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TA Spring

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TA Spring

Postby Aaron » Thu Mar 09, 2006 12:46 am

Hello,

We've recently had a large number of registrants for L3DT Pro that are making maps for the RTS game TA Spring. If you're not familiar with this game, it's similar to Total Annihilation, but with a much-improved rendering system (see screenshots).

Anyhoo, the reason I'm posting this, not being a TA-Spring user myself, is that I was wondering if any users of said game would be interested in helping to write a tutorial on Making maps for TA Spring using L3DT?

Cheers,
Aaron.
Last edited by Aaron on Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Forboding Angel » Thu Mar 09, 2006 11:40 pm

arron, I already have... :D I'll post it here.
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Postby Forboding Angel » Thu Mar 09, 2006 11:41 pm

oh damnit, double post, sry...

Well anyway this tutorial is not completed yet, but it does cover the l3dt portion of it. Will be finished in a bit...

Taken directly from the spring forums:

Moderators: Please help me keep the posts in this thread congruent to the current section. This is the type of thread that could go Off Topic very quickly, and I would like to keep it from heading that direction, so I would greatly appreciate it if you could help me. Thanks!

I have decided to do this tutorial in sections, so that the community can give me feedback on certain parts that were not clear to them. This is my method for making maps and it is a good one. Developing your own style is always a good idea, however, this guideline will help you.


ONLY COMMENT ON THE CURRENT SECTION PLEASE! THIS IS TO KEEP THE TUTORIAL FLOWING NICELY. IF YOU HAVE SOME ISSUES IN THE FUTURE THAT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED IN A PREVIOUS SECTION, PLEASE PM ME.


Current Section: Feature Map

Legend:

Size scale:

1024 x 1024 texture map (or terrain map, whatever you prefer to call it) is equal to a 2x2 map in spring. Use 1024 as your basis. If you try to do odd numbers, mapconv will generally crash.

Texture map: Is the actual size of your map. Therefore 16 x 16 will be equal to 8192 x 8192

Heightfield Size: To get your heightfield size do this simple equation. Texture / 8 + 1 = heightfield dimentions. Therefore, if your map size is a 16 x 16 your heightfield will be 1025 x 1025.

Metal map Size: To get your Metal map size do this simple equation. Texture / 8 + 1 = Metal map dimentions. Therefore, if your map size is a 16 x 16 your Metal map will be 1025 x 1025.

Feature map Size: To get your Feature map size do this simple equation. Texture / 8 = Feature map dimentions. Therefore, if your map size is a 16 x 16 your Feature map will be 1024 x 1024.
End of Legend

Outline of Sections

1.heightmap
2.terrain
3.metal
4.feature
5.ota style patching (if you care to do so)
6.Compiling
7.SMD settings

Addendum: Map layouts and techniques for making your map truly unique

End of Outline

Ok lets get started.

1.Heightmap == Heightfield

Reccommended program for drawing heightmaps is Photoshop or The Gimp.

Ok for you nubs out there :p... A heightmap is a greyscale image that tells spring how your map is elevated, meaning, if the color on a particular heightmap is white that is at the Maximum height, whereas if the color is black, that is the lowest point.

Now to explain that further. My method for creating heightmaps is to use my penmouse (hand mousing is fine as well :) to create the outline for my heightmap. With this tool you need to decide how you want your map to look. If your map is to have absolutely no water on it you want the lowest point in your map to be black. Therefore you will start with a black image. On the black image decide how high you want each hill to be and use varying colors from white to greyish to achieve the desired effect. You won't get it right the first time so just keep and open mind and experiment with it. After you have gone through several trial maps you will get a feel for how this works.

For canyons I came out with this:
Image

After you have drawn the outline, use the paint bucket tool to fill in your outlines. There you have hills valleys etc. Now from this point there are several options on what to do with your heightmap. You can either try to smooth it out by using guassian blurs, or you can run it through an effects filter (which is my preferred method).

If you do not have L3DT, now is a good time to get it. The program is free. To get the pro version simply send an email to the creator telling him what you want to use it for and what country you live in. He will send you a link to download and an access code.

Ok, use the import heightfield option in l3dt. Once your heightmap is imported, click on operations at the top and select design map. Move the sliders around to how you think you would like your map to look, then hit ok. After that click operations again, and go down to heightfield and choose “generate map”. It will ask you if you want to overwrite, choose yes.

