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blackthorne556

A question about scaling before I begin my Terrain project

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So I'm fairly new to this. I have watched CAPTNCAPS tutorials (both updated and new) but I'm a little lost in how to process all the variable I need to know.

So, I've selected a piece of the world of 80Kmx80Km using googles measurement tool, I then used OpenTOPO using the long-lat coordinates for my height map. Then I used Google Satelite Maps Downloader for my satellite image, zoomed to 15. It's a little fuzzy zoomed in, so I might bite the bullet and go for a closer zoom, but I don't know if I should/have to.

 

I began working on my mask image, but an idea came into my head that I can't seem to find the answer to. About scaling.

 

The piece of the world I am working with is 80x80, but I want to scale it down to a 2:1 ratio and have a final product of 40x40Km in-game size.

 

I found a link in searching this forum to http://tactical.nekromantix.com/wiki/doku.php?id=arma:terrain:grid_cell_sizebut that only gives me the numbers I need to make it happen, but I still wonder if by doing that, I will wind up with tiny mountains and rivers of unrealistically small heights/widths. My concern is that I will go through all the effort and after scaling, end up with terrain that doesn't have realistically sized environments.

 

Am I on the right track? What resolution sizes should I scale which images, and at which steps? CAPTNCAPS tutorial is great, if you plan to build something EXACTLY like he is, but there are a few variables he doesn't seem to go into.

 

Hopefully someone can help me out with this. Looking forward to any input. Thanks guys!

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Shrinking the scale will exaggerate the contours of the land, ie a rolling hill may look more like a sharp mountain.  My suggestion is to play around with the settings, more specifically the horizontal scale, and see what looks good and works for you.  Sorry for the lack of detail, but this is how I got what I was looking for.  Good luck with your project.

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Alright. That does help a bit. I'll keep working at it for now. Hopefully by the time I've masked off my 5 terrain types and drop it into the tools I don't wind up with something unusable.

 

My first attempt has been using a 90x90 section and hoping to go to a 3:1 ratio of 30x30 in game, but because of what I perceived to be a problem I cut my selection to the 80x80 @ 2:1 for 40x40 described above.

 

Am I over thinking this? Is a 3:1 scaling of "Real Life - Arma" a reasonable idea, or should I move forward with 2:1 as the goal?

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