ColeMinor 0 Posted November 16, 2011 Hi guys, Im Drow, been gone for years, but i was the original founder of The Unsung Vietnam mod and I've been trying to get back into this modding thing for a couple years, since Arma2 came out basically. I've decided to attempt to finally make a Vietnam island. Im a graphic designer and artist (I do this for a living) so im pretty confident that I can create a realistic asthetic and vibe (of the textures anyways, i need to learn a lot of other modding stuff tho), just trying to prioritize the things I see as most relevant to creating an island that I could create a campaign around and also play warfare games on it. Im at work right now and just had a question about how large the vertexes of the ground terrain are. Basically I'm planning to do the tiered hillside rice paddies or rice fields, and I wondered if anyone knows how small they could be made? Its hard to explain.. http://www.photoradar.com/files/imagecache/original_large/photos/users/jaimedormer/20090924-vietnamtrip-2024.jpg in the above photo it shows a hillside terraced into fields, or tiers/levels. Im wondering if this can be accomplished on arma2 islands. Near the top the tiers are very small/short, near the bottom they are much bigger/longer, can either of these be done in wilbur or visitor? Or would each tier be like 50 meters above the lower one? How large would the tiers have to be made? I have been setting up my editing programs and havent gotten into the heightmapping yet so i thought I would ask you guys incase someone knows. Its a hard question to explain, hopefully some of you understand what im asking and can help out. thanks guys! Drow http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/228133/228133,1288633569,3/stock-photo-vietnam-rice-paddy-on-the-mountain-near-sapa-65023321.jpg http://www.eoearth.org/files/146401_146500/146444/sapa-_terraced_rice_paddy.jpg http://www.foodsafetynews.com/vietnam-rice-paddy-featured.jpg http://premiumtravelmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Rice_filed_Sapa_LaoCAi_Vietnam-LUXURYTRAVELVIETNAMGROUP.jpg Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robster 11 Posted November 16, 2011 (edited) So, you want some terraces... Yep, you can make those, but it's a lot of hard work... a lot... I've been making some terraces just to test the idea, I really like those terraces lying over hills... there are some apps that make this easier also ... some apps provide tools or filters just like bevel or terrace ... but i haven't use any of them cause they do not suit my own workflow and I haven't wanted to mess up with an ongoing project just for making some later experiments... :) Terrain is not precisely a model or an object in the classic sense, but it's a map of vertices, I mean, a table or grid with X,Y,Z values that is used to sculpt grounds... in Wilbur you could "draw" a lazo selection over some hillside, them use height clip filter or any similar tool to address some fixed value to that piece of terrain, then draw next part of terrace (let's say second floor) and apply the same method, and so on till your terrace is finished... In my experience this is hard to accomplish since you have to make a lot of adjustments in surrounding areas just to avoid it looks unnatural... btw you really have to know what you are doing at this stage... measures, scales, conversion params, etc... With some fine detail grid size, i.e., 4x4 meters, could be easier to get a smooth transition in slopes/terraces... if you try with a lower resolution you could affect performance ingame... EDIT: There is no limit regarding size... in fact, if you may apply some terrace filter to your whole terrain... it would look like a nazca pyramid all over the place :S and it would be easier to smooth those areas without terraces then :) EDIT2: As a matter of fact, may be not so important how large or small vertices are, which is a relative thing regarding your map grid size and max and mix heights. You can make some tests in Wilbur using span filter to get the idea. Then you will see that key factor is proportion between your new terrace and the whole surrounding area... if you are working with bigger heights you may get a headache trying to match a perfect terrace, unless you use some professional tool to make your terrain... Edited November 16, 2011 by Robster Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ColeMinor 0 Posted November 17, 2011 thanks for the reply! how about manually smoothing the edges in visitor with the small height adjustment keys? I dont remember them now but there was 4 i think, 1 goes up a lot, 1 goes up a little, 1 goes down a lot, 1 goes down a little.. Do you think you could do the smoothing by hand? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robster 11 Posted November 17, 2011 (edited) If you have plenty of time, you can do it all by hand brother ! hahahahaha U-I / J-K keys alter vertices up / down... If you know Photoshop enough you can even do it working over greyscale PNG 16 bits -in fact, sometimes I use it instead of smooth roads script since it's remarkably faster-, just make sure your bottom layer is always visible (so, Photoshop does not alter the original data concerning heights that remain unmodified)... check this recent post to know how to quickly review changes in terrain image ... Edited November 17, 2011 by Robster Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakerod 254 Posted November 17, 2011 I think you should probably do some initial steps in Wilbur. It might be good to use the paint brush tool in Wilbur. You can set the height and the width and when you set the value that is what the brush sets the height to. So if you wanted an area to be 10m then just set it to 10 and move the brush around a bit. And it's good to see you again! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
icebreakr 3139 Posted November 17, 2011 Same functionality in L3DT. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted November 17, 2011 (edited) Welcome back Drow! There's a few different heightfield editors around now.... As Ice said - the FREE L3DT Standard is seriously worth looking at... a great range of functions - in 2D AND 3D... makes Wilbur look a little old nowadays... However, much like myself ;), there's life in the old dog yet! I recently released a whole bunch of little demo terrains, most of which used Wilbur for terracing and erosion... Later raw heightmaps in the series were largely done with "Leveller" - paid software... but - if you look closely, there's not really a lot of difference between the (free) Wilbur ones, and the (bl**dy expensive) Leveller ones... ease of use is the only main difference between them... the actual tools and functions in both are almost identical! In fact, several functions in Wilbur (Such as "Layered Fractal Noise") are pretty much direct copies of Leveller functions! Wilbur has a pretty impressive array of tools once you start to get the hang of it... with all it's selection options it really is the closest (Free) thing I've found to the 2D section of Leveller... the main tools you'll want to look at are "Incise & Flow", "Layered Fractal Noise", "Fill Basin" and - for the terraces... "Remap Altitudes" Here's a fast and rough example... A basic heightmap loaded in Wilbur... Choose "Filter/Other/Remap Altitudes"... you'll see this... Use the mouse to "redraw" that straight ramp into a series of "steps"... End result..... Then you just select the areas you don't want terraced and "fill basin" and "incise & flow" a lot to "natural" them up... If you only want terraces in limited areas you might be better selecting those areas first and only applying the terraces to them... It's all pretty straightforward once you get the hang of things... All my little "microterrains" were basically made this way - terrace, fill basin, incise & flow, a little noise, a bit more filling & flowing, etc, etc... ... what everybody said above is spot on for overall heightmap resolution, etc so I won't waffle on about that... again, as an example, my little microterrains were all 1024x1024 with a 5m cell giving a 5kmx5km island... You can grab the source files for one of them HERE if you're interested in taking one apart... theres a little intro "guide" as well which you might find handy too... Good luck!! B Edited November 18, 2011 by Bushlurker Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robster 11 Posted November 17, 2011 (edited) :O Wow bush!!! I've seen those functions before, but never thought in such an easy and creative manner to do this stuff... many thanks professor! hahaha EDIT: Off.topic: Now map is having some sort of reddish fog at distance influenced by TK settings... CR settings gave it a more coldy look rather than warm, which IMO suits this map the best in order to feel coldness coming from those landscapes... do you think we could get the best of these worlds here... I mean, horizons and lightning mixed ???? saludos! Edited November 17, 2011 by Robster Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted November 17, 2011 [Also Off-Topic] do you think we could get the best of these worlds here... I mean, horizons and lightning mixed ???? That should be no problema Robster... I'll PM you shortly..... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ColeMinor 0 Posted November 17, 2011 thanks for all your help so far guys!!!!!! i got some work to do but i'll keep ya posted thanks for the welcome back too, glad to be back, you guys are the best community on the internet! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