This process will take a little while so just sit back and relax. Once it is done, go to file, export, heightfield, and save the file as “Height.bmp”.

Pull the heightfield into photoshop or gimp, and smooth out the flatland a bit, save.

For canyons the result was this:
Image

Once you are done smoothing, pull the heightfield into The Gimp (NOT PHOTOSHOP, PHOTOSHOP'S IMAGE SIZE ROUTINE WILL RUIN THE HEIGHTFIELD), and use the scale option on CUBIC to blow your heightmap up to the same size as your texture map will be (Texture map defines the total size of your map. For a 16 x 16 the texture map size is 8192 x 8192) and save it has a new file. Heightbig.bmp is my preferred filename.

You are done with the heightfield portion. Pat yourself on the back, you have finished about 16.6% of your map.


Next section

2.Terrain == Texture map

Open up l3dt. Hit file, and go down to import. Import the heightbig.bmp file that you saved eariler. L3dt will ask you what height settings and what horizontal scale to set them at. I suggest that at first you import with the settings you plan to use in the compiler.

Unfortunately I have to branch off into some excess information here before continuing.

Generally maps with maximum altitude higher than 300 – 600 play quite badly. The reason for this is because even kbots have some serious issues with climbing hills that are highter than 300 meters. So keep this in mind while making your map. Yes, huge height scales look way cool, but as I said, they play quite badly.

I suggest that (if your map has no water on it) you use a height scale of 100 – 400, and a horizontal scale of 4. If your map has water on it, I would suggest a scale of -100 – 200, horizontal scale of 4. Keep in mind that this is just the terrain render so if you need to you can massivly cheat on this step to achieve the desired result.

Ok, this is where it gets hard (but not so bad). Open up notepad and copy paste this code exactly word for word as it is written.

Code: Select all

L3DT Climate File 
#VersionNo:   1.0
#ClimateName:   "My Climate name"
#ClimateRGB:   50, 255, 50

#ClimateGradCoeff:   1
#ClimateCurvCoeff:   1
#ClimateWaterCoeff:   1
#ClimateSalinCoeff:   1

/* sea-floor / lake mud */

#TypeID:   1
#TypeName:   "beach sand"
#TexName:   "rock\rock3.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "grass\evergreen1I.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   230, 230, 120

#BaseProb:   0.35
#WaterCoeff:   0.3
#SalinCoeff:   2

#TypeID:   2
#TypeName:   "mud"
#TexName:   "sand\yellowsand1a.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "sand\yellowsand1a.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   200, 170, 100

#BaseProb:   0.58
#GradCoeff:   0
#WaterCoeff:   0.50
#SalinCoeff:   0

/* underwater rock (sea)
   copy of sand, with larger grad coeffs
   and lower base prob */
   
  #TypeID:   15
#TypeName:   "pebbles"
#TexName:   "sand\yellowsand1a.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "sand\yellowsand1a.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   160, 160, 120

#BaseProb:   0.33
#GradCoeff:   0.20
#WaterCoeff:   0.3
#SalinCoeff:   2

#TypeID:   3
#TypeName:   "rock (u/w)"
#TexName:   "sand\yellowsand1a.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "sand\yellowsand1a.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   140, 140, 120

#BaseProb:   0.31
#GradCoeff:   0.25
#WaterCoeff:   0.3
#SalinCoeff:   2

/* underwater rock (lake)
   copy of mud, with larger grad coeffs
   and lower base prob */

#TypeID:   4
#TypeName:   "pebbles"
#TexName:   "sand\yellowsand1a.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "sand\yellowsand1a.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   160, 160, 120

#BaseProb:   0.55
#GradCoeff:   0.20
#WaterCoeff:   0.50

#TypeID:   14
#TypeName:   "rock (u/w)"
#TexName:   "sand\yellowsand1a.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "sand\yellowsand1a.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   140, 140, 120

#BaseProb:   0.54
#GradCoeff:   0.25
#WaterCoeff:   0.50

/* grasses */

#TypeID:   5
#TypeName:   "coastal grass"
#TexName:   "rock\rock3.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "rock\rock3.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   180, 200, 110

#BaseProb:   0.8
#WaterCoeff:   0.24
#SalinCoeff:   .15


#TypeID:   6
#TypeName:   "lush grass"
#TexName:   "grass\evergreen1a.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "grass\evergreen1a.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   160, 200, 90

