Finding a good terrain/making one

[itsdonjon 25]

Hey there!

After "starting" my terrain a few weeks ago, i now face a problem.

The heightmap.xyz was made with l3dt, because i thought it may would be easier to design an unknown island (especially the satimg, which can be generated with l3dt).

But now after making some roads and testing the island itself ingame, i have come to the point where i need to say: My island is to wavy!

Driving with a Humwee is quite slow, with a tank it's nearly impossible.

So before i waste to much time with this terrain i thought you could help me maybe.

Where do you guys get your terrains from? I think most of you will work with real-heightfields from GlobalMapper. But how do you get a good (or at leat acceptable) satimg? May some of you help me? Because the things i tried won't work properly, i think because i am to unexperienced.

Other question is: Has anyone of you ever made a terrain out of l3dt? Are there some options i may need to activate so the heightmap won't only consist of thousand of hills?

I hope you guys can help me somehow, because i really am motivated to invest a lot of time for an awesome terrain, but i also want it to be playable, so people can enjoy it.

Greetz, Don

Edited November 10, 2014 by ItsDonJon

[1para{god-father} 105]

Some of the Best island have been made by L3DT i think Icebreaker made his with this tool to do make Duala , Lingor etc..

You can flatten out the road in Bulldozer , or export the road Shapes and import that into L3dt as an Image then use it as a drape and you should be able to smooth the roads in l3dt.

[badluckburt 78]

What do you mean by too wavy? If you have a lot of tiny hills you may need to change the Feature Size slider and / or the Noise slider when generating a design map. It takes a while to get the hang of L3DT but it can definitely be used to create maps for Arma.

[itsdonjon 25]

@Para: Thank you for that tip!

@BadLuckBurt: Yes exactly, the island consists of thousands of hills and..that...kills the vibe. but i'll play around with the settings :)

[badluckburt 78]

Good luck!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I'm only novice at best in L3DT so I might even learn something myself :)

[Sushi87 10]

Some of the Best island have been made by L3DT i think Icebreaker made his with this tool to do make Duala , Lingor etc..

You can flatten out the road in Bulldozer , or export the road Shapes and import that into L3dt as an Image then use it as a drape and you should be able to smooth the roads in l3dt.

how can I export the road to image?

I always get a black image

Sorry for my english

[itsdonjon 25]

So i try to export my road-shapes for using them as drape with l3dt, problem is that the png i'm exporting is completely blank. Somebody knows what i'm doing wrong? And when i got the png, who do i merge it in l3dt for using it as a drape?

Greetz, Don!

[bushlurker 46]

how can I export the road to image?

I always get a black image

There's a useful summary by SpookyGnu in

THIS THREAD

B

[MiauX 10]

With synthetic terrains its very common.

I used to play around with World Machine and once in-game i realized that the plain zones were huge and not very appealing for a good gameplay. Then i just jumped into the real terrain train.

Im doing Serifos Island (Greece once again) and have some candidates for future maps, but also using real terrain require extra time because you need hours and hours of photoshop and sometimes aligning the image with the heightmap its a nightmare.

Also im a "island person", i dont find very attractive having those fake borders on a cropped terrain, so that makes thing even worse (doing the coast line its also another nightmare and requires another handful of hours of photoshop and edition)

[bushlurker 46]

And when i got the png, who do i merge it in l3dt for using it as a drape?

Once you have your image you should be able to import it into L3DT with the "import > RGB" option.

Then - in 2D you can drape it over any layer... (in fact, you can drape any layer over any other layer... That can be handy - eg: drape the water map layer over your AM attributes layer to see how much "beach above sea level" you have, etc)

In Sapphire (3D) you can also drape the loaded image with the "texture" controls in the menu...

B

Edited November 10, 2014 by Bushlurker

[1para{god-father} 105]

eg: drape the water map layer over your AM attributes layer to see how much "beach above sea level" you have, etc)

WOW never thought of that nice one thanks for that , that will help me out as that is my next bit i am working on :)