Adding terrain details to the Satmap

[bad benson 1733]

hey folks,

i opened this thread to talk about a method to add lightning details to your satmap which make your terrain look more detailed in shape.

i also want to encourage everyone to discuss and share their methods. i think this might be useful because there have been several threads asking about ways to make a satmap.

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the situation which lead me into fiddling with such fancy stuff was the following:

i had a terrain made of real world data (meaning satellite photo and elevation data) from afghanistan.

the area i worked on contained much erosion detail which was present on the satellite data as strong shadows. on the other hand (because most free elevation data outside of the USA is not really detailed) my elevation data was of really low resolution.

that's why i had alot of shadowing going on on my satmap based on details that weren't present in my actual terrain. the result was not very beautiful.

that's why i decided to remove all shadows from the satellite photo (in a very long painful process).

now everything looked more homogen but still not very detailed/realistic. so i decided to work more on my heightmap. i wanted to achieve a look similar to the real erosion indicated by the shadows on my original sat photo.

after trying alot of tools i can tell u that Terraformer and World Machine are the best(imho) free tools to add realistic erosion.

here's a side with alot of links to terrain tools:

http://www.terradreams.de/All/Downloads.php

it's in german but u have to look under the category "Sonstige". there are different links to terrain editors.

so now that i had much terrain detail i realised that with the cell size i'm using on my map (for performance) arma isn't capable of displaying all that detail. the way the engine renders the tarrain model (the mountains etc.) and it's textures is also really basic.

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so i started playing around with adding an ambient occlusion layer to my satmap photoshop file.

for everyone who doesn't really know what ambient occlusion is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_Occlusion

:p

i used X-normal(http://www.xnormal.net/Downloads.aspx) and the demo of crazybump (http://crazybump.com/) to create different AO-maps from my heightmap i edited with terraformer and worldmachine. after that i layered them over my satmap in photoshop. i set the layer option from normal to multiply and then played around with oppacity and brightness and contrast.

here are some example screens so u know what the hell i'm actually talking about:D.

note: the effect is a bit overdone so the difference is a bit more obvious. the satmap also has a rather low resolution for testing. but u get the idea.

here before and after is from left to right

and here before and after is from right to left

u have to be aware of the fact that the actual detail comes from an

edited heightmap. the Ambient Occlusion map is generated

from that. so the AO map will only underline the detail. so use t

hese nice tools to add some realistic erosion.

ok that's all i think. i hope this is useful for anyone struggling with

making their terrain look nice.

[icebreakr 3159]

Thanks for the tip BadBenson, I've been experimenting for the past few days with more realistic satmask and I came to the almost same conclusion ;)

Did you try out playing with L3DT light&specular options maybe?

[bad benson 1733]

i manipulated my heightmap with alot of tools. L3dt was one of them. but i just used it to add erosion. gonna look into it.

one thing i forgot to mention is that i always layered the new heightmap over the old one in photoshop and reduced opacity of the new one. that way u can use stronger erosion values but still keep the basic shape of your original heightmap. i for example have a river in mine and had to make sure the area around the river stayed at almost the same height because of armas waterlevel.

Edited September 22, 2010 by Bad Benson

[Robster 11]

I've been reading this a while ago as my understanding grows. By now I realise that a good sat pic is hard to get sometimes as well as a good dem related to that sat map... and then is a matter of choice... pick up good dem map to work on sat photo or take a good sat map and go for better heights with terrain manipulation programs...

As this very moment I have a question related to Photoshop:

Is there is some special advice/tip regarding color managing???... I just go for PNG conversion, but for Textview cheking I use Gimp and save with no alpha and no transparent bits... and no idea about RGB settlement on the pic, or 16,24 or 32 bits...

Such ignorance about technical stuff reaches my height maps on PS cause when importing to Visitor I can not see expected results... even If I retouch a minimal part of the elevation map and left everything else untouched... PS change the values inside my png file changing the whole look of my map... so I can not trust the final results... as I could even do with Wilbur... btw Wilbur ask me if I want to save 8 bits or something like that and always works for Visitor 3... as a matter of fact before Gimp I used only Wilbur as Gimp is used for getting more control over the touching and retouching process (that long painful process that Mr. Benson mentioned above and continues with heights)...

Regards,

Edited November 26, 2010 by Robster
ortografía - spelling

[bushlurker 46]

Hi Robster...

