Searching for a piece of software...

(CH4NDL3R) #1

Hey there,

I’m writing some kind of tutorial covering the entire process of creating levels for Quake Wars (french), and i’m searching for a software able to do the following things :
[b]

  • Import a heightmap
  • Generate the geometry from heightmap
  • Modify the geometry (elevation, smoothing…)
  • Export modified terrain into heightmap[/b]
  • Good workflow doing these operations is a plus, but not required.

The reason i’m doing this is when you create your 2D layout, you need to view it in 3D to foresee any problems regarding the balance with the elevations. You can then fix those problems in 3D and get the 2D heightmap to finalize your layout.

I don’t bother whether this software is free or not.

Thank you for your time !

(nUllSkillZ) #2

Terragen?

(CH4NDL3R) #3

Hello,

Terragen imports/exports fine, but it lacks a good workflow at editing terrain. In fact, it lacks at refining some parts of the geometry since its builtin tools are not very precise. But I think it’s ok for a layout. The fine tuning of the geometry will be done in a real 3d modeling package.

That said, in a better world, i would directly edit a triangulated mesh generated from my heightmap, a la Cryengine Sandbox for instance.

(Danyboy) #4

the old school EasyGen way of creating terrains is explained here:

http://tramdesign.planetwolfenstein.gamespy.com/tutorials/tut_easygen.html

(Hakuryu) #5

Funny you mention the Cry Engine Sandbox, since that is what I use for refining heightmaps. It is the only reason I have Far Cry installed. I haven’t seen anything that compares to it’s ease of use, and the benefit of having a continually updated heightmap as you virtually change terrain geometry through editing is great.

If you find another stand-alone piece of software that does this, please give a link.

(Wils) #6

Some interesting options there. What do you want the heightmaps for, out of interest?

(Hakuryu) #7

It’s just to help with the workflow of creating a heightmap. Sometimes it can be hard to visualize what your flat 2D image will look like when it’s mapped to a terrain mesh. You could go back and forth from photoshop to Maya, but this can take a long time if many areas do not initially turn out how you wanted.

Assuming a 1000 unit high terrain with a 16 color heightmap, you know you have 16 heights to work with that are 1000/16 units apart. In this case a steep ridge may look good in your heightmap, but once imported into Maya you may find the colors you used ended up making the cliff alot higher than you planned. You could go back into photoshop and manipulate the colors and try again, or you could bypass this step by having already seen the heightmap in 3D, and edited it to the height you wanted, resulting in a good starting point for manually editing your terrain.

This normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but with Maya only allowing a 500 unit brush for the sculpt geometry tool (on a 32k square mesh), I find it much faster to create a more detailed heightmap to start with. I could spend endless hours sculpting areas in Maya, or start with a better heightmap that is much faster to create using a tool like Far Cry’s editor.

@Wils - I’m open to any suggestions or tips and tricks you have learned when working with terrain. Do you guys spend the alot of time sculpting a terrain mesh in Maya, or do you try and create a good heightmap first? Do you even use heightmaps? Any hints on working with Maya since the sculpt geometry tool only can use a 500 unit brush?

(Wils) #8

We don’t use heightmaps for any layout work or basic terrain sculpting; terrain in ETQW isn’t ‘heightmap-based’ in the traditional sense. We do use heightmaps in-game for various game things, and they’re useful for outputting spot detail in zbrush and world machine.

The Sculpt Poly tool in Maya can use any brush size - just hold down B and left-drag to resize the brush to whatever you want.

(CH4NDL3R) #9

Danyboy : Easygen rocks :wink: but it cannot export the modified heightmap (or I’ve haven’t found the right dialog box :frowning:

Wils : as Hakuryu said, the trick to make a good layout is to view the heightmap in 3D to refine the locations to help pre-balancing the whole terrain. Exporting back to 2D allows you to add the routes and the chokepoints and then finalize your layout.
Once the layout is done, the heightmap is used as a displacement surface with any 3D modeling software that’ll generate the terrain mesh and export it for later use within the QW’s World Editor (correct me if i’m wrong).