#BaseProb:   0.795
#WaterCoeff:   0.28
#SalinCoeff:   -0.2


#TypeID:   7
#TypeName:   "grass"
#TexName:   "grass\evergreen1c.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "grass\evergreen1c.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   175, 200, 90

#BaseProb:   0.80
#WaterCoeff:   0.25


#TypeID:   8
#TypeName:   "dry grass"
#TexName:   "grass\evergreen1c.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "grass\evergreen1c.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   190, 210, 100

#BaseProb:   0.805
#WaterCoeff:   0

/* steep grass is copy of grass with slightly lower prob + slightly higher grad */
#TypeID:   9
#TypeName:   "steep grass"
#TexName:   "grass\evergreen1h.jpg"
#HiTexName:   "grass\evergreen1c.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   165, 190, 80

#BaseProb:   0.79
#WaterCoeff:   0.24
#GradCoeff:   0.08 


/* steep lush grass is copy of lush grass with slightly lower prob + slightly higher grad */
#TypeID:   10
#TypeName:   "steep lush grass"
#TexName:   "grass\evergreen1a.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "grass\evergreen1a.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   150, 190, 80

#BaseProb:   0.785
#WaterCoeff:   0.27
#SalinCoeff:   -0.2
#GradCoeff:   0.08



/* rocky bits */

#TypeID:   11
#TypeName:   "rock slope"
#TexName:   "rock\rock3.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "rock\rock3.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   120, 120, 120

#BaseProb:   0.55
#GradCoeff:   0.75


#TypeID:   12
#TypeName:   "cliff face"
#TexName:   "rock\rock3.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "rock\rock3.jpg"
#HiTexBlend:   1
#ColourRGB:   80, 80, 80

#BaseProb:   0.40
#GradCoeff:   1


/* snow */

#TypeID:   13
#TypeName:   "snow"
#TexName:   "snow\snow.jpg"
#ColourRGB:   255, 255, 255

#BaseProb:   0.90
#MinAlt2:   1300
#MinAlt1:   2000


#EOF


To explain this file... L3dt as you may be able to tell, will apply textures depending on the slope, the height that it is at, etc. These climate files are very hard to understand, however, once you start messing with making your own, you start to see how your changes effect the map. This is also a good place to note that: L3dt was designed to make pretty pictures of maps, not to make spring maps, so the texture map might end up looking a little bland, until you have compiled your map. Alternatively, after you have rendered your map in l3dt, you can save the map and use l3dt's viewer to view what it looks like in 3d. It's not perfect, but it will give you a really good idea on what you need to change to make it better.

In the above file, the folders referanced are the folders inside: program files – l3dt – resources – textures. SO what you need to do is put your individual textures in the corrosponding folders. Your grass texture in the grass folder and etc. Then change the file names in the above code and name your climate at the top. Once you are done editing the climate, save the file into the l3dt resource\climates folder, and name it “myclimatename.cli”.

Now, go back to l3dt, click on options – climates – register new climate. It will take you to l3dt's climate folder and you should see your climate file there, select your file and hit ok. Now, keep in mind that this is AFTER you have imported the huge heightmap into l3dt, so now click on operations – design map. This will pop up the same dialog option that you saw when you were making the heightmap earlier. Don't worry about changing the sliders as they will have no purpose this time around, just change the climate being used, to your new climate. Now hit ok.

Making the design map should only take a minute or two, if that. When the design map comes up you should see your map in a very pixelated view. The more red that an area is, the more likely that there will be rock there. If it looks as though your terrain won't be the way you want it, you can click options – heightfield- change horizontal scale. Changing the horizontal scale is what makes l3dt be picky or not picky about slight changes in height. If you change this you will need to re-render the design map.

Next, click on the operations menu at the top, and this time generate the attributes map. This is the most time consuming process when rendering a map. The attributes map does all the terrain calculations in advance, so that generating the actual terrain takes only a few minutes. Calculating the attributes map will take about 10 – 20 minutes, maybe less depending on your machines power and how much ram you have. After it is done, you can see very intimately where l3dt places the specific textures. Sometimes you will realize as you get more experienced, that you have set the horizontal scale too low and l3dt is being way too picky, which means you will have to recalculate the attributes map again after changing the scale. Sometimes it can be a real pain to get it right so be patient, rome wasn't made in a day. =D

A rough idea of what my attributes map looked like:
Image

Now you get to do the fun part, making the texture. Click on operations and generate the texture map. When the box comes up, uncheck “Use light map” and check the box that says “Make high resolution texture” then hit ok. The texture should only take 5 mins give or take. After it is done, keep in mind that the texture might look a little bland in 2d and without shadows on it, but that's fine. It doesn't matter how it looks in 2d, only 3d.

Ok, if you're real impatient at this point, you may save the map and use the l3dt 3d viewer to view it. You can download the viewer from here: http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/downloads ... 3DTVi2.zip

Keep in mind that the 3d viewer is kinda sucky, but, if you just need a preview it will work great.

Click file, export – current map and save the texture map as terrain.bmp. Open it up in photoshop. Now, in a seperate image editor (I use irfanview for this, you can get it from http://www.irfanview.com ) Load up your heightbig.bmp. If you're using irfanview then click image – negative. This will basically flip the colors on your heightmap. Save it as heightbig-negative.bmp Now, switch over to photoshop, open up the negative heightmap, use your selection marquee to select the entire thing. Hit ctrl-c then flip over to your texture map image, and press crtl-v. Your negative heightmap image will be on top of your terrain map image. Now, use the blending tools in photoshop and change the opacity of the heightfiled layer to whatever looks good, 11% usually works quite nicely for me. This is an optional step, but it will make your map look much nicer in the long run, so I suggest doing it.

Here is before I did the heightfield overlay, and then after on Canyons.
Image

Image

Now in photoshop, click the layer option at the top, and flatten the image. Now you get to do metal placement. Keep in mind that this is only visual (At the moment), but the exact placement that you use for the metal patches will be THE EXACT SIZE AND SHAPE OF THE METAL PATCH IN GAME. You can use the metal patch textures that I suggest below, or you can make your own, or you can use others that other people have provided as well.

Metal patch textures I suggest:
Image Image Image Image Image

Place the textures where you want your metal to be, and then save your map in photoshop as terrain.psd AND as terrain.bmp. The reason for saving both files is because if you realize later that you totally screwed the pooch when placing metal you can always go back and do it again without too much trouble.

Ok, your done with the texture map. You are now close to 30% done with your map.

Next Section

3. Metal map = Can be one of the deciding factors of whether your map is "teh pwnz0rz" or "teh sux0rz"

There are 2 methods that I use for making the metal map. One is very easy but offers little control over metal amounts, the other is more time consuming but extremely easy to control.

I will start with my favorite method which is a little more time consuming.
In photoshop use the image size/scale function to scale your map (complete with the patch textures you added) to the same size as your heightmap will be. In my case on canyons, this is 1025 x 1025 ( 16 x 16 map size ).

Method #1 - Time consuming but easier to control overall.

Now, flatten the texture image so that it is on one layer. Create a new image with the size constraints of 1025 x 1025, make sure the background is flat black. Now switch back to the resized texture image. Use the selection marquee to select and copy the entire image. Now switch back to your new image. Press ctrl + v to paste the texture on top of black image. Now, move the black layer up so that it is on top of the texture layer. Now use the blending options and set the black layer to around 30% opacity so that you can see the metal textures on your map. Now click on the brush tool and change it to the pencil tool. Make sure that the pencil tool is set to 6 pixels, not anti-aliased, 100% opacity and red 255 color. Now just click everywhere that there is a metal texture. Change the opacity of the black layer back to 100% and save the file as metal.bmp. Close both of the images. DO NOT SAVE THE TEXTURE IMAGE! Unless you're a glutton for punishment that is...

Method #2 - Easy and quick, a little hard to control metal amounts though.

In the psd texture file, click the little eye beside the texture layer so that only the metal textures show. Now, merge all of the metal texture layers so that it becomes one layer. Use the blending options to put a color overlay of red 255. All the metal textures will be plain red now. Add a new fill layer that is solid black and make sure that it is behind the metal texture layer. Use the image size function to resize the image to the size that your metal map should be (in my case, 1025 x 1025). Save the file as metal.bmp.

Here is what my metal map looks like:
Image

You are now about 46% done.

Next Section

4. Feature Map == A serious pain in the ass, but once it's done... Wow!

Open photoshop/gimp, make an image that is your texture map size / 8 which in my case is 1024 x 1024.

