I Know It's Been a While

[ImADot]

Not having used the TE for quite a loooong time, I don't remember the underlying texture when erasing/adding water being changed to grass. Not sure if I changed a setting way back when... 

No matter what the texture on the terrain is (even the "deep ocean" texture), when I erase or add water the tile under that spot of water (and the surrounding area) is painted with the grass texture. I even downloaded a new copy of the content editors and installed in a new folder. Started a new test terrain. Exported the water. Went into Photoshop and made it all white (dry land). Imported it and saved the terrain. Loaded the gndtype.bmp file into Photoshop and saw it was all "deep ocean" (RGB 0,0,0).

As soon as I draw some water, I see the below images (and viewing the gndtype.bmp in Photoshop shows that this area is now grass (RGB 17,17,17) as you can see in the second picture where the water depth is shallow enough to see the texture:

Deep Water


Medium Water

[MachNix]

Yes, anytime you change the depth, the underlying terrain is changed to Grass (01).  It does not mater what the original terrain was -- Deep Ocean, Farm, Forest, etc. -- it will turn to Grass when you change the terrain from land to water, water to land, or the depth of the water.  Don't know if it is a bug or a new "feature" but it does make it more difficult if you have your terrain types set and need to make a change to the land/water. 

And watch out for the Auto-Save feature!  It saves whether the box is checked or not and it could overwrite your good terrain while experimenting with different settings.  When you get a look you like, save and backup your files.

[ImADot]

Well that blows...and I swear I don't remember it doing that prior to a couple of updates ago...

Oh well, I guess I'll live with it and go back and tweak things later. Kind of a bummer that the terrain files might bloat a bit if the grass texture is under ALL water on a map; thought that's why "deep ocean" was there - you can't see it in deep water anyway, so why have all the detail?

Thanks for confirming that I'm only partially off my rocker. 

[ghostdancer]

Yeah, I forget when that got introduced but it is very annoying. Also one of the reasons I end up doing most of my texture work directly via the gndtype.bmp file.

[-sudz-]

It was requested by the player base some time ago that when erasing water the texture get defaulted to some land type.  This was so you didn't have to repaint the same area you just erased with land types and also so you'd have a better visual cue as to what the result of erasing water would look like.

MachNix, are you absolutely sure the TE auto saves even if the box isn't checked?

- sudz

[ImADot]

Ah, I see...thanks.  Maybe I'll create a wishlist item so we get the ability to choose the default terrain type to use while working with water. 

[MachNix]

MachNix, are you absolutely sure the TE auto saves even if the box isn't checked?

- sudz

Yes, Auto Save happens with the Auto Save unchecked.

Started TE (Client Version 2.27 Patch 6, Editor Version 2.27 Patch 7) and noted the time (11:02 AM).  Used the Maximize button for full screen.  The Auto Save checkbox does not show a check mark as default and "15" is displayed in the Mins textbox.  (I did not cycle Auto Save checkbox and there was no dark square that you get sometimes when a checkbox is in an unknown state.)  Selected Snow/Coral as a terrain type and painted a patch of empty ocean.  I then walked away from the computer for 20 minutes.  When I got back, Windows Explore showed some files being updated with a time of 11:17 AM.  Opening the gndtype.bmp file showed a patch of light grey that was all black.

The following files where updated for the test terrain TileChk:

gndtype.bmp
TileChk0.ttd
TileChk.elv
TileChk.fla
TileChk.MDM
TileChk.oba
TileChk.obb
TileChk.tra

The following files where not updated:

compwater.bmp
TileChk.bmp
waterc.htz
waterd..htz
TileChk.trb