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How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby ShadowIce » Fri Nov 22, 2013 6:19 pm

Hi, Aaron! If we can achieve that quality in L3DT, L3DT will become REVOLUTIONARY!

Also, I cannot WAIT to test your settings! :D
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby Aaron » Mon Nov 25, 2013 11:30 am

Hi ShadowIce,

I've still got some issues to resolve in the T3D exporter, but I thought you might appreciate a little preview of what you can expect when I'm done. Screenshots below.

Note that these map results do not include the nice mesh objects present in that Skyrim videos such as bushes, grass blades, boulders, and the like. It’s only the bare terrain, with a base texture and detail maps. Adding mesh grass, trees, etc will make things look much more interesting. However, you will have to do the mesh object work yourself, or use a large team of very talented professional artists (as with Skyrim).

Image

Image

I've still got some work to do with the detail maps in the foreground; I'm not quite happy with how they're looking in T3D.

Also, these screenshots are only of a tiny 512x512 pixel heightmap. The full-sized map (to match Skyrim's size) will be about 600 times larger. I'll post back with screenshots when it finishes calculating.

Cheerio,
Aaron.
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby ShadowIce » Mon Nov 25, 2013 6:21 pm

Um, Aaron?....

THIS

IS

AMAZING!

Show me a tutorial on how to do it after the "SkyRim" map is done calculating, and you have my full support for LIFE! :D
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby ShadowIce » Fri Nov 29, 2013 4:05 pm

How's the generation coming along, Aaron? =)
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby Aaron » Wed Dec 04, 2013 11:26 am

Hi ShadowIce,

Map generation went OK. I made the full skyrim-sized map in all it’s 13824 x 10752 pixel glory to make sure L3DT could still do so (it could), but of course such a map could not all be loaded in T3D because it doesn’t dynamically page terrain blocks. Here are a few quick screenshots in Sapphire without textures, just to give a sense of scale for how big this map is. For the first shot, the camera is flying at 3750 feet altitude, with a view distance of ~5 miles. Note that the white box indicates a 512x512 region of the heightmap, equal in size to the textured screenshots in my earlier post. The second screenshot below shows the heightmap detail at ground level inside that 512x512 box. The whole map is equal to 27x21 of those boxes.

Image

Image

In a fit of pragmatism I tested the limits of what will actually render in T3D, and settled on 2048x2048 pixel heightfield with 8192x8192 pixel texture [The next size up, 4096x4096 with 16k x 16k texture, may render on some systems but is not guaranteed]. This size is still some 1/35th of the total Skyrim map area, but generating a larger map is kind of pointless if you want to render it in unmodified T3D (and to be fair, GarageGames never promised T3D would render gigantic terrain maps.)

The images below, taken in T3D, are all shots in different directions of the same 2048x2048 pixel heightfield with 8192x8192 pixel texture. I hope you'll agree it's reasonably big, or at least, a good start.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

At the moment I’m working on making it easier for you and other users to export these sorts of high resolution maps to T3D. The current release doesn’t provide detail maps to T3D, which makes the terrain look awfully bland, so for the above images I’ve had to manually hack the T3D material script files to add the detail maps. To make this all work nicely and automatically, I’ve had to make quite a few changes to the structure of L3DT’s materials, required new texture images, one or two new control windows, and a whole lot of testing and validation. I’m not quite finished yet, but when I am I will include all this in a new beta release and post all the relevant settings and instructions for making the above maps.

I will post back here when it is ready for testing.

Best regards,
Aaron.
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby ShadowIce » Wed Dec 04, 2013 5:46 pm

Hi, Aaron! :) I must say... WOW! I am IMPRESSED! Is there a way you can add it to 11.02 L3DT so I don't have to upgrade for a while? With christmas and all, I'm out of money, so it would be nice to have this. It would be excellent if you can just export it with all the detail map data and lightmap data, etc... already on it, so it's ready to go :)

Thanks again, Aaron! =)
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby ShadowIce » Sun Dec 08, 2013 3:15 pm

Hi, Aaron! =) Any news?
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby ShadowIce » Mon Dec 16, 2013 2:31 pm

Hi, Aaron. Any news buddy? :)
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby Aaron » Thu Dec 19, 2013 9:43 am

Hi ShadowIce,

Sorry, I've been a bit too busy of late to work on L3DT. I should have time after Christmas to release an updated beta version with the new exporter and resources.

If you want to use the new version without renewing your license, I recommend you register for a new trial license at get 3 months of use of the new version for free. Version 11.02 doesn't support the new T3D exporter, and if I were to update 11.02 to include all the required changes, the new build wouldn't be supported by your key anyhow.

Best regards,
Aaron.
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby ShadowIce » Thu Dec 19, 2013 11:31 pm

Well, Aaron. That depends. Once I see that it is DEFINITELY easy to create Skyrim-sized landscapes with ungodly texture quality, then I will DEFINITELY purchase a new license after the holidays.
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby Telarus » Sat Dec 28, 2013 6:52 am

Very nice, and perfect for my uses. I'm definitely picking up a renewal when the store opens back up.
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby ShadowIce » Wed Jan 01, 2014 5:02 pm

Hi, Aaron! =) Any luck with the tutorial? :D
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby ShadowIce » Mon Jan 06, 2014 5:45 pm

Hi, Aaron! =) Any luck?
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby Aaron » Wed Jan 08, 2014 4:07 am

Hi ShadowIce,

Sorry, no luck yet. I might be able to find some time next week, if the gods smile favourably on my other endeavours. You may rest assured that you will be the first person I contact after I've got the new version ready and updated the tutorial.

Best regards,
Aaron.
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Re: How to stitch together multiple heightmaps?

Postby Aaron » Wed Jan 15, 2014 12:58 pm

Hi ShadowIce,

I've just uploaded the installer for L3DT Pro 14.01 beta 2, which includes the updated T3D exporter that I used to make the highly detailed T3D screenshots in my previous posts. If the free update period of your current activation code has elapsed, I'd recommend you visit the trial registration page to pick up a new key.

As for the tutorial, there is this:

http://www.bundysoft.com/wiki/doku.php? ... :t3d:aaron

As far as I can tell, the text in the tutorial should be sufficient to get you through the process. Some of the screenshots in the tutorial are a little out of date (i.e. some new controls in the windows are not shown), but the default settings are such that you won't have to touch the new controls to get the quality of map shown above.

There is also a bit of a shortcut; you can skip a lot of the setup and use exactly the same settings as I used on the maps shown above by running the following map definition file:

http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/downloads/temp/ShadowIce_demo_2048x4.def.xml (right-click, save link as...)

To use this file in L3DT, download it, then select it using the 'File->Run batch' menu option in L3DT. Once the batch is completed, L3DT will have generated the heightmap and textures. You can then skip to the alpha map section of the tutorial and go from there:

http://www.bundysoft.com/wiki/doku.php?id=tutorials:torque:t3d:aaron&#alpha_maps

Please let me know if you find any errors or omissions in the tutorial, or any bugs in the updated beta release.

Best regards,
Aaron.
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