment and as always this thread has been a valuable asset.

Cheers,
Ciaphas
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 29, 2018, 01:36:26 PM: In that case was there a reason why you wanted me to change my micro terrain design if you are already in production with your concept for the Melee arena?
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Ciaphas on January 29, 2018, 02:13:19 PM: Quote from: Ciaphas on January 24, 2018, 06:50:25 AM
I really like the look of the terrain in post 29.

I’m wondering if you are treating airfields around multiple enemy vehicle bases as priority targets by placing multiple spawns to the airfield from each vehicle base?

Example:

A53 sets in sector 10,5 and two enemy VB sit in 11,5 and 10,6, both VB have multiple spawns to A53. Allowing for 4 avenues of attack.

Not sure if you have covered this, though you might have.

Cheers,
Ciaphas

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Didn’t ask you to change it, just asked if you were going to set bases up like what I quoted above.

And you answered the questions a few posts ago why a set up like that would likely fail in today’s MA.

All is good brother.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 29, 2018, 04:30:26 PM: And as usual, it's all gotta be painted, this time that whole crack that feeds out to the south edge of the mountain range.

(https://s20.postimg.org/yknd3v4b1/medtst332.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/ffk3u2fcd/medtst333.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/q2dwzhv7h/medtst335.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/sjpo6s9z1/medtst336.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/wsue8y5il/medtst337.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Arlo on January 29, 2018, 05:05:23 PM: I've discussed terrain editing with Bustr on more than one occasion. Yes, a lot of it involved appreciation and admiration. Some of it involved requests for him to make or edit a terrain (though that's not fair, really), some of it involved questions about how I can design a terrain of a specific type (and although I didn't ask, upfront, I also received advice on how to go about actually having it approved by HT - a pretty important part of terrain design, if you think about it).

As far as I know, Bustr is the only member of the community devoting so much of his time to making terrains for the community to enjoy. When I'm active, again, I plan to do my best to join him, in this (degree chasing takes up most of my time .... and money .... right now).

So, rather than take pot-shots at his character for not responding to requests with super-soft kid gloves, Buckshot, why not join me in learning more about how to build AH terrains and have them approved by HT (which generally entails making sure they will meet the entertainment needs of the entire community).

Just a thought. :salute :cheers:
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on January 29, 2018, 05:57:09 PM: I got curious and did a map in 4096x4096 to get high detail of the terrain so far. I cannot remember what I was doing or thinking with that first rift valley. I can see I left micro terrain cleanup for the field and spawn object stage. Other than that, I'll probably remember what I was thinking as I lay down field objects and have to work the few miles around that for GV combat. There is one clip of the center of the third country border rift valley and it's been so long since I pulled the block elevations for the mountain ranges, I'l be facing a true blanc slate. Oh well, after the first two valleys and all of the mountain building, it will be a breeze. I'm already thinking about the elevation transitions from the deep canyons down to the lakes and how I will make them look.

First rift valley in two parts.

(https://s20.postimg.org/rwvcupcnx/medtst338.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/icbq7tfm5/medtst339.jpg)

Current rift valley in progress.

(https://s20.postimg.org/9havxabe5/medtst340.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/dqflzgmd9/medtst341.jpg)

What I still have to look forward too.....whole bunch of whatsis to pull outta something.

(https://s20.postimg.org/94jhr4nzh/medtst342.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 01, 2018, 05:45:58 PM: I'm beginning to see canyons in my sleep.

(https://s20.postimg.org/it6msm19p/medtst345.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/wmuzho9al/medtst346.jpg)

A collapse of a magma pool under this upthrust section.

(https://s20.postimg.org/p6vpvvtb1/medtst347.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/gom9rj7ct/medtst348.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/j5y0yteel/medtst349.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Arlo on February 01, 2018, 07:45:43 PM: Love the detail. :)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 01, 2018, 09:21:27 PM: I'm really beginning to like the Catmul smoothing tool for how it slowly turns a square into a sphere tiny steps at a time. Just does a nice job of weathering by following the terrain gradually smoothing it down.