Time for technical details. To put grass on your feature map you use the blue colors, ranging from 0 to 255. The higher the amount, the more grass you have on that particular area. Simple enough.

Trees use the green color. To place a tree, use green colors from 200 - 215.
I won't even bother posting pictures of the tree types, cause there are only 2.

To place a tree, put a 1 pixel x 1 pixel dot on the feature map to place the tree. It comes in handy sometimes to open and resize your heightmap in photoshop, for the purpose of being able to see where your tree is being placed exactly.

Features use decending order from red 255 to red 0. To put a feature on your map, you must have the object (in s30 or 3d0 format, I reccommend s30 format because the collision detection is much better). You need the texture for the feature. For my map I used Smoth's palm trees.

This is where it gets extremely hard to explain. In your copy of mothers map converter (YOU DO HAVE IT DON'T YOU!?!? :), if not, here is a link to my packaged version. http://fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=2589 ) one of the files you have should be fs.txt

fs.txt is simply a listing of the features that you have. The first one listed corresponds to red 255. Here is my fs.txt for canyons:

Code: Select all
pdrock1
pdrock1a
pdrock2
pdrock2a
pdrock3
pdrock3a
pdrock4
pdrock4a
pdrock4a
palmetto_1
cluster0_dead
cluster1
cluster1_dead
cluster2
cluster2_dead
palmetto_2
palmetto_3
cluster0


To place a feature on the feature map, use 1x1 pixel of red (color of your feature) on the feature map. It map also help you to know that a 1 x 1 pixel on the feature map roughly equals out to a 1x1 footprint in spring.

To add the features, you need to make a folder called "objects3d", another folder called "features" with the sub directory "All Worlds", and yet another called "unittextures"

Your directory structure should look like this:

c:\Mymapname

features - All Worlds
maps
objects3d
unittextures

Put the s30/3do in the objects3d folder.
Put the tga/dds/png in the unittexture folder.
Put the tdf file in the All Worlds folder.

A bit of side information here... The tdf is what defines the properties of the feature in question, for example, here is a copy of my tdf for palmetto_1:

Code: Select all
[palmetto_1]
   {
   world=allworld;
   description=Palmetto;
   category=arm_corpses;
   object=palmetto_1.s3o;
   footprintx=2;
   footprintz=2;
   height=20;
   blocking=0;
   hitdensity=5;
   energy=50;
   damage=1000;
   flammable=0;
   reclaimable=1;
   autoreclaimable=1;
   featurereclamate=smudge01;
   seqnamereclamate=tree1reclamate;
   }


It may take a few trues to get things right, but don't give up. It will become clear to you quite quickly exactly how it works in game.

Save feature.bmp

For referance, here is what my feature map looks like:

Image

You are now about 70(some odd) percent done.
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Postby JavaJones » Fri Mar 10, 2006 4:31 am

I recommend posting this to the Wiki instead and using this thread for discussion. That way no worries on the thread getting "off topic".

- Oshyan
Visit Outland - Off the beaten path...
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Postby Aaron » Fri Mar 10, 2006 4:59 am

Hello,

Thanks Forboding Angel! This should come in very handy.

JavaJones wrote:I recommend posting this to the Wiki instead and using this thread for discussion. That way no worries on the thread getting "off topic".


Te he, you should see Forboding Angel's reply in the Spring forums to that very suggestion. Something along the lines of "the wiki blows", wasn't it?

Anyhoo, despite said comments, I have posted this into the wiki, here. I've disabled public read/write access so only F.A. and myself can read/write at the moment. I'll remove the restriction when instructed to do so.

Cheers,
Aaron.
Last edited by Aaron on Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Forboding Angel » Fri Mar 10, 2006 9:03 am

grrrr, I hate wiki's with a passion, hodge podged info with no way to find it. That's the way springs wiki is. 5 map tut's there and not one of them is complete. Neither is mine for that matter. Just wrote the features section tonight. I'm going slow so that members of the community can pm me or post in the thread with questions or things I screwed up/overlooked.

Mine will however be finished. I'm taking my time as well so that I don't get burned out. I could write a novel on map making for spring, as it is I'm only providing relavant info. In the addendum section is where I will really get into tip/tricks/ millions of bits of knowledge that I've learned.

