Surfaces - need help to understand

[TerrainAlien 10]

I searched for some tuts, also watches some on youtube, but i do not fully understand how you define where which texture applys on the map.

Also the definition in layers is not 100% clear. just tried some stuff, but i want to understand it...help much appreciated! maybe there´s a easy tutorial on this, didnt find one.

To got a bit more in detail, i exchanged the grass texture with a desert texture, which works, but only if im near the ground, if i zoom out there´s still grass texture.

this is how it looks ingame, i dont know why theres still grass, i exchanged everything i found with the desert texture.

Edited May 19, 2014 by TerrainAlien

[m1lkm8n 410]

In the layers config is where you define what ground texture get applied to to each color in your layers mask.

Cfgsurfaces is where you tell each ground surface what clutter definition gets applied to each ground texture, wether it be a bunch of weeds or some rock or you can even define "EMPTY" if you don't want any clutter at all on your surface(handy for a runway).

So those are just for the ground surface directly under and around the player. There is also a satellite map which get draped over the entire island and is set to slowly kick in at a certain distance away from the player. And is basically exactly that. A top down image that will cover your terrain. That's why you see your sand texture up close but far away you see that sat image which happens in your case to be grass.

[TerrainAlien 10]

Thanks! So i understood that right, just to be sure. The distance texture is allways the texture the sat image shows, like i see it in the sat map? so the first step, gettin a area is the most important (in my case searching for a desert area), cause that will show the distance texture ingame? If its like i think, arent the distance textures allways pretty blurry then?

Edited May 19, 2014 by TerrainAlien