My Problem.

(Grand_Mister_P) #1

I have genital warts…

Seriously, ive made several thread about easygen in the past, and theyve all helped a bit, but created more problems. So here i aim to get across exactly what i want out of this terrain, and any problems ive come across.

RIGHT, i have drawn an 8-bit bitmap of the area of terrain i want. It consists of a rectangle of pure black in the middle that will become the playing floor on my LMS map. This playing floor is surrounded by a ring of mountains, very much like the allied initial spawn on Siwa Oasis. This bitmap includes all of those features. All i want easygen (or even that plugin) to do is create this terrain for me, so i can continue to build (import what ive done so far) onto it. I get easygen to process the terrain and can export it into radiant no problems and it looks fine. But here is where i run across problems. First i had max lines/sides reached, so i though, no problem, reduce the number of divisions in the easygen bit and use that. Seemed to work fine, i still had a good mountain shape and i was happy. NOW im getting another error to do with MAX_MAP_VISIBILITY. I read up that this is to do with -vis (which i also dont understand yet) I read one fix is to make stuff into detail brushes, but at what cost? If i make my mountain range into detail brushes (no-one is going to be going near them, as im going to clip them and make them unreachable, what effect will that have? i mean details supposed to be for tables and chairs isnt it?
Can i take several of the brushes in my mountain and converge them into one brush?
Also, why do they have to be func_group ed out of interest?
Further more my map is only 5248*7040 big!!! Other maps are much bigger than this, and i bet they have thousands more brushes and stuff in! Ive not been able to progress in my map for about 2 weeks now, and its safe to say that thats pissing me off just a tad.
Finally, whenever i compile it with a most basic compile that works, i still cant enter limbo, i have all the start info needed, and the map coords set fine (unless they need to be a specific value above the actual max of your map? Ithought they just had to be at least 64 units beyond you map max, and have to form a perfect square.)

The only thing ive just though of is that the centre floor is made up of a good few thousand brushes, i plan on removing them and putting a single one in for the floor (before i start faffing with trenches etc) so ill go off and see if that works, whilst you guys think about helping poor old me.

Ask if you need anything clarifying, anything at all. Except about my warts!

Really REALLY hope you can find the time to help me.

Many thanks,

(Mean Mr. Mustard) #2

  1. Make the terrain detail (if it’s not already). Structural brushes are used to block vis. If you want, you can ‘caulk hull’ the ring of mountains

  2. Are you mapcoords square?

(MadMaximus) #3

well, first off, your terrain has to be all detail, don’t make that structural, q3map2 would have a terrible time trying to portal all that up if it was.
what divisions are you using for your terrain? usually 128x128 will do, 64x64 will also do of course, but that takes more fps.

to enter a map after you made, all you do need is the mapcoordsmins and maxs, an info_player_deathmatch and add an allied and axis spawn as well…

in console all you need to type in is,
/g_gametype 2
/sv_pure 0
/devmap mymap.bsp

you mentioned about vis and not understanding it yet, my advice there is find a tutorial on the differences between strucutural and detail brushes, and you will understand what vis does.

you also mentioned that your center is made up of a few thousand brushes, and hopefully not all sctructural. structural is there to block your VISible view of other area’s. basicly, hollowed out building shell’s in caulk ( or even textured ) would be your strucutural, and anything else that would be detail would be things like chairs/tables… stairs… lampost’s… ect… see what i mean?

once you read up on structural and detail brushes and start to understand how the vis process is done, you will be able to make better decisions on where to place things in your map, and if they need to be detail or not. trying to limit your view ingame from where you may be standing to what may be around a corner and you should not be able to see is great thing to achieve, but you need that understanding of how that works.

I would suggest looking up a tutorial on hint brush placement, because they seem to cover how structural/detail brushes work and the vis process better than most tutorials on just how structural and detail work.

(Grand_Mister_P) #4

Oof, blimey, thanks a lot for the replies guys! Right, that what i though detail/structural to mean, but wasnt aware terrain cam under detail too. That may well be my problem! Im using 64*64 squares as its quite a small map.

My map coords are square, i have the 3 required starts, and yet it still freezes on limbo… ill check again next time.

Ive just found a tute on that stuff too, ill have a read of that, and get back to you if im still having problems!

Thanks a lot again, hope it works!

(Ifurita) #5

Are you using a 64 x 64 pixel height map? If so, how large are the sides of your terrain triangles and how many divisions do you have?

(LaggingTom) #6

Also, it’s func_group’d so that you can select the terrain all at once :smiley:

(Mr_Tickles) #7

Ok, you say you have the mapcoordsmaxs and mapcoordsmins set appropriately, but I’ve also had the problem that limbo still seems to make the game crash. What I found was, that these were not in fact entered into the worldspawn class, even if I thought they were. You really need to make sure that the worldspawn class is selected, this shows in the window above where you enter the details. Also, the worldspawn key, if you’re using an easygen terrain, should have a number of directory paths listed in it which should look like your terrain shaders. I just had to make a point about these not being in worldspawn as I’ve come across it many, many times. Also, don’t forget that you have to spell them exactly ;), the mapcoordsmins and mapcoordsmaxs that is :slight_smile:

Also, the func_grouping lets you adjust the alphamap, shader, layers, and terrain keys all at once, for each of the brushes in the group. Hold down Ctrl + Alt and click to select the whole group as Tom said above.
Also, I think func_grouping the terrain brushes allow appropriate useage of the alphamap. In a recent map, I’ve had the terrain split into at least two different func_group and the alphamap has not followed the correct texturing.

