#momo# 11 Posted September 10, 2011 (edited) Hello I made my first tries with terrain editing in the past few weeks and was at the point where I wanted to get more serious. I had a terrain with 2048pixels and a cell size of 10m and I placed some forests for test purposes. I know this is a rather big terrain for start, but anyway: If I look at the terrain ingame with grafic setting "Terrain Detail High", everything looks fine. With terrain Detail Low, most trees float in the air. The terrain is changing in an absurde way and my island looks really ugly. And i mean really ugly. I know this has to do with arma engine and terrain smoothing. But when I look at chernarus, the effect is never the same as on my terrain. It is there on chernarus, but it does not jump into the eye. On some custom islands, it its barely noticable (Podagorsk for example), on others, it is massive. So the question is: Is there a way to minimize the terrain changes (config, visitor settings, grid size)? Is it only a problem with a very rough terrain (I have steep mountains)? Are there grid sizes where the effect is stronger and grid sizes where it is weaker? Edited September 10, 2011 by #momo# Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robster 11 Posted September 11, 2011 (edited) eee what are you using for mapping vertices? 2048x2048 png file? to me, it sounds as you are using a black'n white png file which is not a real height map... it happened to me when starting more than a year ago... then i thought visitor 3 didn't work... hahaha EDIT: now... we know vis3 is not a flawless editor, but you may get real nice landscapes... http://www.flickr.com/photos/29354888@N05/6119274194/in/photostream/lightbox/ these photos come from real DEM data near kunar province in Afghanistan, but this data was heavily tweaked to match vis standards... i mean, even when you get used to work with digital elevation maps you will want to know how to manage this info, how to edit them with some terrain editor -not vis3- for example those valleys were done with wilbur -freeware- using stages of fractal noise and then applying a filter with real sat pictures in some areas, to enhance some natural topographic accidents... there is a lot of trial and error here just to get closer and closer to desired results... a tip that may come in handy: take a look into pbl file regarding your terrain... if you don't know what is pbl file then open your project, and export your terrain as a file... you will be asked for saving a pbl file which contains data regarding your vertices... you may edit this file with any notepad app... i recommend notepad++ (another freebie) to edit any config file (.cpp, .hpp, .cfg, .pbl, etc) In your pbl file you will find a max and min value that you may change at will to see quick changes... just edit your pbl file and then import terrain from file... always do this with buldozer closed to avoid unwanted shutdowns pay attention: to quickly see changes in vertices do not work with a project with objects... it takes a lot of time to recalculate installed objects position.... always try with a totally empty project and then you may reimport your objects when you are satisfied with your terrain (warning: you lose custom size in the process, every object is imported with default size) so the thing goes like this... open your pew file with no objects -> export terrain as image (generate pbl file)-> edit pbl file in notepad -> import terrain from file (your recently edited pbl file) -> buldozer ... note that your min value may correspond to a negative value--- try with -1.2 to get rivers that may be crossed by walking infantry... IA does not get too lost... in fact you don't change the net containing your vertices but change "span" values in order to stretch/enlarge how this particular net is seeing... acting like this you can enhance slope angles to make them more steepy or lower... this always affects your whole heights matrix so you won't find it useful when working in a delimited area of your map... but that's another story also you will find that there are some max values... thus vis3 can't handle real dem data as it is... extremely high mountains in real world won't work as expected in vis3... it's close to be unplayable... that's one of the the reasons why we left our real kunar province behind and start to build our clafghan map... not exactly the real thing but much more fixed for game sake... Saludines pepon!!!! Edited September 11, 2011 by Robster Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robster 11 Posted September 11, 2011 I came back over your doubts... and I guess that maybe you are asking for _mco.paa files... those are related to shadows at distance and sometimes they look weird specially among texture transitions... that's the reason why bis people often times uses one common _mco.paa file with some sort of dirty dry weed... just to obtain a uniform look when you are watching grounds from certain distance and angle (tipically a chopper view usually under 40 meters or so)... It would be nice if you can upload some pics just to understand better what are you dealing with... cheers pal! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
