Fumbles88 10 Posted April 24, 2014 Hi Guys, I've done a search so I truly apologise if I have missed something. I'm wondering if there is anyway to scale down my terrain. I am wanting to build an island based around the geography of the Isle of Arran - I have obtained my DEM file but obviously the Isle of Arran is rather large and will not fit even into 20480 x 20480 (Either way this would be waaaaay to big for a first time project). I am wondering if I can take my DEM file, import it into L3DT (or Global Mapper), at it's rather large size and then scale the height map down so that say it fits onto a 5120 x 5120 or 10240 x 10240 terrain which I could then generate a sat map/attribute map for in L3DT. Thanks Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 46 Posted April 24, 2014 Arran! Fascinating geology and a workable "pseudoflint" stone that had people flocking to the island since prehistoric times.... One of my favourite weekend off destinations :) With the new Terrain Builder tool it would probably be possible to do it full-size at a reasonable resolution... but, as you rightly note, probably not an ideal "first project" at that size.... It should be perfectly possible to "scale" your DEM size within L3DT... From the Top Menu... "Operations > Heightfield > Resize heightfield & Horizontal scale" are your two main controls over "Grid Size" and "Cell Size"... One important thing to note however, is that when you scale "horizontal distances" it's also a good idea to scale "vertical heights" to match, otherwise you can distort the "character" of the landscape beyond recognition ... Take "Goat Fell" on Arran as an example - it's basically a bigass extinct volcano - and looks like one too... Big triangular mountain - part of a ridge of mountains, it's peak is above 800 meters... BUT - it's also few Km WIDE, which makes it a steep but not impossible climb (more of a steep walk really)... Imagine you kept the height the same, but narrowed the horizontal distance by - say - 75%.... You'd end up with a "mountain" which is approx 500m wide and over 800m tall - that's not a mountain anymore - more like a gigantic unnatural "spike" So - to keep the proportions in line with each other, you'd need to scale all vertical heights by a similar amount... L3DT Menu - "Operations > Heightfield > Change Vertical Range" (while making sure the "Zero meters" shoreline remains in the same relative position)... That way, the landscape will still "look like Arran", albeit a small "mini-golf" depiction of Arran... The Mighty Goat Fell will be a 200m high hill, but at least it'll all be in proportion... Personally, I'd keep Arran in reserve as your first "serious" project... at approx 32 x 16 Km it's perfectly doable at full-size and would be a much more rewarding and impressive project at that scale. The whole point of a "First Project" is to basically "try everything once"... Import a heightmap, get a basic sat & mask layer on top, assign a few ground textures and a clutter mix or two - then on to the tricky stuff like laying a few roads and placing some objects to create some sort of little location or two. The idea being that when you come to do this stuff "for real" you've already done it once so you don't waste so much time puzzling over the mechanics of how stuff works and can focus on actually getting the landscape together and putting stuff down on it... As such, the First Project can be just about anything as long as it's small and quick to work with - it's unlikely it'll ever become a full-blown "release" - that's not it's purpose - it's simply a vehicle for learning... Anyhow - just an opinion there... Good Luck with whatever you decide to tackle, and Welcome to the "Terrain Dudes Club" - you're in for a lot of fun if you get hooked on this aspect of modmaking! B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fumbles88 10 Posted April 28, 2014 Hi mate, I was just up Goat Fell on Saturday and managed to get lost so a good day all in all :D Thanks for your response and sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you, your time has been very much appreciated. I'll be having a read through your reply and doing some experimenting during the week and I'll get back to you guys to let you know if I've had any problems! Cheers again. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
