DEM -> Terragen -> L3DT

[trollfiddler]

Hi folks,

I wonder if there is a way to do the following. I have DEM file which I have converted to Terragen format and then imported to L3DT. The obvious problem is one of scale. The Imported file has a horizontal spacing of around 1000m and a vertical scale of -500 to +500m. This gives me a potential terrain of somewhere around 1000Km a side, which is very nice but somewhat large for a game :-)

I need to downsize this terrain. The horizontal scaling is no problem and knocks the width/height down to around 5Km as for a standard 512 x 512 map with a spacing of 2 units. However, if I try to decrease the vertical scale to match, half of my terrain disappears underwater. To get all of the terrain above sea level I need to have a height range of around 900m, which makes the vertical features way too jagged.

Does anyone have an idea how to scale both horizontal and vertical dimensions and keep it all above sea-level?

Thanks a million,

Dave.

[Aaron]

Hi Dave,

You can use the 'Operations->Heightfield->Set Vert. scale' option. Set the range to whatever value you want, then set the '% above sea-level' value to 100. Alternatively, you can set the 'min alt' and 'max alt' values manually.

Best regards,
Aaron.

[trollfiddler]

Hi Aaron,

I was using the min and max alt to try do do this but it resulted in very sharp peaks, because to get everything above sea level I had to have a large range. However, for some reason my brain failed to take notice of the "% above sea level" field. Doh!

I'll have a play with that and see what happens. Will update this later to let you know if it works.

Thanks a lot, and apologies in advance if it turns out I've wasted your time.

<edit>Hmm, the % above sea level and height ranges seem to be linked. When you change one the others change. However, I might have found a solution, which involves messing with the map in terragen on the way to TSE. I'll post it here if I figure it out as it might be useful to others some time.</edit>

Cheers,

Dave.

[Aaron]

Hi Dave,

Hmm, the % above sea level and height ranges seem to be linked. When you change one the others change.

The MinAlt and MaxAlt should change, yes. That's because L3DT is shifting the whole heightfield up or down, without changing the range (which, at least to me, is MaxAlt-MinAlt).

If that's not making any sense, the sure-fire way is to set the min alt to 0 and the max alt to whatever you want. This will guarantee that there is no sea, and will allow you to have any height range you like.

Best regards,
Aaron.

[trollfiddler]

Thanks Aaron.

I may get back to that but I've given up on it for now, too many other things to get done. The map was huge and it was just an experiment to see if I could get the whole of the west of Ireland into TSE :-) I'll leave it until I have time (ha!) and get back to using normal sized maps and some real work for now.

Cheers,

Dave.