(https://s20.postimg.org/o7elrlg19/medtst350.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/w059jl1fx/medtst351.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 02, 2018, 02:24:30 PM: One of the limitations to the terrain editor work space is how the size of the polygons limit what you create and the cross sections you can expect. Then add insult to injury with how the polygon mesh responds to being formed running along the 4 cardinal lines versus the 8 bias lines running at angles to the cardinal lines. You can get 4 different results pulling or pushing a tool at diagonals across the same 1x1 square of ground because of this. Same for vertical structures working the faces as they are controlled by the same lines. In most cases to create a large object like a ridge running off a mountain you have to look at a boundary area around the final shape as your real work space that you shrink and finish into that structure. Build bigger than you think then refine and keep an eye on how the polymesh responds by morphing and shrinking.

You can go from a masterpiece to a rubble heap in the blink of an eye and no matter how you try, never able to duplicate the moment before the garbage heap in the exact same spot. This is because of how a polygon is shaped and all of the factors at 8 borders in play to reach a shape in any given moment. So you are constantly working in nibbles and not in rapid sweeps of carving and shaping even if you planned ahead in the laying down of a raw block stage. Often building a mountain gets out of had becasue of this as you wonder how it ended up so ginormous and out of scale. Scale then becomes the root cause of this and why you need to set a unified scale for everything in the terrain at the beginning and stick to it knowing the smaller you create features the less ability you have to make them look pretty.

With three colors I extenuate the limits of the polygons with a 3D visual illusion.

(https://s20.postimg.org/7v9lyzngt/medtst352.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/plbak0lm5/medtst353.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/h31ufp28t/medtst354.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/ii3f4fb1p/medtst355.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/sfefxgvi5/medtst356.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Rodent57 on February 02, 2018, 05:44:19 PM: Have, and will, continue to support BUSTR in his terrain work. His efforts support us all.

I don't necessarily agree with some of his design decisions, but think it is very important to state that it doesn't matter what I think of his design decisions....he decides, he submits to HTC, they say yes or no.

I can "not" appreciate some design (flaws... in my not so humble opinion), and still be grateful for his work. (I am).

I expect that he'd return the favor if I could figure out how to do what he is doing.

Thanks B!
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 02, 2018, 05:56:24 PM: Terrain design is like the free market of ideas and speech. The ideas and speech are the physical terrain itself. If you have a superior idea to communicate, create it and lay it on Hitech. The Players will decide, some are not people who care about anything other than what is in it for them while expressing that in very negative manners as we have witnessed. You may have noticed, Greebo and I say very little about each others design decisions. Partly because we both know how much trouble and time is involved to produce one of these things. The other, as many design concepts as we each believe are the way to go, there are that many fans of all the ideas we could come up with playing in the arena. The forums are full of tiny mice with giant bull horns.

You cannot make all the people happy all the time, and only a fool tries.
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Rodent57 on February 02, 2018, 07:28:58 PM: I'll AMEN that

...

AMEN!
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 03, 2018, 05:53:44 PM: Passes through mountains and canyons. In the past our canyons were built 5,000ft deep and 3-5 miles wide to funnel combat or something to that essence. In that case you could always map out your three countries fields on top of a 27,000ft land mass, then connect all of them with a 5 mile wide elevation brush. Set the elevation brush to say 2000ft and be done with it. Back when the first giant Pizza map and then the second small pizza maps were constructed, for the first one standards across the industry were eye bleeding realistic terrain graphics as a whole. And the smaller version, we had enough players accustomed to the limitations of our game by then who just wanted new and novel to chase each other around on. Today, we have a generation of game players who grew up on eye bleeding terrain graphics.

There is always the demand for micro terrain like this for tank combat. You cannot in all fairness place the field to be attacked down in that narrow pass unless you make the pass 3-5 miles wide. All the attackers would sit on the tops of the surrounding ridges in safety and close down the field. Gver's won't admit that is a holy grail wish so they don't have to expose themselves. So the logical location is on one of the highlands to each side. Then that pass becomes a place to avoid as an exposed killing ground unless you can engineer a reason to go down there. One of the reasons why I tested the terrain configuration on those clover leaf islands in Oceania for exposed low lands between spawns and attack target.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programing.

Mountain passes with side feeder canyons.

(https://s20.postimg.org/4qqodg2n1/medtst357.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/8zvefn0rh/medtst358.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/4qqodhcxp/medtst359.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/5g9gpu5rh/medtst360.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 03, 2018, 08:03:34 PM: Got curious about low elevation and small when it comes to canyons or passes through mountains. Because of how large the basic building block polygon is, you are limited to that as your granular feature. I'm thinking about the strat mega complex I want to build and where they will be placed.

The basic first cuts forming a sinuous pass through a 3000ft mountain line. The center of the pass is 1500ft while the ends are 660ft and the pass descends to each end. The previous sinuous pass was a straight cut theat I them pulled up blobs of ground like interlocking teeth to make the curving shape. This time I cut a curving narrow shape that I will use as the boundaries to stay inside of. You can cut the shape with a preset elevation tool but, then to get the center at 1500 and the ends at 660, that brings to play a tool to cut pitches through curves which create erosion wall effects that I might want to keep. Canyons, GVDAR, bridges, roads, spawns, mega strats along the road, ambushes......

(https://s20.postimg.org/lre603xf1/medtst361.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/pnrhw45jx/medtst362.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/a2a6c5lvx/medtst363.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/hv0u44k59/medtst364.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/dlw41z419/medtst365.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 04, 2018, 06:00:13 PM: Curiosity makes for more work.

Capstone mountain ranges of sandstone weather faster than harder rock and break apart easier as large formations crumble under their own weight. I decided I needed to break the mountain range cap rock even more.

(https://s20.postimg.org/mokn2kkn1/medtst366.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/p5we9vu9p/medtst367.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/w949pjhpp/medtst368.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/9x6gw5y19/medtst369.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/o3m7rdlr1/medtst370.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 04, 2018, 08:55:34 PM: There is a very handy tool called a Catmul smoothing tool. It slowly changes sharp edges into rounded off edges and takes deep cuts and pulls them up slowly into rounded off shallow troughs. This allows you to cut the dog puckky out of a mountain face, then morph it into gentle ridges and canyons. If you morph to flat, just run a cutting tool back between the ridges to redefine the canyons. Then quickly run the Catmul tool on it to blend the new cuts into the surrounding structures.

Here is an example of cutting the dog puckky out of a face.

(https://s20.postimg.org/v8doawebh/medtst371.jpg)

A first run of the Catmul tool.

(https://s20.postimg.org/t3tb9tkel/medtst373.jpg)

Cutting back in the canyons, little more Catmul and some shaping of the tops.

(https://s20.postimg.org/z4r06wmgd/medtst374.jpg)

Finished painting after some tweaking of the top shape towards the cap rock disappearing in the next segment in the mountain line.

(https://s20.postimg.org/vxwgn9ual/medtst375.jpg)

Nibble away a little every day, a terrain shows up just like that..............

(https://s20.postimg.org/tum1fwckt/medtst376.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Arlo on February 04, 2018, 08:59:22 PM: Your patience and attention to detail are better than mine. :aok
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 05, 2018, 12:19:03 AM: Man did I get tired of that mountain range. Now I have a clean slate for the third rift valley boarder between two countries.

(https://s20.postimg.org/a04l7fufx/medtst377.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/gdtoap71p/medtst378.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 07, 2018, 04:13:29 PM: I hate blank slates and I hate this third one, it's just me upping the creative anti on myself. It has to be randomly different than the first two. So once more into the doodle realm as I push bits and pieces around hoping for an idea that fits this project's theme.

You should really give it a go, just like banging your head on a wall hoping you can do something to make it stop.... :bhead

(https://s20.postimg.org/aoy3yfwvh/medtst380.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/dx2lb9td9/medtst379.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 07, 2018, 04:58:24 PM: The great rift valley in east africa is home to many ginormous volcano's. I can drop a few up in that corner..... :O

Caldera is 20,000ft, the bulldozer tool and Catmul smoother makes shaping this easy becasue of the scale.

(https://s20.postimg.org/pfsvw53h9/medtst382.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/gks1lmmel/medtst381.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 07, 2018, 05:24:13 PM: Now I have something that locks down that corner to work out from.

(https://s20.postimg.org/y3aonsbst/medtst383.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/h2rsf46h9/medtst384.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/lonwngzq5/medtst385.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 07, 2018, 05:58:08 PM: Even big volcano's need loving and rift valley's are full of them.

(https://s20.postimg.org/dpjjsai0d/medtst386.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/penjg9got/medtst387.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/na36f5rwt/medtst388.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/44zx5ekyl/medtst389.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 08, 2018, 03:46:10 PM: Using a mile wide brush and the bulldozer tool you can pull a series of overlapping ramps and build a quick mountain range with a lot of random features that will help in the next phase of cutting this into a finished mountain range.