#momo# 11 Posted September 11, 2011 (edited) ok pictures: TerrainDetail=High: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/690/terraindetailhigh.jpg/ TerrainDetail=Low: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/terraindetaillow.jpg/ TerrainDetail=Low, but from close distance: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/841/treesclose.jpg/ Grid is 2048*2048, grid size=10meters, elevation goes from about -80 to exactly 515. I had the elevation data from Aster Server, modified it with the free version of l3dt and exported it as png. I start to think the terrain is just too rough (Swiss mountains, but not the very high ones), like here: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/560/terrain.jpg/ I tried another terrain where I still have floating trees on some places, but the problem is much smaller there. So maybe i just switch to this other terrain. Or I make an island which can be played only on high terrain settings ingame. Edited September 11, 2011 by #momo# Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robster 11 Posted September 11, 2011 Hey momo: Forget waht I said first... after I was ok... MCO files that's your key matter... Take a look on BIS maps and you'll notice that many mco files are the same... that is what you see as that rough surface at distance... Just try with one base or common mco... you may mix some of those you already have and use only that mixed one... as you might guess some mcos are rough than others... it's a personal choice which one suits the best for your project... Robster out! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robster 11 Posted September 12, 2011 (edited) Regarding those "flying trees" I really don't know how to solve such annoying weird thing... I have experienced some visual "distortion" concerning low deep rivers and I solved it using big images... i.e.: for a 20480 sq. meters map I've been using no less than 16384px sat image... Also I've seen that using a second texture layer with same values than base texture layer (usually 40 meters for a 10 m grid size map) sometimes solves glitches or weird graphic blinks specially near overlapping pixels areas... But none of that apply on low graphics mode... I always use highest graphic level... Thus, I conclude that you have to live with it when running on low graphics modes since I couldn't say that those tree models are wrongly made cause their roots are too high upon ground level... Anyways, till now I haven't noticed that running on low graphics mode affects vertices but it sounds logic cause these kind of matrix is drawn with more or less detail just like L3DT does... at this point you should try moving those trees a little bit -not vertically but horizontally away from steepy areas- just to see if this problem is solved... or avoid those rooty trees in troublesome areas... Please, don't forget to tell us all how does it go further... saludos cordiales! Edited September 12, 2011 by Robster Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 46 Posted September 12, 2011 Aaah! Now I see your pictures I see what you mean! Yes - that's an Engine limitation with Low Terrain Detail settings... The engine uses less polys to render distant terrain in that mode, assuming you're too far away to notice... which you are, unless you're looking through a scope... It doesn't take account of that... you're far away, so you can't possibly see, so it's safe to use less polys... or so it thinks... You're absolutely correct - you see this to a greater or lesser extent on all terrains - distant hillcrests are the worst. If you've ever been scoping guards around a radiotower on top of a hill and you see them "walking on air" - that's whats happening. With high terrain detail distant stuff is rendered more or less full poly - so you don't see anything unusual... There's not much you can do except hope people don't use TerrainDetail=Low... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
.kju 3245 Posted September 12, 2011 Vote this CIT ticket: Feature #4852: Terrain detail changes terrain height at distance Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
#momo# 11 Posted September 12, 2011 ^^ I voted :) Like it is described in the CIT-Ticket, many servers set terrain detail to very low in order to disable grass. Thats why this is bothering me in the first place. I have two empty test terrains now. On the first one (big mountains), the effect covers like 50% of the terrain, on the 2nd one (hills, no really big mountains), its only there on some special places and i hope i can hide it beneath some rocks once i start putting more objects. Anyway, thx for the responses. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robster 11 Posted September 12, 2011 @PVP: Great! but how do we vote? i do not find any green arrow up :( Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
.kju 3245 Posted September 12, 2011 Create an account and log in. If you are, and don't see it, try a different browser. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