I use an old version of Photoshop (CS2)... I'm not sure about the latest versions, but the older ones had a reputation for not handling 16bit greyscales very well... I notice that if I load an already prepared 16bit heightmap greyscale, then look at the "mode" section, it says 8bit.. you REALLY don't want conversion to 8bit happening at any stage with your heightfield image... thats too few shades of grey... you'll notice that in Wilbur you seem to have 65536 shades of grey - the full possible range... you need that full range to reflect small nuances/variations in height on your heightmap... we may be stuck with 10m per pixel in the X and Y direction, but in the Z (height) value you want sub-meter accuracy... ie: more than 256 possible values...

I'd suggest you don't do any actual heightfield editing in Photoshop (maybe the Gimp is better?... probably)... try the L3DT Standard Version... the standard version doesn't let you make "sat or mask" layers bigger than 4096 (bummer), but - it does allow you to work on heightmaps up to 4096 - with the full range of L3DT heightmap tools...

L3DT does handle 16bit correctly and will output a proper .png, or even, with the free plugin, XYZ output too... Visitor will accept either... Once you get the hang of L3DT you'll find it much easier than photoshop for general heightfield editing...

If you're using greyscale .png heightmap to import & export with Visitor then your .pbl file controls your max & min height values... L3DT will ask for these on import too...

For Satmaps (apart from asking for a 3 month L3DT Pro trial - which will give you hi-res Sat & Mask generating capability too), Photoshop or the Gimp should be fine...

The Wiki and tutorials all say "8 bit" for these two files... I'm not entirely sure if they mean true 8 bit (a mere 256 colours) or 24bit (3 x 8bit RGB layers) - when I save as .png in Photoshop the only thing it ever asks me is "interlace yes/no", and I say "no"...

B

Edited November 27, 2010 by Bushlurker

[Gnome_AS 10]

I use L3DT for ambient/specular maps. Tis nice and easy. I usually run the numbers way down .1-.2, works great. I do almost all my HF editing and mask work in L3DT also. Really a superb program once you get it all sorted out.

Well worth the nominal whatever indie license price ($35 ?), and honestly if you're serious about making maps, especially large ones, the Pro version isn't exactly expensive. I have no issues editing and re-importing my HF's with L3DT. Just have to editing on the right scale and whatnot.

Not sure what your export issues might be in PS, what version?

[Robster 11]

Not sure what your export issues might be in PS, what version?

As Bush said, PS saves as png asking for interlaced mode or something like that and we say no but I can not export it directly cause visitor needs 16 bits files and PS saves something else, 8 bits I guess. Then I go for the Gimp and finish the 16 bit conversion cause I do not know how to do it on PS...

Besides I ignore what's the matter with saving alpha channels or the bottom color for which Gimp asks for.. so I saved those too, getting a file larger than unsaving this data... is it really necessary for the game??? I have absolutely no idea :confused:

A couple of days ago I applied some Benson's tips and exported the whole height map from visitor as pbl (2048x2048 grayscale png file in this case)... then I went to PS and made a layer with sat_lco properly reduced and desaturated (black and white image with no contrast or bright manipulation... it could be useful to reduce shadows to 0% previously)... viewing both layers (sat pic on top) I took sat photo to 1% oppacity... and save as png then went for Wilbur to get 16 bits grayscale file and applied two or three rounds of gaussian blur (about 0.0350 to 0.75) and then imported png within pbl to visitor... you may judge the results ... every part of terrain between 90 meters band (for non US SRTM elevation map as is this case) that was totally plain woke up and became alive! giving us that sort of bumpy look for drainage and erosion effects... For the sake of truth I had previosuly worked on sat_lco previously for getting relatively plain colors and reduced shadows using PS tools already known (just a few in my case)

Cheers!!!

PS: These lands are taken from a near valley located at east of (is this correctly written?) Cerro Moreno Airport, Antofagasta, Chile :D

BEFORE

AFTER

Edited November 29, 2010 by Robster
deletrear bien las wuas!!!

[stormridersp 11]

Hi Bad Benson, Im trying to create some erosions using terraformer2 as suggested. What settings do you use in order to create those beautiful erosions of yours?

[bad benson 1733]

i can't remember. but u have to keep in mind that my height map was created by layering different versions of it on top of eachother.

so the heightmap i made with terraformer looked really edgy and almost geometrical. i "melted" it together with the original heightmap i got from my dem data to get the look i have now.

it's good to have an exaggerated version of your heightmap with lots of erosion so u can mix it with the original one.

[stormridersp 11]

I tried some of the programs that youve mentioned but still quite dont understand how to use them.

Do you create a straight new heightmap pattern and then merge it to your layered map via, say, photoshop, or is it possible somehow to import your heightmap to one of those programs and from there, create realistic looking erosions?

thanks mate

str

[bad benson 1733]

u use the heightmap in the generators. otherwise the erosion wouldn't fit. add me on skype (bad.benson) so i can try to help u. u use terraformer right?