(https://s20.postimg.org/47kpv4c8t/medtst390.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/baslar4tp/medtst391.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/euej0kf99/medtst392.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/hohoe01zx/medtst393.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/vuxf98559/medtst394.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: JimmyC on February 08, 2018, 04:45:56 PM: I love your intensity to detail and salute your commitment,and look forward to enjoying your hard work.
I just had an idea that as this micro terrain is so labor intensive, as map making in general, would it ever work to have a map with many contributors, all working on smaller areas,then all joined up at the end by the master map maker..a patch work quilt of a map if you like.
There would be much variety and difference and maybe a faster way to create maps?
just spitballing
<S>
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 08, 2018, 07:08:30 PM: I'm not into map creation with multiple contributors, I like building these things alone, and the terrain editor makes all this moot. It does not allow for shared work space of a single project. Maybe you can wishlist Hitech to add that ability to the terrain editor, then I want to see how you get a terrain finished with all the ego's in this game.

I have a general idea of what I want to do by the time I create my 1:1 blueprint file that I create the heightmap file from. Then after that, it's Michelangelo time as I don't have a clue what the actual details will be at any single place creating the MACRO terrain until they magically appear. Just a guiding theme concept, and the key locations mapped for all field placement.

Once I'm done with the MACRO terrain then why do I want to farm out the fun part I've been slaving all that time to get to? That is when a terrain gets really fun when I'm creating and testing the individual MICRO terrains for the local combat around feilds. In the end I'm still stuck having to check every square mile of 625,000 square miles to account for all the boo boos and problems. So why would I want to inherit additional problems from people who just want the fun of doing bit pieces and make me have to inspect all their work to fit into my plan? Consider that is what Hitech relatively has to do to sign off on my terrain once I submit it to him.

It's easier if I just build my terrain from soup to bowl. If you have some pet concepts or ideas you are just dieing to try out in the MA, build your own terrain. I think I've left a wealth of documentation to look at from my first two terrains and now this one. Seems another player asked me this same question, I think when I was building my first terrain. All he wanted was to do little things like micro combat areas for tank combat and other fun stuff. The MACRO work really can't be farmed out because it is unique to the vision of the terrain creator.

You would know that if you build a terrain.
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 08, 2018, 07:25:07 PM: In the time it took me to write that last reply I finished the foundation for the mountain ridge line on the other side of the rift. I'm getting very fast at doing the roughing in and making 80% complete, ready for finish shaping and painting. With an application like the terrain editor, 15 months of constant creating projects is about what it takes to get as fast as I am now and able to free hand on the fly with it.

(https://s20.postimg.org/cikrruqel/medtst395.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/tj3o0jb5p/medtst396.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/tvv26q159/medtst397.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/52li62pul/medtst398.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/5s4aify3x/medtst399.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 09, 2018, 11:59:29 AM: After two terrains and two rift valleys on this current terrain, I can plan how I lay down the foundation buildup of a mountain range or some feature and have up to 80% of it finished so the touch-up time to the final form is minimal. Not sure how I could farm that out even if the terrain editor was a sharable work-space for collaboration. I would not end up with my terrain.

I really wish you guys would stop trying to find a way to inject yourselves into my terrains. Please just build your own. Collaborate a consensus committee and pick one of you to be the remote hands on laborer who has the time or inclination to go through this process. Then the consensus committee can get all their cherished dreams of AH gamey utopia implemented, or some such nonsense like that. And then you will stop hurting your own feelings by bothering me.

Here is the 30 minutes of clean up for one side of this first mountain range at this new rift valley.

(https://s20.postimg.org/okr86dp6l/medtst400.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/gs0keebhp/medtst401.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/7k8bxpjv1/medtst402.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/656r8zqhp/medtst403.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/wdhvydib1/medtst404.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Ciaphas on February 09, 2018, 12:27:19 PM: Quote from: bustr on February 09, 2018, 11:59:29 AM

I really wish you guys would stop trying to find a way to inject yourselves into my terrains. Please just build your own. Collaborate a consensus committee and pick one of you to be the remote hands on laborer who has the time or inclination to go through this process. Then the consensus committee can get all their cherished dreams of AH gamey utopia implemented, or some such nonsense like that. And then you will stop hurting your own feelings by bothering me.

