Visitor 3 Crashing when importing satellite and mask

Hello,

I've made my height map, imported it into Visitor 3, I also have my satellite map and mask at 2560 x 2560. I also have my layers.cfg and SurfaceMapLegend all in the same directory.

So when I load up the .pew Visitor file, it loads fine I can see the terrain contours and open it up in Bulldozer and I can see the terrain and placed objects just fine, but when I go to Tools > Import Satellite + Mask it asks for my layers.cfg, which has all the correct directories and files, so I load that in, then it asks me to save the .rvmat files as text or binary, I choose text, it asks me for my satellite map, I put in the satellite map, it then asks me for the mask and I put in the mask. It then proceeds to show the loading screen and crashed nearly straight after the loading screen is shown.

Why is Visitor 3 crashing as soon as the loading screen comes up?

If you need references to any of my files, ask me.

Thanks.

P.S I have exactly followed Mondkalb's Terrain Tutorial (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Mondkalb's_Terrain_Tutorial) and am upto the last part of detail textures.

I had, maybe, the same problem a few times when I first tried to import my sat and mask layers, I'll look up my notes on what was wrong with it a little later, but I am sure that the mask_lco was the wrong type onf PNG, I think I had saved it as 32 bit and it should have been 16, or the other way around, AND it is worth checking it doesn't have too many colours too (blurred edges) that are undefined in your config file, I'll be able to tell you later on exactly what the settings should be, but maybe if you read this before it might put you on the right track, or someone else will step in and give you much better advice before I get chance to return, either way, I hope you get it sorted out!

Daring

EDIT - Just realised that I didn't cover the fact Visitor can sometimes display the (not responding) message when it is doing this whole process, but is definatly working, if the prgress bar stops, you can open up the \data\layers folder to actually watch it fill up with lovely rvmats and sliced up sat & mask bits! also, if it reall does crash, you can usually tell where it got stuck by which files are not in this folder.

I had, maybe, the same problem a few times when I first tried to import my sat and mask layers, I'll look up my notes on what was wrong with it a little later, but I am sure that the mask_lco was the wrong type onf PNG, I think I had saved it as 32 bit and it should have been 16, or the other way around, AND it is worth checking it doesn't have too many colours too (blurred edges) that are undefined in your config file, I'll be able to tell you later on exactly what the settings should be, but maybe if you read this before it might put you on the right track, or someone else will step in and give you much better advice before I get chance to return, either way, I hope you get it sorted out!

Daring

I saved the mask and sat map as 32 bit files and guess what, it worked!

Thanks. For anyone else who is experiencing this problem, make sure your mask and satellite map are saved in 32 bit format!

you have no idea how great it feels to have helped!

Just don't make the mistake of thinking I know what I am talking about in the future!

Daring

Well done Daring!!!

Welcome to the Terrain Section Support Staff!!! :)

Absolutely correct!

A classic error... Immediate crash on Sat & Mask import is almost always "wrong format image files"...

Technically, the required format for Sat & Mask is "24 bit" or "8 bit RGB" (3x8bit channels) - No Interlace - .png format

"32 bit" IS used quite frequently... that's basically an RGB / 3x8bit channel image, with a fourth channel added... 4 x 8 bit channels - often called RGBA... these are often saved in Targa .tga format, with the fourth channel being used as an "alpha or transparency mask" (eg: a "_ca" texture), but in a terrain context, you'd use them for the "_nopx" component of a ground texture set, where the fourth channel contains a simple "greyscale heightmap" of the ground texture - that controls the "parallax" effect...

The other fairly important image file format to watch out for is when using a .png image as a heightmap, with an associated .pbl file... In that context, the format you need to use is a "16 bit greyscale" - basically a single channel image, but a single "16 bit" channel - that gives you 65535 shades of grey, and since the average heightmap only spans a few hundred meters usually, it means you usually have enough variations in "level" to be able to accurately depict heights to a couple of decimal places - more than good enough for our purposes....

B