The mapcore community pointed me some good software to do those things. I’ll try them as soon as i can.

Thanks you all for the input :wink:

(Wils) #10

Fair enough. All our initial terrain work is done in 3D without the use of heightmaps, but your mileage may vary.

(Shallow) #11

I think some of you aren’t really getting what Wils is saying about the terrain creation process they’re using. Tools like Easygen, Gensurf etc. are not really going to be useful for ET:QW because they’re designed for use with rigid grids, and brush-based geometry to boot. You don’t need to use a heightmap at all to make your terrain geometry (although it may be a useful way to get an initial rough shape). Using a full 3D app such as Maya, Max, Lightwave or the free options like Blender is just plain better.

Introducing a heightmap refinement step in Easygen or whatever is a bit like roughing out an oil painting on canvas, copying it to your sketchpad for tweaking, then copying it back to the canvas. Why not just keep working in paint the whole time?

You’re going to need to learn a 3D app anyway, as you have realised. You get much better control over your terrain forms than a limited application like Easygen can hope to provide (no disrespect to it here, it’s a fine tool that does what it sets out to do but its capabilities are primitive compared to even freebie 3D programs like Blender). You can visualise routes and chokepoints just as easily, because by their very nature those programs show you the mesh as you are building it. It’s what they are for.

Think beyond the grid as well - it’s clear from the modding videos etc. that your terrain doesn’t need to be a regular grid, and it will look better if you let your forms flow as they need to - for example, if you’re buiding a road heading SSW, then having a line of quads going that way to put it on will usually make life easier. Once you’re off the grid, a heightmap can’t represent that terrain well enough to accurately recreate it any more.

There are plenty of cheap or free 3D apps out there. Now is the time to get one and start learning.

(Danyboy) #12

true - Easygen starts from the heightmap and goes from there, working with the alphamap and the generating the .map file for Radiant.

One thing I found when making terrain for ET was what you have run into. Making terrain from black and white heightmaps is very difficult. It’s so hard to visualize the shades of grey. I found the easiest way (as I never used a 3D app) was to get a vague heightmap (plonk a mountain here, path here, road there, lake there, etc…) then in Radiant edit the vertices to the required height.

The only problem with that is on large terrains you could be there a long time. QW would pretty much kill off that method of terrain creation. So I myself will start looking into proper 3D editors.

(CH4NDL3R) #13

Shallow : I understand your point. But we are talking about making a layout for a level, not building it. That’s why I don’t want to get into a 3D modeling package at this point of the process.

(Hakuryu) #14

I understand the reasoning behind using a modelling program exclusively, but I sometimes find the Far Cry’s editor better than using Maya exclusively. It’s a combination of ease of use (fps shooter like movement versus editor like movement), and the ability to ‘see scale’ as you edit.

However, I have done it both ways, and since I am still learning, I am starting to find it easier to just get into it in Maya. Thanks Wils for the holding ‘B’ and dragging lol… this terrain test was done entirely with using a 500 unit brush in about 5 hours.

This was made in about 5 minutes using a heightmap, a prefab base to general scale sits in the corner.

Of course neither is nowhere near done, but I think in the first case it would have taken me alot less time if I could have created a generic heightmap as a start rather than manually editing it… but now that I know about holding B and dragging… I dont know.

Any more tips Wils? :stuck_out_tongue:

(leifhv) #15

PNP Terrain Creator does all you want and more…and seems to encourage a structured way of working. They have a free community edition also.

I have only tried it briefly since I found it too complex for my simple needs but I’m sure it can be a good tool if you take the time to learn it.

Here: http://www.pnp-terraincreator.com/

(CH4NDL3R) #16

too bad the pro edition (which includes a heightmap exporter) cost way too much :frowning:

(leifhv) #17

From what I can remember the watermarks on the exported files weren’t a problem for smaller terrains like the typical ET terrain since the watermarks were placed outside the area covered by the terrain.