I will be copy pasting what I write in the spring forum, here.

Actually, I disallowed anyone adding it to the wiki at spring, because an early version would get posted and everyone would be adding bits here and there and that just serves to piss me off. So, until I complete it from front to back, it will not be allowed as a wiki edition at the spring site. I don't care if it goes to the wiki here. Here I don't have to worry about a bunch of dumbasshats screwing around with it.

I have a passion of hate for springs wiki, can you tell? :D

Plus, many of the mappers there tend to be a little less than intelligent sometimes. And some of the textures posted make my iq drop.

Heh, ok I'll stop bitching now lol.
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Postby Aaron » Fri Mar 10, 2006 11:54 am

Hi Forboding Angel,

I can understand your displeasure with wikis, particularly if there are a lot of poorly written, incomplete, error-ridden, largely misspelt articles. Some of the articles on the Spring wiki fit that bill.

However, I don't agree that this is necessarily the case for all wikis. It depends entirely on the contributors, and on the editors (if any). I personally view my (or maybe...our) wiki as an extension of the tutorials on this site, which means that I expect a certain level of quality – to an extent, those articles represent me, personally. Now, wiki articles don't need to be a work of great literature or an encyclopaedic tome of wisdom, but they do need to read-well, and they must be useful. If they're not useful, they must at least be funny. If not that, I will hit 'edit this page' and fix the situation well before my brain has time to consider the undemocratic, unfair, intolerant, and maybe even intemperate, nature of my actions. I haven't had to do so yet, but I certainly reserve that right. I'm guessing that the moderators of Spring's wiki (which is bigger than my own), don't really have time, or otherwise the inclination, to be as zealous as myself. Anyhoo, my point is that wikis aren't necessarily shit.

Furthermore, while I'm in the mood for a rant, I'd like to take a moment to disagree that “there's no way to find info”. The 'search' feature in the wiki works fine, and if you're looking for a tutorial, it will be on the tutorials page, and even in the 'tutorials' index on the front page (for the moment there are sufficiently few tutorials that I can list them all there). If there's info that's hard to find, then feel free to change or add more links – improvements are always welcome.

Forboding Angel wrote:Actually, I disallowed anyone adding it to the wiki at spring, because an early version would get posted and everyone would be adding bits here and there and that just serves to piss me off.


You're probably going to be really pissed-off when you see what I've done to your tutorial in the wiki. Particularly, I've split it up into separate pages for each section, added some more links and descriptions for various bits, and on occasion added some large-ish sections to offer an alternative view. I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said in there, but I want to offer as much useful advice to users as is possible, and I think there were a few L3DT-usage points that needed to be made. If you think I'm full of shite, then change the wiki or else PM me (there's no point posting it here; no other users can view your pages yet).

Forboding Angel wrote:So, until I complete it from front to back, it will not be allowed as a wiki edition at the spring site. I don't care if it goes to the wiki here. Here I don't have to worry about a bunch of dumbasshats screwing around with it.


Whew, what a relief. This is a good example of a reason why I should always read and re-read a message before I start to write my reply. I got to this point, and upon realising that you're not being a hard-arse, realised that I may have been too much of a hard-arse. I apologise if I've offended you with any...forthright...comments I've made above. I think you're right too: There haven't been any "dumbasshats screwing around with [my wiki]". I have a lot of respect for the members here (though I can be a gumpy bastard at times), and they deserve it.

Forboding Angel wrote:I have a passion of hate for springs wiki, can you tell? :D


I did get that impression ;)

Forboding Angel wrote:Plus, many of the mappers there tend to be a little less than intelligent sometimes. And some of the textures posted make my IQ drop.


I can understand your frustration with 'the masses' that inhabit public forums. I don't think it helps to be offensive or disparaging, however. Disagree, make your point, look frightfully smart in the process, and move on with no hard feelings.

Forboding Angel wrote:Heh, ok I'll stop bitching now lol.


Venting is good. As I say, I understand your frustrations with some wikis, and I hope this site can be a 'clean slate' in those regards.

Cheerio,
Aaron.