(Grand_Mister_P) #8

Are you using a 64 x 64 pixel height map? If so, how large are the sides of your terrain triangles and how many divisions do you have?

Nope its, 129*96 and it all seems to split nicely with 128 and 95 divisions.

Also, the func_grouping lets you adjust the alphamap, shader, layers, and terrain keys all at once, for each of the brushes in the group.

Im not ever so sure what an alpha map are, nor shaders (well not really, all i know is my sky needs to be one! even then in-game it dont show up properly :() nor layers (might actually know that one)

Easygen (on default asking as i dont dare change it) textures the top in the ‘terrain’ brush. Ive done my own texture shading in easygen, using 2 different texture to create a much more realistic feeling. However they arnt there when i import it! just that damn ‘terrain’ texture! I take it that these textures are indeed the alphamap? How does it remember them? does it do it externally off the alphamap file it saves? Or after importing the terrain shape, do i have to then apply the alphamap to it?

:???:

Im getting there slowly!

Thanks a lot for all your help so far.

(Ifurita) #9

Nope its, 129*96 and it all seems to split nicely with 128 and 95 divisions.

You realize that’s 24,320 tris, right? If I understand correctly, your heightmap results in 12,160 divisions, each of which consists of 2 tris. Our current map, Rommel, has a 50 x 70 heightmap and we were thinking of reducing that by half. Vengeance, which was ~5.5K x 5.5K units, used a height map of 65 x 65. Goldrush uses a 58 x 43 height map.

(Grand_Mister_P) #10

ERK!! I was aware there was a stupid amount of tris, but seen as how no tutorial really explains what the size of the heightmap is/does i just went for the biggest there is, as that surely produces the higest level of detail? My maps on the small side anyway. So if youd be so kind as to explain what it does, and how it should be used, id be most grateful!

Many thanks.

(Ifurita) #11

Well, each division (rectangle) results in 2 triangles. That’s a no brainer. The number of divisions is controlled by a couple of variables (if I recall correctly):

  1. Size of the heightmap (A x B pixels)
  2. Size of each terrain block (1 triange) (A x B units)
  3. Number of division

You’ll have to play around with all three, but if you have open terrain maps (fuel dump, radar, etc) you’ll want bigger blocks (256 x 256). If the terrain is going to be in really small, tight areas, then you can go with a smaller blocks and smoother terrain.

(Grand_Mister_P) #12

Yeah, thats kind of what i thought happened. But seen as how its a very small map (60008000 radiant measures of which only about 50003000 is the playing field, and the rest is scenery so it doesnt look artificial, DAMN MOUNTAINS!!!) so i made the biggest heightmap i could to scale, so to create a decent level of detail.

EDIT : Oh, also, as it splits the completely flat playing field into tris too, im deleting the ones that make up the floor (after seeing that that would take ages to do manually, i have a looksie in the menus. AHHH select touching, draw a big brush over them all, select touching and delete. Fantastic!) and putting a nice flat single brush in (for now)

Theres still this problem to address too if one of you would be so kind:

Easygen (on default asking as i dont dare change it) textures the top in the ‘terrain’ brush. Ive done my own texture shading in easygen, using 2 different texture to create a much more realistic feeling. However they arnt there when i import it! just that damn ‘terrain’ texture! I take it that these textures are indeed the alphamap? How does it remember them? does it do it externally off the alphamap file it saves? Or after importing the terrain shape, do i have to then apply the alphamap to it?

Many thanks

(Mr_Tickles) #13

Ummm, if I’m reading it right, I think you want the textures to show in Radiant? Easygen doesn’t do that. You will however see the textures when you compile your map and run it, provided that exported alphamap and shader have gone in the correct places.

The alphamap is an image, much like the heightmap you created for easygen. This alphamap has the same number of colours as the number of textures you’ve used, in your case, 2. The alphamap is used along with your shader when you compile your map, and this is how the terrain becomes blended in game, just as you set it up in easygen. Radiant can’t do this, it’s only at compile the textures are applied.
Also, you are going to need to adjust the shader that Easygen outputs if you haven’t already… this thread will help you work through that.

(Grand_Mister_P) #14

Cripes. That thread is way beyond my comprehension :???: Those bits of code are huge!! How does it all work? in basic terms please :slight_smile: Is this shader business why my limbo crashed from using easygen?

I do however understand the alphamap stuff now so thanks for that.

When i get round to fixing that, (got a few terrain flaws to iron out) ill give it another read.

Next up:

In that thread you linked to tickles, how does one go about getting ones sky like that, that is perfect for how i want mine! Ive currently just got a skybox with a shader texture…that doesnt display properly, oh ho ho, shader problem again? I detect a new hurdle that im very close to.

(Mr_Tickles) #15

Bringing this thread back…
Don’t worry too much about the blocks of code, read what people are talking about around them, I don’t think we were analysing the content of them much :wink:
Limbo shouldn’t really be crashing as a result of importing terrain from easygen, I’ve only come across that problem if the mapcoordsmins and mapcoordsmaxs haven’t been set properly.

As for the sky, try the wurzburg_sky shader, only a few of the ones work. You have to try them out for yourself :slight_smile:

Don’t worry about shaders too much if you don’t want to, you should be able to make a map without them, well… only using the ones that SD have already given to you which means you wouldn’t have to alter any of them.

(GoblinZeroIce) #16

theres a help file with easygen, read it, and use it, gezz. :banghead: