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Practicality of Very Large Maps

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Practicality of Very Large Maps

Postby Trips » Sun Apr 17, 2011 4:18 pm

I'm trying to create a 131,072 × 131,072 map using the current stable PRO version. The design map completed in reasonable time, but then I started generating the heightmap at 2am and went to bed. Now 8 hours later, the heightmap is half-way through Channeling erosion (level 1 of 50). Extrapolating, it feels like it will take a Very Long Time to complete.

Is it practical to create maps that large? Will running the 64-bit version help?

I'm running Win 7 64 with a 4-core i7 and 8GB RAM.

Thanks!
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Re: Practicality of Very Large Maps

Postby demi » Tue Apr 19, 2011 2:49 am

Making a 16 giga-pixel map with 128 DM can take a week or more to generate (depending on the erosion level). If you use a higher detail DM of 32 and 64 it can take a month or more.

SO, Depending on what you’re trying to make, a map this size is for all intended purposes useless since the data size is 32 giga-bytes. In some engines like Esenthel and Bigworlds this can quadruple as the terrain texture alphas get plugged into the terrain data chunks. The only use of this map would be rendering high Q stuff with resolutions 1 meter and under. If you want a very large map and want it in a hurry then use a smaller generated map and export it resized. Of course you loose some detail this way but the process is a lot faster.

example: I want a 16 giga-pixel map (131,072) with a resolution of 1 meter per division.

I generate a 32K DM with a DM ratio of 32 and Horizontal resolution of 4 (takes two days on my box which is a quad core 3.0 GHZ)

export it as a 131072 HF which will equal the same details as a design map for 131072 at DM ratio of 128 and a horizontal resolution of 1. if you want high detail then go 131072 with 32 DM ratio and wait until the fourth of July. :)
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Re: Practicality of Very Large Maps

Postby Trips » Tue Apr 19, 2011 5:00 am

I'm using the heightmap in Terragen 2 to render various areas of a game world for a pen and paper role playing game.

Some scenes are rendered from great altitude so I need to have large enough coverage to show much of the planet, while some are rendered very close in. I also render animated sequences from moderate altitude (flight across the land).

Is there a workflow that would allow me to create a single design map, render lower resolution tiles, and then render high resolution versions of just certain tiles that I need for close-in scenes?

Thanks!
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Re: Practicality of Very Large Maps

Postby demi » Tue Apr 19, 2011 10:24 am

I am not 100% sure what you’re trying to do but if I understand this you want a very large world at a low resolution and a zoom capability. So I will go on this deduction.

First off I am using the 2.9 beta since my license expired before the last build release and I haven’t seen a need to upgrade so maybe things work a bit different in the latest build.

In 2.9 beta there is no means to import a dmf directly but there is a work around.

Second of all there is no way to make a single image beyond 8192 x 8192 because of the file read capability of the OS so making a world beyond that size is a waste of time however you can make a design map over this limitation. (removed section because under testing the highest detail is 131072 with a ratio of 16 to 1. )

Based on this information you can make a work flow.

Make a world design map with a large horizontal scale and save it as a project once you get the look you want. This will be the core design map and you will never actually build this map.

Now copy sections just over your image size you want as a new layer then resize the design map back to your image size. Copy the layer back into the design map, change the horizontal scale to match the original and save it as a different project then process it.
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