PS: Faark, this is about the longest forum post I've ever made.
Last edited by Aaron on Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Forboding Angel » Fri Mar 10, 2006 1:37 pm

oh no. None of that was directed at this site or you at all.. Sorry if it seemed that way :(
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Postby Aaron » Fri Mar 10, 2006 1:55 pm

Forboding Angel wrote:oh no. None of that was directed at this site or you at all.. Sorry if it seemed that way :(


Don't worry, that's not how I read it. I was talking in more general terms about all public fora (Spring, L3DT, Slashdot, wherever), which can certainly contain fools, and sometimes in great proportions (yeah, Slashdot), but I don't think they necessarily deserve to be smacked-down by those of greater wisdom (corrected, yes). After all, there's probably someone else who will come along with greater wisdom still, capable of smacking you (or me) down. That's why I'm oh so polite when posting on programming fora. Very, very polite.

But fuck it, I don't really know why I'm giving etiquette tips here. You haven't done anything to offend me. I guess we can put this down to some bloody hot weather in Melbourne that's got me a little tetchy. Sorry 'bout that.

Anyhoo, I've just finished adding suggestions to your tutorial in the wiki, most of which may be dopey, but some of which might be useful to some users. Please let me know what you think.

Cheers,
Aaron.
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Postby Forboding Angel » Fri Mar 10, 2006 4:30 pm

oooh sweet! nothing like suggestions from the creator, me wanders off to "t3h ub3r w1ki" :D

aww bummer, I logged into the wiki, and the went to the page, but I can't view it due to the message "not enough rights".

I'm feeling a little dumb atm. What am I doing wrong?
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Postby Forboding Angel » Sat Mar 11, 2006 5:20 am

Hey aaron, very very cool tips on the wiki. I really like how you'bve set it up, very clean and easy to follow.

The only thing that gets me is that you nixed my 1 to 1 ratio methods. Ahh well. Meh.

1 suggestion for the design pencil... flood fill :D for lazy bastages like me :D

BTW I'm trying the import design map function as I type this. I like it even tho on an 8192 x 8192 texture it takes a bit. If it gets rid of contours you will be my hero.

edit:

request#2

Add an option to the design map when generating the heighfield so that it will just draw the HF from the dm instead of adding extra stuff, like erosion and whatnot. Cause that way I could draw my stuff in PS and import designmap and be golden. But I jsut did it, and the heightfield looks nothing like it did when it went in :(
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Postby Aaron » Sun Mar 12, 2006 1:01 pm

Hello Forboding Angel,

Forboding Angel wrote:The only thing that gets me is that you nixed my 1 to 1 ratio methods. Ahh well. Meh.


I'm sorry, I must have screwed-up when I copied it. Please feel free to fix it (it is your tutorial after all).

Forboding Angel wrote:1 suggestion for the design pencil... flood fill :D for lazy bastages like me :D


Alrighty. I'll put it on the to-do list.

Forboding Angel wrote:Add an option to the design map when generating the heighfield so that it will just draw the HF from the dm instead of adding extra stuff, like erosion and whatnot. Cause that way I could draw my stuff in PS and import designmap and be golden. But I just did it, and the heightfield looks nothing like it did when it went in :(


In the design map parameters wizard, set the 'fractal roughness', 'peak overlays', 'cliffs and terraces' and 'erosion' sliders to zero (to the left).

Cheers,
Aaron.
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Postby Forboding Angel » Mon Mar 13, 2006 6:16 pm

I did that, but then it smoothes the crap outta my heightmap.
If I do that I lose all and any detail in my heightmap :(


I can post some images if you like?
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Postby Aaron » Fri Mar 17, 2006 1:33 am

Hi Forboding Angel,

Forboding Angel wrote:I can post some images if you like?


No, that's alright, I believe you. If you turn all of the effects off, you're supposed to get a smooth map. Generally I would recommend that you at least have some peak and fractal roughening enabled, and maybe some cliffs too.

However, as you've noticed, this isn't going to be ultra-high fidelity to your original height-map. This is the dilemma; you want to modify your heightmap to get rid of the stepping, but still keep it substantially the same because you've already done all the design in Photoshop. L3DT can easily do one or the other, but it can't do both (at least not v2.3 – v2.4 will fix this).

