posted 04-07- 08:05 AM               

It seems to me that the missing tool that would allow us to effectively create and edit terrains is a mesh dicer to compliment the texture dicer... is this correct?

If we had this, could we not proceed like this: Build the entire terrain in a 3D program and texture it. Now use the parsoft dicer to dice up the texture, and the magic mesh dicer to dice up the mesh into the mesh tiles needed.

Could this work? Can it be made? Can it be made easily? What parameters would be needed to get the mesh dice to match the texture dice? Can we get the mesh tiles to be named corectly? Can we get the correct supertexture number prop list on each mesh tile?

If we could do this, I think we could begin some serious work on terrain editing/creation.

What are your thought on this? I do know that you have paid quite a bit of attention to this in OPS, did you run into a wall?

Thanks.

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-Sv =FC=

WWI in SDOE!

posted 04-07- 09:01 AM            

what if, to start a terrain project, you start really small. just make a flat surface composed of squares, that could be easily be texture mapped. make one square, map it, then make another square and attach it to the first square and repeat.

make a really small area, and see if you can get it into ops. the only problem is, are the terrain sm files composed of just one big lod. if that is the case, the building block approach wouldnt work. but, if the building block approach did work. you could go in later and construct some 3d type mountains and valleys to place on top of the flat test terrain. probably more tedious that its worth, but i dont know how else to texture map something that big.

posted 04-07- 09:18 AM               

The terrain is all ready made of smaller tiles. There is one main SM file that has file references to each tile and each airfield, towns, etc.

The problem is that you want to create one big terrain, not a bunch of tiles that need to match up perfectly.

We need to be able to build and texture one big object, then cut both the big texture file and mesh into tiles.

From what I know, Parsoft used a standard 3D program to do the work. I still think they must have had some sort of tool to cut it into squares... this is where I am stuck.

Also another big question: how do airfileds work? Do they lie on top of exsiting terrain, or do they replace the terrain tiles where they need to fit in? Airfileds to come with the what looks like their own terrain tiles...

posted 04-07- 09:26 AM               

On the other hand if you created the terrain from data like DEM or another kind of height map, then the tool would be something that created tiled meshes directly from the data. This is what I was playing with via a proggie called DEM2SM.

The main thing that unenthused me was that my main purpose behind the DEM2SM thing was to make larger terrains, which I actually did , albeit with 1 repeating texture, but ran into some performance problems in SDOE as the terrain got larger, Not insurmountable I’m sure if you want to modify the code, but as that wasn’t going to happen quickly I put that on hold. The DEM2SM thing is lying around and probably wouldn’t take much to complete.

So what would you need to create a brand new terrain mesh? Firstly, assuming it was to be based on something historical, you would need a) a DEM of the entire area, the most accessible DEM data has a scale of about 1km per ‘square’ which would probably suffice for the basic shape of the terrain b) higher resolution DEM’s of areas that you wanted to have better detail. You could of course do this bit manually, with a lot of patience.

Next something like DEM2SM would have to be fixed up so that it setup the supertexture references properly. This is easy if you are going to use one huge texture diced up, a little more complicated if you wanted to share some terrain textures.

Lastly you would need a tool that allowed you to set up the town, airfields and other filerefs that populate the terrain, OPS is probably a good candidate for this with a few changes to help with the terrain process. The main barrier here is that the frame rate of a loaded terrain on OPS on my machine doesn’t even make it practical to test any new features during development. Another tool that may be required might be something to assign supertextures to a tile, if you needed to have some repeating textures.

posted 04-07- 10:12 AM               

Right now I am thinking about this maybe:

Do as you have said, start with the basic DEM data. Now if I just had a simple app that let me embelish the DEM data... simply add new detailed elevation points at a higher resolution. This way I could flatten areas that will have rivers and roads, etc. Also I could add some higher rez small hills, etc.

Next, use your dem2sm app to convert this new dem into a real terrain.

Now If I could export the SM terrain tiles as one big LOD file for AC3D, then edit this mesh as a whole, then re-import this updated LOD mesh as a bunch of tiles again. I could use this process for cleaning up to overall look and feel of teh terrain. Also trenches etc. could be added where needed. Also the supertexture could be mapped here.

I wonder if AC3D could handle a texture that size... perhaps I could creat a small 1000x1000 texture and map it correctly, then create the high rez super texture from this low rez mapping texture.

Anyway, my goal would be to keep the terrain size the same as in SDOE now, and try yo create a more historical terrain with less elevation exagerration, but still some good low level detail, like river beds, raised roads, small hills, etc.

So it seems like the missing pieces would be:

1. A DEM editing app... does such an app all ready exsist? Basicaly It would take a low rez DEM file and let you up the rez and then edit the elevations like a topographical map.

2. Your exsiting dem2sm tool.

3. A sm to LOD tool that would convert the tile meshes into one big LOD mesh, and also tranlate the tile texture mapping coords to match a "supertexture as one big file (un-diced)" coords.

4. A LOD mesh to sm tool that would take one big terrain MESH and texture map and dice both the mesh and texture map coords into sm tiles.

5. OPS could then be used to place ground objects and airfileds.

Well I am just thinking out load here... does this make any sense? It sounds like this is how Parsoft did it maybe... but instead of using a DEM editor and real DEM files for a starting point they just modeled a nice artistic terrain from scratch in a 3D editor.

Hmmmmm..

posted 04-07- 10:20 AM               

The original terrains use repeating textures ? That could be a problem if terrains with unrepeated textures slow down the game, if not - who cares. I think we dont need super-high- scale Dem data, 1km is enough to get a idea how the terrain looks. With some "fractalizing" the it should get more "detailed". Personaly I dont care if there is a hill in the wrong place (as long as the major landmarks like railroads ,roads, rivers, big mountains/valleys, lakes, bridges, towns etc. are in place) cause SDOE is still a Flight Simulator.

posted 04-07- 11:38 AM            

So, to start out with, you would just have one big, flat terrain. But you could easily have repeating textures. If you kept track of your work and where each lego block is, then i assume you could take each lego block and further modify it...carve out a coastline or a river or something. Then just rebuild the lod from your original max terrain file. If you merge it, then you wouldnt have to move it around.

The drawback is, that you wouldn't have an accurate map of anywhere on earth. It would just sorta be like a fantasy land terrain.

I may conduct an experiment to see if the lego block, flat terrain would work. Im not sure what to do in OPS though. If i replace a very large terrain with a very small terrain, what will happen to all the objects and stuff? It would probably be better to use the tundra file. How could I add an airfield or other object to the terrain. Does anyone know how to do this?

If anyone would like to try the simple lego approach, please let me know. I'm not very adept with OPS.

Also, to add to the lining up of tiles....you could take all the tiles and line them up using the vertex snap function. Then make a large bitmap from whatever paint program...preferably a grey scale file that is very small in file size..and then texture map it all at once. Detach all of the files and you would have the individual pieces for the flat terrain. The only problem would be when you add mountains and stuff...then you would have to retexture map which is a very big flaw with my theory.

posted 04-07- 12:15 PM               

TS

posted 04-07- 03:20 PM               

That is why we gave you so many kudos

I was flying around your terrain the other night... it is SO great to see what a realistic terrain looks like in SDOE.

I was trying to add an airfield... not an easy task!

posted 04-07- 04:00 PM               

Where can i get it?

TS

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