Why are you always so smug? Somebody asks a harmless question and you berate them and anyone else who is interested.

Get over yourself man.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 09, 2018, 01:51:02 PM: You seem to have issues that you can't leave this alone and just watch, you tried to inject your personal wants into this process months before I was at any kind of a micro terrain building point. What drove you to do that without making any attempt to find out if I was even interested before injecting your wants into the screen shot building post? Were you going to build your own terrain at that point?

The last poster and others over that last two terrains I've completed try to inject themselves into the outcome of my terrains. I have clearly explained this is a Michelangelo style of terrain building and to a previous person answered that this work cannot be parceled out. Seems he just didn't want to invest the real time it takes to build an MA terrain and wanted small easy things to quickly do. :rolleyes:

Smug, no, I am building my terrains while showing how to do it so others can build their own. Since I started doing it that way with my first terrain BowlMA, people have been trying to inject themselves into my process and have me use their ideas instead of building their own terrains. They tried by forum peer pressure, then by trying to get Hitech to force their changes to my terrains visa the wish list. Or by continually starting arguments over personal things in the middle of my posts. You have ideas about how GV spawns should be arranged in the MA, build a terrain and submit it to Hitech for inclusion.

Back to terrain building.

Finished the starting mountain spines at the root of the rift. I'll have to develop the north side of the ranges more before returning to paint this.

(https://s20.postimg.org/fhb6p3c1p/medtst405.jpg)

Creating a 4096x4096 map allows for a more detailed screen capture.

(https://s20.postimg.org/a767x91x9/medtst406.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Ciaphas on February 09, 2018, 02:47:39 PM: Haha reread my posts, never once did I interject my wants. I simply asked a question. The last poster simply asked a question. No one was trying to steal your jello.

As far as not having an interest, perhaps he was wondering if it were possibly to bring more efficiency or to stream line aspects for building terrains.

Not everyone is here to take away from what you are doing nor are they attacking you personally.

If you don’t want people to post ask skuzzy to change the permissions on this thread.

But seriously get over yourself .

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 09, 2018, 02:49:29 PM: You are now by starting this whizzing match. Build your own terrain.
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Ciaphas on February 09, 2018, 03:39:29 PM: ok bustr, great work on your rift valley sections.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 09, 2018, 03:43:13 PM: How do you extend the mountain range on down the valley wall? I've pulled lines of block bases then logically extended the ridge to have the centering high point to start a pull for the bulldozer tool from high to low to create a slope that I'll revisit to clean up and add other features.

(https://s20.postimg.org/6k4pfrzdp/medtst407.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 09, 2018, 05:17:09 PM: Now I have to think about secondary upthrust nearer to the center of the valley and how those will look. Then I can blend that into this and eventually loop back and paint some of this.

(https://s20.postimg.org/ir3uk1iml/medtst408.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/jte12l95p/medtst409.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/ir3uk25rx/medtst410.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/pubpzo3hp/medtst411.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/t169jb3d9/medtst412.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: JimmyC on February 09, 2018, 06:30:58 PM: Must be dark with your head so far up there ..
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 10, 2018, 01:17:29 PM: And what possible reason do you have to try and inject yourself into building my terrain when this is a screen shot documentation of the process? Why don't you build your own terrain, or at the minimum PM me to find out if I'm even interested in what you think you need to inject into this? This is the third terrain you gents have not been able to control yourselves and just watch the process as I build the terrain. I would call that having your head somewhere dark.

Why do you guys have such an addiction to injecting your selves into my terrain building process and then make me out as the bad actor for not being interested? I understand doing that to HTC since you are paying to access that product. You are not paying me to build this terrain.
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: 100Coogn on February 10, 2018, 01:32:50 PM: Quote from: bustr on February 10, 2018, 01:17:29 PM
Why don't you build your own terrain

:rofl

Coogan
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 10, 2018, 02:52:29 PM: Somewhere in those rectangular cross sectional runs are secondary upthrust ridges. I just know there are if I click my ruby slipper heels together and say "I know there are".

In the time you gents waste whizzing with me, each of you could already have a 1:1 blueprint created for a new terrain and a heightmap file imported into the terrain editor. Or a blank terrain editor export file into a project space going in L3DT. 8thJinx just went through getting a workspace going in L3DT and you can contact him to help you.