Anyway, if you can't find a good combination of slider-settings for the design-map, I think I have a new solution for how to keep hour heightfield as you designed it in PS, and yet get rid of those contours:

  1. Download and run World-Machine (credit: Stephen Schmitt). The free version should suffice, but I think there's a size restriction, and some devices aren't included.
  2. Create a file input device, and select your heightfield image.
  3. Create a noise filter, or something similar, and connect it to the output pin of the file input device. Set the noise to something really mild, as it will erase your contour problems without introducing noticeable artefacts.
  4. Create a file output device, and connect it to the output pin of the filter.
  5. In the file output device, set your output filename, and be sure to use the terragen format (.ter) – this is important, it's 16-bit, so it won't introduce stepping artefacts.
  6. Run the network, and close WM.
  7. Load the .ter file in L3DT (use 'import->heightfield', or simply 'open').
  8. Use 'operations->heightfield->set vert. scale' to set the desired altitude range of your map.
  9. Do 'operations->design map->generate from HF'.
  10. Now continue with your regular order of operations.

Now, I should put a disclaimer on this: I haven't tried it – I'm basing this on the World-Machine user-guide. If it doesn't work, then I'm out of ideas for quick-fixes, and you may have to wait for L3DT 2.4.

Oh, one more thing: It's important to note that at no point in this procedure should you use the 'operation->heightfield->generate map' option in L3DT. If you want your heightfield to look just as it did in photoshop, you don't want L3DT to mess it up (otherwise you'd be using the 'import design map' option).

This brings up another point, which I'm a little curious about. In your tutorial you state:

Forboding Angel wrote:Use the File->Import heightfield option in L3DT. Once your heightmap is imported, click on operations at the top and select design map. Move the sliders around to how you think you would like your map to look, then hit ok. After that click operations again, and go down to heightfield and choose “generate map”. It will ask you if you want to overwrite, choose yes.


My reading of this is that you're importing the heightfield, back-calculating the design map, then re-calculating the heightfield from the design map. If so, aren't you getting the same heightfield output from this method as you do from using the 'import design map' wizard, assuming you use the same slider-settings in the 'design-map parameters' wizard? It should be exactly equivalent, because it runs all the same operations.

Cheers,
Aaron.
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Postby Forboding Angel » Sun Mar 19, 2006 9:10 pm

at the time I didn't realize that the design map could be imported from a heightmap image. I thought originally is was a seperate file.

BTW could you add 32bit RAW file support for heightmap imports? PS cs2 can save 32 bit as raw, so that would fix that little issue.

Also, I figured out how to beef up my rock walls without having to try and trick l3dt. I increased the baseprob of cliff face to .60 from .40, only issue is that it nixed my steep grass land type.

Here is my climate I'm working on...

Code: Select all
L3DT Climate File 
#VersionNo:   1.0
#ClimateName:   "Green Test"
#ClimateRGB:   50, 255, 50

#ClimateGradCoeff:   1
#ClimateCurvCoeff:   1
#ClimateWaterCoeff:   1
#ClimateSalinCoeff:   1


#TypeID:   1
#TypeName:   "grass"
#TexName:   "grass/evergreen1c.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "grass/evergreen1c.jpg"
// #HiTexBlend:   0.2
#ColourRGB:   175, 200, 90

#BaseProb:   0.80
#WaterCoeff:   0.25

/* steep lush grass is copy of lush grass with slightly lower prob + slightly higher grad */
#TypeID:   2
#TypeName:   "steep lush grass"
#TexName:   "grass\evergreen1h.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "grass\evergreen1h.jpg"
// #HiTexBlend:   0.2
#ColourRGB:   150, 190, 80

#BaseProb:   0.785
#WaterCoeff:   0.27
#SalinCoeff:   -0.2
#GradCoeff:   0.08



/* rocky bits */

#TypeID:   3
#TypeName:   "rock slope"
#TexName:   "rock\rock3.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "rock\rock3.jpg"
// #HiTexBlend:   0.2
#ColourRGB:   120, 120, 120

#BaseProb:   0.55
#GradCoeff:   0.75


#TypeID:   4
#TypeName:   "cliff face"
#TexName:   "rock\rock3.jpg"
// #HiTexName:   "rock\rock3.jpg"
// #HiTexBlend:   0.2
#ColourRGB:   80, 80, 80

#BaseProb:   0.60
#GradCoeff:   1


/* snow */

#TypeID:   5
#TypeName:   "snow"
#TexName:   "snow\snow1.jpg"
#ColourRGB:   255, 255, 255

#BaseProb:   0.90
#MinAlt2:   1300
#MinAlt1:   2000


#EOF
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