terrain borders/surrounding terrain

[Nephris1 10]

Hi folks,

i ahve some problems with my map and its borders.

Means the transitions to the surrounding terrain.

I dont think it has sth to do with the surrounding terrain that is added within the config.cpp.

Well however, a screenshots says more than 100 words i guess.

The marked positions correspond to each other on the map.

For any reason the map gets cropped on the right side and the bottom (east and south).

map settings:

terrain size: 512x512

terrain cell size (mtr): 10.0

terrain size (mtr): 5120 x 5120

Satelite Grid: 48

Satelite Segment: 12

Do u have any idea what causes this?

[Gnome_AS 10]

Hmm...

Trying to decipher the images ... is this on the map border? Kinda looks like a border, kinda doesn't.

Have you defined your outsideTerrain in the config.cpp?

Something like this:

class OutsideTerrain {
satellite = "ASG\GR_Tank\Data\s_satout_co.paa";
enableTerrainSynth = 1;

class Layers {
class Layer0 {
nopx = "ASG\GR_Tank\Data\asg_dirt_plain_nopx.paa";
texture = "ASG\GR_Tank\Data\asg_dirt_plain_co.paa";
};
};
};

*edit*

Recent worth reading material regarding outsideTerrain:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=109619&highlight=outsideTerrain

*edit2*

Still mostly hmmm'ing here.. don't really think it's an outsideTerrain issue as your trees and whatnot appear to be inside the terrain. Perhaps an attributes mask issue? To many colors within the section overlaps? I'd mention the rule of thumb there ... but me brain just misfired.

Edited December 5, 2010 by Gnome_AS

[oldbear 390]

I have get the same effect on Brik already release and on Yapal I am still working on : on a rather large band along the East and South borders of the terrain, texture doesn't apply as usual but is showing strips of various tints from the _Sat with some blur effect.

The effect is more visible on grass/green areas and less on desert/yellowish desert zones, there it just looks blurry not ***** off.

Edit : on Yapal the blurred areas are 320 m wide. The map is 512 x512 with 10m terrain grid. .... it's easier to build islands than terrains ^^.

Edited December 6, 2010 by Old Bear

[Nephris1 10]

Means u know the same prob .....:rolleyes:

A bug? ... a mislead feature?

[wedge123 0]

this has happened to me since arma1 ..i never did find the cure!!:confused:

[Nephris1 10]

I tried to elminate the error anyhow, so i made of my terrain an "island", means the borders got lowered to -10m. I then reimported the sat and mask again.

But that didnt change anything.

Is it possible that a certain part of any map is always that "strange"?

We just cant see it on islands, as the border texture is below the sea.

Has anyone created a terrain in the Community or one of you without those artefacts?

[Nephris1 10]

I checked it today again on a 10240x10240 terrain, and i got same artefacts...:(

[oldbear 390]

I believe it's not a bug nor an error, probably an other manifestation of the "Blue Edge effect" revealed now with continuous terrain.

On island or on map such as Chernarus, the effect is hidden under the sea, in the South and East. I had this problem as I start building Sbrodjistan_ extended, a fictional terrain based on my previous ArmA island. Now as I have built it along the same lines as Chernarus, this problem has disappeared, but I was stuck in the "Hole in the sea effect" :(

If possible, meaning when we are building terrain not strictly based on real data, we must hide this effect behind some terrain features, river, ridge, forest but I believe that unless BIS delivers an other terrain procedure, we are stuck to deal with it

[bushlurker 45]

I've had almost this exact same problem since the early days of my project... Pics & Discussion in this thread

I'm fairly convinced by now its some sort of limitation of the terrain rendering technology...

It only occurs on the south and east (bottom and right) borders of the map, and seems to be in some way linked with the "hole in the sea" issue - which in turn seems to be related to the "infinite procedural land" routine...

Like Old Bear suspects - the reason Chernarus has sea on those borders may well be to avoid this issue rather than as a purely design decision...

One thing to remember is that "infinite land", and indeed - all the settings in your island config.cpp aren't actually being used when you're previewing a Visitor terrain in buldozer... so any terrain with land to the bottom and/or right sides seems to have this "stretching" and "weird texturing"... well, all the terrains I've experimented with so far do... with actual proper "island" terrains you don't see the effect (in Visitor/buldozer) of course, since that area is under water - and those terrains in-game - when the config comes into effect - also have no problems since you don't activate infinite land for "island" terrains...

With "landlocked" terrains, or indeed any terrain which has land to the east and/or south, you seem to get this stretching on those sides (in Visitor/buldozer)... in-game, with infinite terrain ENabled, the borders look better - but you get "holes in the sea", or - with infinite land DISabled, the sea is fine, but the borders get stretched all to hell...

I've seen this effect consistently on a number of terrains and it definitely seems to be some sort of engine limitation or something... I haven't any effective solution to offer, nor do we really have any definitive word from BIS themselves on the issue...

Typically - my own pet project has land on the borders - the south and east borders of course! :mad:

I struggled with the issue for a while, but - untypically for me - I've given up on finding a solution for the moment.. it may not be fixable, I suspect...

The choice seems to be - big holes in the sea right in the middle of the map, or borderlands that look crap... I've settled for borders that look crap - otherwise you can stand on the docks of my biggest town and watch boats float in midair around the harbour above the seabed... that looks even worse...

If you insist on driving or walking right out to the edge of my map you'll find signposts that basically say "look - you have 400 square miles of nice terrain to play in - beyond here it looks like crap - go play on the nice bit"...

To be honest I wasn't that impressed by "infinite land" - for my particular project anyway... it tends to "invent" islands off the north and west coasts - spoiling the familiar coast outline of the terrain...

I'll settle for Old Bears solution and hide the border (from a ground viewing perspective anyway) behind ridges, trees and anything else I can think of...

B

Edited December 10, 2010 by Bushlurker

[Nephris1 10]

Well, as u both said, i think i ll hve to take or leave it....

It is a kind of annoying cause also playing "hiding objects" on that textures isn´t the most perfect solution,i guess ill do it like inv44 did, they just created a square surrounded by water.

Actually ashame, coz that fact prevents us a bit of creating real "perfect" terrains.

Lucky me,i noticed it already on just a test map.

God thx i didnt start a real project on a terrain...:rolleyes:

Thx for ya input.

[Nephris1 10]

I want to keepyou up2date on my testing with the surrounding terrain.

Today i changed my heightmap, so i all my 4 borders of the tterrain are surrounded by water, means i converted my terrain into an island.

But that doestn fixed the problem, as the artefacts are still visible at the borders on the same positions as b4.

I think the terrain or island have to be so far below zero, until the "strange textures" are flooded.

That means a terrain of 5120x5120 will be cropped for around 1/10 or maybe more.

For all my later projects that means.

I ve to decide, do i want to create a very small island, where i could use 5120x5120 or i ve to use 10240x10240, to be able to crop enough terrain from the "island".

[Robster 11]

and then... voila!!!

Limnos

hahahahaha