32 réponses à ce sujet

[El Codge]

Hi,

Does anyone know if it's possible to use a greyscale heightmap to generate terrain (e.g. like from Terragen)?

I've a number of them created from a previous project that i'd like to reuse for a module i'm planning. Re-doing it all manually using the ingame displacement tools is pretty daunting at the moment, especially as i'm just learning to use the toolset.

Anyone heard or used anything like this successfully?

Modifié par El Codge, 03 décembre 2009 - 01:30 .

[nicethugbert]

Ooo, I hope there is a height map importer becuase I can't make an area without using L3DT.

[El Codge]

Not seen that L3DT before. I'll have to check it out.

The other reason heightmaps would be cool is that I can cut a small square out of the middle, use that as the game level and use the rest to create a Vista Object.

Multiple levels can be then created by cutting these pieces out, with the rest being Vista objects, so (if for example) you had a quest travelling across a range of mountains, you could visually show the progress your party is making.

A bit ambitious to start with perhaps, but it shows the potential.

[edit] plus I want my erosion and perlin noise!

Modifié par El Codge, 03 décembre 2009 - 06:30 .

[Zannyuk]

El Codge, I just commented on a thread in the general toolset area about this very same topic. Im glad at least 2 other people think it would be a cool idea.

[El Codge]

Just bumped yours up a bit.



Should make creating terrain a bit quicker imo

[Zannyuk]

Aye, make terrain in terragen or whatever can generate the heighmap, load into DAO toolset, smooth in some paths add water , and away ya go A lot more realism than trying to draw the terrain by hand. The tools for landscape design remind me of the old simcity landscape creator, thankfully that had greyscale imports built into game.

[BryanDerksen]

We don't have any tools for the task ourselves. However, it may be a reasonable tool for a third party to put together.



An LVL file is an ERF with a different name. Rename it with the erf extension and you can open it up to see what's inside. I believe the terrain mesh is stored in the series of files with the .tmsh extension, with one file for each chunk of the terrain mesh. These files are GFFs, you can open them up in the GFF editor to see their structure. It looks complicated but I bet much of the complication in there comes from multiple tesselation levels and the painting of materials on the ground and such - stuff that you'd only want to do after you've already set the terrain to match your heightmap anyway.



Mind you, this isn't my field. It just looks reasonable to me that that's the way it works.

[Zannyuk]

Thanks for your reply Bryan, hopefully useful to someone more skilled than me

[Nodrak]

Terrains are capable of having non-unique x/y coordinates, which may or may not hinder the process. It will definitley cause issues with exporting, but you could probably import in a basic height field.

Modifié par Nodrak, 04 décembre 2009 - 11:15 .

[Adinos]

Uhm... A simple terrain deforming tool that modifies a terrain mesh according to a grayscale image shouldn't be *too* hard. I'm not promising I'll write one, as I'm busy with my model manipulation tool at the moment, but if nobody else starts working on this, I'll look into it.

[Zannyuk]

IF you did that would be fantastic, would really help create realistic terrain.

Good luck with your current project

EDIT:- your the creator of DATool, nice to have your input

Modifié par Zannyuk, 04 décembre 2009 - 06:17 .

[indio]

IMO, nothing would do more for the quality of level creation.



I'd love for someone to work on one.

[Werefox009]

I'm looking into this atm. No ETA at this point as it will depend on how much time I get after work to work on it.

cheers.

[El Codge]

Good stuff Werefox.



Not to add to the workload, would it also be possible to add distribution maps as well? - e.g., rather than painting the textures on by hand, you'd use a greyscale image to distribute the the textures.



I'll get some images of the concept up when I get home

[FalloutBoy]

indio wrote...

IMO, nothing would do more for the quality of level creation.

I'd love for someone to work on one.

I agree with this. I can work with the tools we have, but there are much better tools out there for making height maps.

[Zannyuk]

Werefox009 wrote...

I'm looking into this atm. No ETA at this point as it will depend on how much time I get after work to work on it.
cheers.

Yay

[Werefox009]

At the moment I am attempting to get the GFF file format parsing correctly, having a few issues with sorting the raw data out (an issue with my offsets atm)



As for the distributions maps, at this point I dont see why not, but initially I will just focus on the basic hieghtmap. Better to have something basic and in peoples hands, than a perfect tool that is partway between my brain and fingers

[Primogenitor]

I'll add a "me too" on this.

[indio]

This is great news.



I just can't seem to find the will to sculpt my own areas, not since having used YATT so extensively and successfully. I just know what I'm missing out on a little too keenly. As such, my DA toolset usage has plummeted accordingly. Looking forward to picking it back up once this solution surfaces.



Good luck.

[FalloutBoy]

indio wrote...

This is great news.

I just can't seem to find the will to sculpt my own areas, not since having used YATT so extensively and successfully. I just know what I'm missing out on a little too keenly. As such, my DA toolset usage has plummeted accordingly. Looking forward to picking it back up once this solution surfaces.

Good luck.

Knowing how long it will take me to make a nice outdoor area, I just
made it a big flat plane for now and I am focusing on the indoors first. Using the existing lvl files from the OC, I have been getting familiar with the different tilesets. I am getting to where I can make a pretty good "dungeon" level in just a few hours. I am hoping by the time I am done with all my indoors, there may be a hightmap tool for outdoors.

It also helps that my campaign is mostly a dungeon crawl.

[Werefox009]

An update on where I am currently at with the tool.



I can currently read each of the files that make up a .lvl file. Next up is to get writing the read portions back to disk in the same format.



Once I can do that, the actual heightmap part should happen reasonably quickly. I suspect there should be an initial beta release sometime late January. It definitely helps that I am not having to do a complete GFF parser and can get away with only implementing the parts used in a .lvl file.

[FalloutBoy]

FWIW, when I wrote my head morph randomizer, I used TinyXML to read, edit, and write the output files. I don't know what 99% of what's in the morph file does, but I figured out which numbers to play with and I just modified those.

[Werefox009]

I'd love to do the same, unfortunately the files contained within the .lvl file are all the binary GFF format. We are getting there though.

[indio]

Still keeping my eye on this thread. Hope it's going well.

[indio]

Any news?