(https://s20.postimg.org/dx26f7z59/medtst413.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/6h2wtfj5p/medtst414.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 10, 2018, 05:01:04 PM: I knew if I just kept clicking those heels the upthrust ridges would magically appear.

Using only the AH3 terrain editor there are 4 primary ways to build mountains by hand. A fifth if you are good with grayscale and gradients, that is a very time consuming endevor. Across the three rift valley's I'm using three of the ways to create the illusion of three different rock strata formations. This really dosen't take me very long once I can visualize how to transition into it and a good idea what it will look like as a MACRO feature. There is no farming this out to other people because it is one whole that ties into the whole terrain theme.

That leaves the only other part that could be farmed out but, it's the fun I'm slaving away at all of this MACRO construction to finally reach. And you might say the philosophical heart of any terrain and what the builder of the terrain thinks will represent a good play space for the community. Why would I want to hand away my vision to other community member's who won't build their own terrains with their own ideas? There is no track record for their opinions as real terrains played on by the community.

(https://s20.postimg.org/irvvdhi19/medtst415.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/vja1jzzj1/medtst416.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/v6indtoz1/medtst417.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/llz0qxchp/medtst418.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 10, 2018, 06:39:17 PM: Another segment finished on the inside of the rift with another to go to finish the secondary upthrust region. Still the outside on both sides and what ever I decide down the valley. Sure this is time consuming, so is creating clay statues for bronze statue sand molds, or creating wax jewellery settings for loss wax casting. Or creating from scratch a Japanese sword handle from wood, ray skin wrap, and then silk braid warping. And it being up to the standards for use in years of sword training.

The time and effort spent here is nothing new to me to get the results I want.

(https://s20.postimg.org/r565m4bu5/medtst419.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/t9qin7l6l/medtst421.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/43pkgdrm5/medtst422.jpg)

the last segment for the secondary upthrust ridge.

(https://s20.postimg.org/4ggymjf0t/medtst423.jpg)

(https://s20.postimg.org/qfnd9r3kt/medtst424.jpg)
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: 100Coogn on February 10, 2018, 07:01:20 PM: Come on, really?
Can you not make these pictures smaller, or make an attachment per protocol?
This is getting out of hand now.

'look what I drew daddy'. Yea the first five times that nice.
Not so much now...

Coogan
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Arlo on February 10, 2018, 07:56:18 PM: Was that necessary, Coog? Memorize the title and avoid the thread.
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 10, 2018, 08:05:57 PM: So is this about a gratuitous opportunity for a drive by shot at me? Or did my reference to clicking the heels of ruby slippers not go over well...... :rolleyes:

Where is your terrain to document and show me how?
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: bustr on February 10, 2018, 09:34:17 PM: My picture host company has been having a few slowdowns recently in resolving pictures here in these forums. In the past with my other projects I split these posts in into versions to address long loading periods for all the screen shots. I'll move this to a version 2 back in the terrain editor forum with my next screen shots.

Everyone should check out Chikov's new terrain that looks like he is about to submit it to Hitech. He has done excellent work and I hope it will be in rotation soon.

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,391743.0.html
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: 100Coogn on February 10, 2018, 09:39:46 PM: Quote from: Arlo on February 10, 2018, 07:56:18 PM
Was that necessary, Coog? Memorize the title and avoid the thread.

Well at least put it in the proper forum.
Perhaps Terrain Editor.

Not everyone has uber internet and these damn pictures kill any kind of load time.
So yes, to me, it was necessary.

Coogan
Title: Re: River and bank testing GV micro terrain.
Post by: Arlo on February 11, 2018, 09:59:34 AM: Quote from: 100Coogn on February 10, 2018, 09:39:46 PM
Well at least put it in the proper forum.
Perhaps Terrain Editor.

Not everyone has uber internet and these damn pictures kill any kind of load time.
So yes, to me, it was necessary.

Coogan

You should have just asked for the thread to be moved, then. Your personal concern about how it affects your bandwidth was even reasonable (though you can just not enter the thread 'River and bank testing GV micro terrain' if it causes that much pain). The personal attack on Buster was your 'Bridge too far.'

I apologize for your bandwidth torture if you read my response.

P.S. As I've told many, I like you and your posts, Coog. We all have moments we can't take back on this forum. I sometimes find myself caught between AH friends when one decides to take a shot (and I've had AH friends remind me when I'm better than the action I take sometimes). You're better than that, this time. :)