L3DT Users' Community

Hi Aaron.
First of all, i'm sorry for my poor english (i'm italian).
I'm trying to make a 3D perspective of Arda, using the fantastic masterpiece of Karen Winn Fonstad "Atlas of Middle Earth".
It's an huge work, but i want to try.
I'm inspiring by great work of ME-DEM team.
As soon as i have something of acceptable, i will send to you some snapshots.
Stay tuned.
Tanks for the space allowed.

Hey - mauronen, sounds very cool!

Let us know how you get on as your project is possibly something of a test case for MEDEM.

Of course, you could always join MEDEM...AND do your project...?

monks

Ah- I see you have already joined MEDEM- great

If you are you getting impatient (!) for us to begin the terrain work of MEDEM it will be only be a matter of a couple of months, if that, before we can begin phase 2.
We also have coming up probably over the next couple of weeks some global projections of our phase 1 data which people will be able to interact with. Fingers crossed on that.
If you are unsure of the global map that we are using (Fonstad's is different to ICE), we are still very much considering the options at MEDEM. We are even considering using some aspects of Ice Age Earth. We are fixed to the ICE north west section. That will be the first area we do.

Cheers

Hi monks
My first attempt is the Beleriand North Lands (West-East).
The design map is 105 x 113 tiles (app. 672 x 730 km).
It's so hard use the design map editor with huge surfaces, but i think (i hope...) that next week i will generate a seemly heightfield.

Cheers

Welcome Mauronen.

As with ME-DEM, it sounds like you've got a fun and epic project. I wish you the best of luck, and please don't hesitate to request any new features for L3DT that could help with your work.

mauronen wrote:It's so hard use the design map editor with huge surfaces...

Yeah, I know what you mean. The single-pixel editing is just ridiculous for maps that large. I'm planning on implementing multiple-pixel brushes in a future release, which should make things somewhat easier.

I'm looking forward to the snapshots!

Best regards,
Aaron.

Thanks Aaron.
I hope to publish some snapshot as soon as possible.
Any kind of suggestion and any tips are the welcome.
Cheers.

My first attempt is the Beleriand North Lands (West-East).

do you mean the Third Age map?

The design map is 105 x 113 tiles (app. 672 x 730 km).
It's so hard use the design map editor with huge surfaces, but i think (i hope...) that next week i will generate a seemly heightfield

Oh my - I've not tried such a thing yet! What res is the terrain at at that size? Looking forward to seeing it. Good luck!

I'm planning on implementing multiple-pixel brushes in a future release, which should make things somewhat easier.

Yum yum

Hey Aaron do you see a pattern emerging here- people wanting to transcribe 2D maps to 3D...blatant plug for his own agenda

monks

Hi Monk

Some replies for you.

do you mean the Third Age map?

No, the First Age (after the demolition of Illuin and Ormal and the chaining of Melkor)

The design map is 105 x 113 tiles (app. 672 x 730 km).
It's so hard use the design map editor with huge surfaces, but i think (i hope...) that next week i will generate a seemly heightfield

Oh my - I've not tried such a thing yet! What res is the terrain at at that size? Looking forward to seeing it. Good luck!

Really, the map is very huge (with turbo flying in L3DT i've spent almost one half of hour to cover the diagonal between center and North East, Dor Daidelos). Maybe the map is too much huge. Could you give me some advice if i must to reduce the size of map or not (she is the first of 4 of same kind)?
Actually the texture map is in hi-res and the TF/HF ratio is 1. As soon as i painted an accurate design map, i will raise the ratio to 4 (36 hours of calculation...)

I think that next week i will publish some pics.
Stay tuned!

No, the First Age (after the demolition of Illuin and Ormal and the chaining of Melkor)

Great, that will be interesting to see. Not many people cover the First Age Beleriand, it is always ~Third Age. There is demand for maps of Beleriand though- any maps of Middle Earth at anytime of course.
If you're willing and interested we could make use of it as an alternative map source within the MEDEM Project.

Really, the map is very huge (with turbo flying in L3DT i've spent almost one half of hour to cover the diagonal between center and North East, Dor Daidelos). Maybe the map is too much huge. Could you give me some advice if i must to reduce the size of map or not (she is the first of 4 of same kind)?

yikes! That sounds pretty immense...
No, not really, the map is never too huge One of our main considerations is ground units- resolution. For the Third Age map we are using 20m for 1 pixel in phase 2.
I'm trying to work out the ground units you are using. If you could tell me how many design map pixels in each tile i'm thinking 730Km / 113 = 5Km per tile, so I'm guessing roughly 40-60m res?- though maybe it's less.

Cheers,
monks

Hello,

mauronen wrote:Any kind of suggestion and any tips are the welcome.

