making a terrain

(Igloo) #1

Hi there,

Where can i download EasyGen?

yyy… the webpage http://easygen.no-ip.org/ is not available :eek3:

I can’t find this tool anywhere. Please, tell me if you know where i may find it.

Thx a lot! :beer:

(codejockey13) #2

I recommend using levller to make your heightmap and then use gensurf to make the terrain.

http://www.daylongraphics.com/products/leveller/

Hope this helps you out. :slight_smile:

(mrfin) #3

http://www.modsonline.com/index.php?mod=Downloads&op=full&id=1938

lol@your avatar!

just for halloween?

(Igloo) #4

No, i just like it :cool:

codejockey13 do you know where is tutorial ‘How to use?’ leveller ?

Thx :clap:

(codejockey13) #5

Well there’s really not much to it. You select a raise terrain or dig terrain tool and the size and then on the main window in the left you left click on the terrain grid and a hill or trench will start to grow. Then all you have to do is export a bitmap and read that into gensurf under the bitmap tab.

(EB) #6

I am hosting Easygen until Francesco pops his head up…

www.spyjuice.com/1.42_easygen.zip

(psyco_mario) #7

and once again… EB saves the day!!! (as usual)

(Igloo) #8

Damn, free leveller is a demo version. Hope it will be usefull :drink:

You were very helpfull. Thx!

(]UBC[ McNite) #9

Use EasyGen, its for free and absolutely sufficient.

(kamikazee) #10

You simply make your terain in easygen, export the heightmap and continue as you would do with leveler: make a terrain in your level using gtkgensurf from the heightmap.

(]UBC[ McNite) #11

Hm and why not export the whole terrain when its already done? I don’t see any advantage from doing a heightmap in EasyGen too…
u do the heightmap with a gfx-prog, then import this heightmap into EasyGen, apply textures to the terrain, and export the alphamap, the complete terrain including skybox, and the shader for the terrain. Then you open that map with radiant and start building your stuff into it.

Adjust the terrain to your buildings in radiant later on, but you can do 95% of the terrain work in EasyGen.

(kamikazee) #12

Ok, maybe I was a little fast there: easygen mostly does his job good, but as carnage once stated can sometimes do things uberly wrong. I once noticed this myself, when making quite steep hills. At those points, the terrain looks well-smoothed in easygen but looks really ‘edgy’ in radiant and ET itself.

(EB) #13

I do not know about the ‘Leveller’ but…
Good point…let me add some stuff> using the decimate option in gensurf can save you a good percentage on Tris count while keeping the shape of the terrain in general.

I had a 400+ tris count terrain from easygen…and changed it to a 97 tris count after using a decimate of 64. The terrain had only changed in general ‘slightness’.
Learning to use gensurf with heightmaps is a ‘+’ IMO.

(]UBC[ McNite) #14

At those points, the terrain looks well-smoothed in easygen but looks really ‘edgy’ in radiant and ET itself.

True. Although this depends a bit on the size of the terrain vertexes. I recommend you use 128 units because larger terrain vertexes will look more edgy in steep areas.
Still you got to smoothen these edges manually. There is a tool for this in radiant which turns around terrain parts (dunno the exact name of the button). Also search for the thread on here where the SD guys explained how they made the very smooth terrain for fueldump. It gives you a good idea on how to cut and adjust terrain vertexes manually to get things looking smoother.

In general I d say you come to the limits with a terrain purely derived from a heightmap in maps like TheRiver II Redux or 2hide. Anything more steep/hilly etc. requires a combination of heightmap terrain and clever vertical “terrain” brushwork. Have a look at the Castle-Bunker-merge I did in TheRiver II Redux to get an idea of what i mean.
Where the bunker is going into the rock I used vertical “terrain” brushwork (func_groups with the same tex as the terrain, but from a different shader). That way you get very steep rock NOT looking strangely pulled apart.

edit: these are pics of the area I m talking about. You can see it best on the first pic, on the right hand side.The rock-surface that s almost vertically going up from the concrete surface of the ground is done with vertical “terrain” brushwork.

View into the yard from the castle wing.

View from the bunker roof into the yard towards the castle.

(Igloo) #15

McNite, nice map :drink:

Hmm… i have two questions about map scripts:

For ex. i have a map in .bsp called mytestmap, so scripts should be in mytestmap.script yap??

Have i to add any new command to map?

Next case is where my script file should be… i think that in the same folder where my map is :???:

Thanks a lot!

(]UBC[ McNite) #16

Igloo, you should search this forum on topics like “what to put in a pk3”. And yes, scripts, shaders etc. need the same name as the bsp.

(Igloo) #17

Yeah, but i don’t want to make a .pk3 file yet. I’m testing all in .bsp. So if this file .script has the same name it should work good… thanks :cool: