Mediterranean Tile Set Testing and Topo Testing.

[bustr]

Tiny random mountains under 4k are a bite.

[bustr]

While making sure my micro mountains looked like random water cut high and low areas, I found an orphaned 3000ft elevation on the runoff plain to the lake. This happened when I decided where my main cut canyons to feed the stream in the lakes would be. So I terraced the orphaned area because it has an airfield in the center of it. Then I can worry about how to sculpt the elevations, runoff cuts, and rational for a town or no town when I finish all the rift valley mountain and crack systems. The vast majority of small mountains on this terrain will have trees all over them but, the challenge will be to create an illusion of the water runoff system with sandstone and other light tiles running through out the bottoms of all the tiny canyons. The illusion matters even during a furball while you aren't paying attention. Otherwise why did IL2 and WT map designers go to so much trouble over their terrains for a bunch of ungrateful kids?

[bustr]

Never be afraid to ruthlessly scrub something and start over. Don't get caught so far out in the weeds with a bad idea that you are afraid to have to redo it because you don't want to put all that time back into it. Bad topo ideas are bad topo ideas if you have a mental image of how topography is suppose to look with your terrain. So catching this point sooner and scrubbing it will help you to not have to later on hate some part of your terrain because you compromised on not wanting to expend the time to make it right. That will effect all of your decisions as you go along if you compromise and create that habit. Learn the limitations of the polymesh and compromise with that since you cannot change it.


There was a topo transition here that allowed for the airfield placement but, I didn't like how it looked once I shaped all of the micro mountains. So I raised up two mounds and pulled the bulldozer tool between them to set the terrain back to building blocks so I can start over. I really wish Waffle had added a red brown textured rock tile to this set because that's the average color of that kind of rock from the Med through East Africa.

[bustr]

I've developed my small mountain range technique about as far as the polymesh will allow. So painting it to visually create a 3D contrast is the next step along with testing the Med tile set for how tiles interact and how bad boundaries are between different tiles. This is where I wish Hitech had created a universal blend tool that would remove the boundary lines that form between tiles that are out of sequence. Or at least set a third tile that performs that function. In the Med set the two given that function are not the best for blending boarder lines on predominate green colored tiles which I'm using to create the uplands and Savannah on this terrain.

Some testing with the tiles to paint the low mountains.







After painting the mountains I discovered a problem. I was so focused on carving the mountain blocks I defined the mountain area with that I created a straight line defining the transition edge of the range into the lowlands. Once you paint structures you start seeing definition that the default mono coloring won't show. So I have to pull a random transition runoff area to blend into the lowlands.

[bustr]

It's subtle and boring looking but, I'm getting the techniques and design down now for wide area low alt mountain ranges\foot hills 3k and lower. This gets mind numbing but, while I'm grinding away, came up with some mental designs for the vehicle spawn paths.

Hills and low mountains, those strata shelf's are easy and very quick using the bulldozer tool. Then you have to touch then up a bit to get a weathered look to the sharp edges.

[bustr]

Just overcame the equivalent of writers block on a transition from one topo feature into another. Pulled cuts on the large smoothed topo block to define canyons and now I just start cutting away around them. Just like doing relief carvings in wood of 3 dimensional scenes or Bas-relief in stone.


About 5 minutes of work with the bulldozer tool and a narrow brush to create a deep rift transition.

[ghostdancer]

Looking really nice.

[bustr]

It never ceases to amaze me how fast you can create topography with only the bulldozer tool.









The polygons are large so you have to accept that as your limitation to how granular you can make things. Just work with what you have with illusions to suggest what the eye wants to see.

[bustr]

Slowly but surely I'm moving along while refining the look and techniques that will enable me to finish the two other rift valleys in much less time.

[bustr]

This is making sense how to manipulate small areas of the mesh with the bulldozer tool and light applications of the elevation tool to create micro features like small runoff gullies, or rock strata, or rapidly cutting down a block into a small mountain. The underlying polymesh will deform in predictable manners, so in a sense go with the flow.

[bustr]

Think I've got it now, especially since I'm imposing elevation limitations so everything flows from the boarders of the terrain downhill to the center.

[bustr]

This is working....

[bustr]

How do you blend a strata stepped rock pile into rift valley mountain wall?

[bustr]

New topography themes take the most time when working them up with the first country. In this case a semi Africaesqu with rift valleys and a canyon land. Coming up with the look and techniques takes forever. Still it helps to find real world pictures of features that the terrain editor polygon mesh will support.

I'll be using this as a canyon building guide. I've been working on an illusion of these features in the rift valley crack at the edge of the terrain.








I'm thinking about a canyon system to break up the vast 5000ft high green area in the back of each country. The canyons will be cut 6 miles wide down to 500ft. Then I'll use the elevation tool to step the walls up at every 500 or so feet to create a terraced look from a 1-2mile wide bottom of the canyon.





This takes time with so much detail but, I've created the two rift valley upthrust ranges and need some remnant elevations in the river valley. Then I can put those in place for two more countries. At least it will go faster now.

[bustr]

I'm burn't out for the moment creating low elevation mountain ranges with a high number of runoff canyons. So I took the opportunity to accomplish two things at the same time. I need a transition topo feature from the edge of the map from all sides that is at 12,000ft. And I wanted to work with the tools to create canyons with stepped elevations since later I will cut them in all over the back field of each country.

This didn't turn out too bad with all the restrictions the polygon mesh imposes. The real trick will be building a canyon and doing this to both sides down into a 5000ft vertical cut.