I’m not sure I can make any really useful suggestions without seeing what has and hasn’t worked for you, but you may find the following resources helpful (assuming you haven’t read them already):

Designing a map (a fjord, particularly):

http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/tute/walkthroughs/wthru_design_fjord.php

Monkchain’s introduction to terrain-making for ME-DEM:

http://www.bundysoft.com/wiki/doku.php?id=tutorials:me-dem:intro1

Also, if you’re making the design map from some map image (as Monks did/does), it might help to try out the ‘image overlay’ feature:

http://www.bundysoft.com/wiki/doku.php?id=tutorials:l3dt:addenda:view#image_overlay

mauronen wrote:Maybe the map is too much huge. Could you give me some advice if i must to reduce the size of map or not (she is the first of 4 of same kind)?

I think the size shouldn't present any special problems, though maybe the (poor) ergonomics of the map-editing user-interface could be more troublesome on a larger map. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement.

monks wrote:Hey Aaron do you see a pattern emerging here- people wanting to transcribe 2D maps to 3D?

Yah, I had noticed that. Fear not; your feature requests are still in the pipeline.

monks wrote:I'm trying to work out the ground units you are using. If you could tell me how many design map pixels in each tile i'm thinking 730Km / 113 = 5Km per tile, so I'm guessing roughly 40-60m res?- though maybe it's less.

M'thinks that's 100m / pixel, as 113 design pixels is 7.2k heightfield pixels. Assuming the default of 512x512 pixel tiles, the tiles are ~50kmx50km.

Cheers,
Aaron

Tanks Aaron for your tips.

I've red all about L3DT (tutorials, algorithms, forums, ecc.).

The main tip that i need is
...a 3D render/editor on-the-fly..
awaiting the new releases of L3DT

Actually i use Leveller (Demo), but i'm looking for something similar but open source (or not so expensive like Leveller, like L3DT for example...)

I've tried TerraMaker, TerraPainter, WorldMachine, FreeWorld3D but they are neither too simple, nor too complicated (WorldMachine) or bugs filled (FreeWorld3D).
I've tried too PnP TerrainCreator but it doesn't have any L3DT compatible kind of import/export (at least it seems).

Tanks a lot for the attention that gives to me.

Monks, the Beleriand map of the Third Age is only a map of the Great Sea with only some little isles (Tol Morwen, Tol Taras) and a great isle residual of the Taur nu Fuin.
It seems so uninteresting...don't think?

Cheers Aaron, so 1 pix =100m.

the Beleriand map of the Third Age is only a map of the Great Sea with only some little isles (Tol Morwen, Tol Taras) and a great isle residual of the Taur nu Fuin.
It seems so uninteresting...don't think?

Of course- yeah that whole area is very interesting. That's why I really wanted to include it when I did the contour map for that area (ie the land now submerged on the sea bed). It's not great of course but it's a start.
When i was doing it, it made me think of those lands now lying on the sea floor, imagining diving for pearls in the ruins of some long-lost stronghold.

The way I approached it was to basically try and get the rough outlines of Beleriand on the sea bed in order to provide a starting point for improvement. We honestly intend to give bathymetry as much importance as we feasably can. Like you said it's so interesting- it's part of the history.

Would it be possible to use your Beleriand off the T.A coast as the basis for our bathymetry in that area? We're trying to get down to 1 px =20m but 100m is a tremendous start. If we could use it we would probably introduce another version of your data with some faults and scars where the Cataclysm has torn the land.
Also, MEDEM would like to host alternative views/maps of Middle Earth, especially those maps of the First Age, etc. Would you be interested in putting forward your work for that?

monks

Yes Monks, of course.
As soon as i have something of acceptable i will put my job into your FTP site, if you want.
Could you, if you like, modify my design map to improve it?

Great! Thanks Mauronen

Yes, feel free to post on the MEDEM boards- email Oshyan (JavaJones) for an ftp pass at that time. Oshyan will have the final say as to whether we have room on the ftp, but I imagine we will have.

Could you, if you like, modify my design map to improve it?

Yes, we will have to bring it up to the 20m res during Phase2 but it could happily begin life in 100m res. It might be necessary to do some re-jigging to make it align with the current map, - we'll have to work this out.
Would it be possible to save the mgfs, so that we could have access to the terrain before you do any erosion? I'm thinking for the use of MEDEM that with some kind of inflation it might be possible to get the terrain down to 20m, then apply the erosion...?

monks

Ok guys, don't shoot on piano player...
The first shots of Arda Project are online
http://www.bundysoft.com/coppermine/index.php?cat=10035

I realize that the snapshots are boring, but the purpose of Arda Project is
to make a true copy of the Fonstad's maps.

Any kind of tip, or disapproval are the welcome.

Monks, i'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Cheers
Mauro.