L3DT export for best details

[caf]

Hi,

I am playing around trying to get a terrain into TSE. So far I read all the tutorials and tips and tricks and what not on the subject both on this site and GG forums.

My terrain information is the following :

Heigthfield : 2048x2048 (exported RAW : 2049x2049)
Horiz scale : 4

Attribute Map : High-res with AM/HF ration 1x

Texture : high-res with TX/HF ratio 4x, texture size 8192x8192

Exported as png tiles of 1024x1024 (8 x


In TSE I use the Atlas2 GUI ressource with following information :

Chu/Atlase generation :

Square size = 4
Height Range = 1203
Error Metric = 1 (I can only assume that mean a 1 meter size per mesh, I want that precision)
Tree Depth =8 (I understand it's the number of tile per side ?)

Texture

Leaf Size = 8


And what I get as a result is this : (I added Ork to show the size).

So what am I missing here ? Because it show nice in L3DT viewer with the right detail I want.



Thanks

[caf]

for some reason I can't get the image to show

[Forboding Angel]

well...

Here is imo what you need to do.


import heightmap at 1024x1024

att map x4
process terrain normals x4
lightmap x8
terrain x8


This will yield you same very nice detailed terrain. The screenshot you posted looks rather low res, and I think it has to do with the fact that you processed the terrain at x8 (which generally looks pretty ugly without a decent resolution att map and really looks bad without the lightmap).

Try the above settings for rendering. As far as getting it into TSE, I have absolutely no idea. Sorry

[Aaron]

for some reason I can't get the image to show

Needed the "http://" bit.

[Aaron]

Hi Caf,

Forboding's suggestions are an excellent start; use a high-res attributes map, and an extra high-res texture map (8x). This will basically get the best out of L3DT's texture renderer. You could go to 16x texture res, but it would make the texture size rather enormous.

Anyway, probably a more serious problem here is scale. With a horizontal scale of 4m, and a texture res of 4x, your texture pixels are therefore 1m x 1m (or ~3ft x 3ft, if you prefer Imperial). Thus, the texture pixels are of the order of the same size as your Orc. This is fine if you're game is a flight-sim or an RTS where you don't get that close to the terrain (usually), but for an FPS you want the size of the texture pixels to be substantially smaller. I would recommend a horizontal scale of ~1m, and a texture res of 8x (4x will be OK if 8x is too large in mem). This gives you a texture pixel size of ~5in x 5in. Then, to give the impression of greater detail still, you need to apply a high-res greyscale detail map (in TSE.) That's how L3DTVi2 makes the textures look OK close-up.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,
Aaron.

[caf]

Thanks for the informations. I will try this.

[piratelord]

Sorry to hijack a bit, but I've got the same (slightly).

Our total world map is 32km by 24km, so I've turned that into a heightmap of 8192 width, and then export as 2048 chunks to import into L3DT, using a Horz Scale of 4 (8192x4 = 32768).

I done a x4 texture map for this.

turning the results into Atlas files, produced a 130 meg atlas file, 100meg of which was the texture! Since there are 12 tiles, this makes a total landscape of around 1.5 gig!

So, what you are suggesting above, I should make the heighmap a width of 32768, with a heigh res texture and use that? I hate to think how many gig atlas will turn that into.

[Forboding Angel]

Pirate.

Import your heightfield as a 4096x4096 image.

Process:

Attributes map, high res x4

at this point turn on mosaic mapping (512 tiles)

terrain normals x4
Light map x8
texture x8

Final texture size=32768

You MUST use bumpmapping on these or it will look quite fugly.

The only way to get a high res (good looking) texture without bumpmapping is to import the heightmap 1:1 (which basically means that every process you do is at max size), and trust me... You don't wanna do that.

I also reccommend that the bumpmapping be put on kinda strong. Do some test renders on a 512 tile just to make sure that the bumpmapping isn't too strong. You want it to be a goodly amount, but too much can completely detract from the image.

[piratelord]

Hi there,

Do you mean my entire world heightmap, or just one chunk?
If one chunk, then that's going to produce some massive atlas files when it's finished.

[Forboding Angel]

this is your desired final texture size correct?
Final texture size=32768x32768

If so, then follow my instructions above. If not, take final texture size that you desire, divide by 8, then resize your heightmap to that size and import into L3DT. Formula being (texture size/8=heightmap size)

[Aaron]

Hi Piratelord,

Hmmm...you're probably right, having all that in one atlas file might be a bit hefty. It may work, but I've not tried it.

So, go ahead an import your heightfields tile by tile (2048x2048 per tile, correct?), generate a 4x attributes map, 8x light map, and 8x texture map. That will give you 16k x 16k texture map per heightfield tile. If you're worried about size, use 4x light and texture. However, with a horiz scale of 4m, a TX/HF ratio of only 4x will make the texture look quite blurry in an FPS-style renderer, as seen above in caf's picture.

Cheers,
Aaron.

[caf]

I am trying exactly what Angel proposed. I redone a terrain with 4096x4096 with a scale of 2 (I want 8k x 8k)

Attributes map, high res x4
terrain normals x4
Light map x8
texture x8

Final texture size=32768

Took my machine ~12hours to process the whole.

I can't use the L3DT viewer to see the result, I get a memory problem (even as I have 2Gb RAM). But I am now processing the atlas so I should be able to see the result in a couple hours. I will post a pic to show the difference with my 1st pic.

[piratelord]

Thanks all,

I have no texture size in mind. Just the best option.

Trouble with doing large texture sizes is that the atlas process bloats up the file.


At the moment I'm using a 4096x4096 image for a 2048 tile. This results in a 55meg atlas file. Since we are going to have 13 tiles, that makes a total landscape of around 715 meg, that's before models, code, textures, sounds, music, etc, etc.

At 8192, the file size was around 130meg per tile. This doesn't make the project very workable.

My final conclusion that while atlas is pretty good, it's also very poor for large game detailed maps.

[caf]

Hi all,

I could not import the final texture into atlas, atlas import process give up after the texture file reach 2Gb. So I reduced the texture generation to 4x and got a 16kx16k texture. Final I get a nice 8km x 8km terrain the texture is not extra detailed but still much much better than my original try. The atlas file is 600Mb and the preformance seems good, I still have to populate the terrain with vegetation and all so that may decrease.

Thanks all for your help.

I will post a pic once I get something nice to show.

[piratelord]

Well done!

I'm still struggling on getting something that looks good for my landscape.
If you've got a 8km x 8km landscape of 600meg that looks fairly good, that proves I'm not going mad with the estimated calculated filesizes of a landscape thats 32km x 24km.....

Atlas doesn't seem to be the best tool in the box for big detailed landscapes.


One thing I've noticed in all my tests, is that the texture map that L3DT produces doesn't blend together neighbouring textures.
So for example, you'll get a clear border line between two different textures, and if something is "sprinkled" among another texture, then it's just sharp pixels.
Is this right, or am I missing some advanced features?