There is several different ways of approaching terrain building and no single method seems to be right or wrong. It all depends on how much time you want to spend on creating a perfect looking environment.
Firstly the components:
- The triangle mesh (func_group)
Often called tri-souping but really is just a collection of triangular brushes in a grid like pattern. Usually have to be a fixed sized across the whole grid, but you can sub-divide for further detail. (Used this approach in Fueldump with the tank gargage hill)
- metashader (special shaders for terrains)
A good knowledge of shaders will certainly help but they are basically just a collection of specially named shaders linked to the func_group above. The nice feature of the ET metashaders is a base shader which all the others are linked to. Often saves on repeating stuff within each shader.
A collection of textures with a detail texture will always go far. Textures with high repeat detail will always stand out if left on wide open areas. Having natural progression of materials is much better like for example grass -> dirt -> rock not just grass -> rock
Finally the different method of terrain generation.
Method 1
Create a height map and generate a terrain. This can be done manually, with easygen or with gensurf. (a plugin for the base GTK/SD editor) Its certainly a good starting point and can be very useful for block outs and getting a feel for the scale and size of things. But certainly should not be consider a final landscape design.
Method 2
Manually creating the triangle mesh by hand. It may seem like a mad idea but something which is a lot easier than you think. You can create the shape of hills and valleys exactly how you want them in the editor and it is quick and easy to copy and paste triangle chunks around and vertex edit with a lock on the X,Y axis. The down side to this method is that you must have an idea of what you want first and having additional structures for scale.
Both the methods above require an alpha map which specifies where the blends between layers will happen. Easygen is different because the program generates everything for you and allows you to paint the blends onto the triangles. For someone starting out with terrains, easygen is a very good program to work with.
Once you have a basic terrain layout then you can fine tune it and add more detail. A classic start would be to start “turning” triangles so the blends work differently and you can produce more gradually slopes and dips. Partly the reason why the triangle flip tools was added to SDRadiant. It will make a big different to the overall shape and form.
Secondly use the blending wisely and vary big open sections with additional details. Like if a tree is being placed somewhere to add detail to a large open area, blend something different where it meets the ground.
Finally you can subdivide the terrain and create more detail where you need it. There was a thread with some images to explain this better.
http://www.splashdamage.com/index.php?name=pnPHPbb2&file=viewtopic&t=2040&highlight=fueldump
And now for something completely different …
The new yndar method is about more brushwork freedom but unfortunely less blending power. The dotproduct2 method can work with any brushwork and can be merged with vertical brushwork very quickly but it fails on the 2 layer only approach. With good planning you can easily get round this issue and create natural breakpoints.
http://www.planetquake.com/simland/pages/etmaps/abbey.htm
Bottom line
A good terrain is all about understanding what natural materials you are trying to display and the amount of time you want to spend working on it. Fine tuning terrains for gameplay and visuals takes time but its always worth it in the end.
Sock
:moo:
