How do you recommend I do this?

[bigkahuna]

I'm a bit of a noob to realistic terrain creation, so I'm hoping you folks can give me a push in the right direction. If this subject is too far off topic, my appologies.

I've created a ship's simulator using this game engine ( http://www.dxstudio.com/ ) and now would like to create a realistic looking harbor. The harbor I'd like to re-create is my home port here, Honolulu. I picked Honolulu mostly because I'm familliar with it, but also because the steep, green mountains in the background make the whole scene very dramatic IMHO. In addition to just the terrain, I want to include buildings and structures that surround the harbor.

I'm limited to what my game engine can handle, which is basically a texture mapped mesh. I'll probably stick with this engine for now even though I know there are probably better engines for this task.

I've already assembled some of the assets I'll need: DEM files for the entire island, some aerial photography, some ESRI layer data (building footprints, coastline) and marine charts. I also have a good assortment of tools on hand (Max, L3DT Pro, VTP, Terragen, SketchUp Pro and others).

How do you recommend I handle this? Is there one tool out there (free or cheap) that I can assemble all the pieces (DEM, aerial photos, ESRI GIS data) and export it into a form I can use in my game engine (ie. mesh geometry and texture maps)?

[SeerBlue]

hey BK , since I don't have any DXStudio experience I have been looking when I can to see if anything that we use at ME-DEM will be of help to you ( but i see you use about the same toolkit, minus Global Mapper $199 I think), I also noticed you asked about the same questions I was going to ask at the DXStudio forum... so I am short on advice as of yet.
Exactly which mesh format is needed, the gis info site http://www.grime.net/ has alot of info about file conversion programs and free gis apps, you may find some info there tha is of help SeerBlue

[bigkahuna]

Thanks for the link. Way too many new tools there

I'm checking out Global Mapper as I'm writing this. Looks sort of similar to VTbuilder, but maybe easier to use. But I don't see any way of importing the GIS Shape files. I'll dig deeper.

I have two issues (actually three) that I have to deal with:

First is to assemble the data (DEM elevations, aerial/landsat photos, and GIS building info) and "align" it all properly. So far, VTBuilder seems to do all this, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to use it. I can import all my data, but it isn't aligned properly.

Second is to export it and turn it into a format a game engine can use. There are a couple of apps that will turn DEM's into a DXF file, or I can turn a DEM into a PNG then turn that into a mesh. I can pretty easily re-save the Landsat imagery into a PNG. The only tool I've found so far that imports the GIS Shape file and saves it as a 3D model is SketchUp's SHP importer. It's painfully slow and the resulting file is huge, but it works. Problem is that all the alignment info is lost Once I've gotten everything into one modeling app (Max preferably), I'll have to smooth the mesh and reduce/optimize the geometry. Since DXstudio doesn't really support MIP mapping or LOD, I'll have to do that manually.

And lastly, decide which game engine I'm going to use and for what. I'll keep DXstudio for the ship simulator, but it's far from ideal for terrain simulation (no normal mapping, no mip mapping, and no LOD). So I may use something else. What I'll be looking for is a) good framerates b) easy to use for a non-programmer c) supports all the stuff DXstudio doesn't and d) supports web playback. So far candidates include Deep Creator and Torque. Torque is the least expensive, but is a bugger to develop in. If I give up mip, lod and normal maps I might look at Director/Shockwave. If I knew how to program in C++ I'd even consider digging into VTenviro's code and maybe creating my own engine.

Lot's of things to figure out here, any advice is welcome.

[SeerBlue]

Global mapper should open your shape file right from file > open data file. Image rectification in Global Mapper is pretty straight forward, Tools> Control Center> right click on the file you wish to align in the control Center and select re rectify. If you decide to get GM and need any help I have quite a bit of time with it, by no means a pro though. Or if you just want your files rectified I could do it for you. Also if you check out Carbon Portals map viewer, Giai ( i think that is spelt right) you may be able to get all the layers you need and they would be rectified. SeerBlue

[bigkahuna]

Thanks SeerBlue. I think I've gotten Global Mapper figured out, but I still have alot more to learn though. I'm giving the export features a test right now... whew some pretty big files!

Not sure how I'll get all (or any) of this into a game engine yet. Guess I'll have to do some serious mesh and file reductions