Blended map files for Atlas2?

[piratelord]

Can L3DT produce all the files required for the blended terrain option of Atlas2?

I'm just trying to understand it, since it seems the unique terrain option is not a suitable option for us due to large file sizes.

Reading through it, I need :

a lightmap, which I assume L3DTs lightmap is suitable for this
a opacity map, I assume this is using the alpha maps
4 texture files, which I assume represent the texture on the landscape as indicated by the alpha map.

So, straight away, this is a problem if atlas only supports a max of 4 textures per atlas file.

I'm reading the info on this page: http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TSE/Atl ... reeworld3D (if you can access it), which details the method from Freeworld3D (which I'm ignoring), but the rest of the atlas info is the most useful I've seen so far.

edit:
OK, investigating further, the 4 texture limit appears to be just Freeworld3D. http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TSE/Atlas/Using_Atlas2
But the code snippet isn't very helpful since it doesn't explain the syntax of each command.

Thanks for any help on this from anyone, the entire atlas business does my head in. I'm grateful that L3DT makes it easier

[dennis]

Yes, L3DT provides all of the necessary information required to create a blended terrain in Atlas2. You will need the heightmap exported in raw format as "size+1" or in otherwords export a 1024 map as 1025. L3DT does the resizing as part of the export. You also need the lightmap and opacity map. TSE will only import one opacity map with four layers. L3DT will in most cases show more than four layers for the opacity map. I generally combine like layers to get down to four. When you do this keep track of the four textures associated with each layer. You'll need to specify these textures when you create the blender atlas file. If they are in the wrong order you'll get textures in the wrong place. Just rerun in a different order until you get the right combination. As far as I know four opacity layers and therefore four textures is still a limit in TSE.

Note that TSE will only see directories in it's own directory tree and will not be able to see the L3DT files. To avoid this copy the necessary files into the TSE directory tree before running TSE.

If you would like to avoid worrying about the command syntax there is a dialog that runs in TSE to do this for you. It will save you alot of typing. Here is the link: http://www.bundysoft.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=385
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