Terrain Cutting? or Megatexture First?

(SaintCrime) #1

Hello Wise Ones,
/bow

Ok, this was never specified in the reading I did.

  1. Do you cut out holes in terrain before or after making a mega texture?

  2. Can you cut out terrain after megatexture is created for the terrain? or will there be issues.

  3. Also there is the ST model and the regular model. Can each be named map1.obj and map2.obj type of naming? Not those names or numbers in particular but they would need to have 2 different names, so maybe mapname and st_mapname?? And I understand that the ST one is not cut up and the first one is. Also, this pertains to question 1, for making the megatexture I should use a cut up terrain and a non cut one in the root. hmmm.

Please feel free to add any other useful important info you think I need to know :slight_smile:

thanks in advance…

(hozz) #2

It’s “special”:smiley:

1+3:
You need to keep 2 versions of the latest model, one without holes (the ST thing, for megatexture generation only), and one with holes (the real one for the map).

Generating the megatexture on a holed model may result in orange borders along the holes (at least the modwiki says that somewhere).
So you always need a model without holes, use this to generate your megatexture. You don’t really need to add it to your map at all. I don’t think it will do anything. But SAVE AND KEEP IT before cutting any holes!

And then cut the holes into a copy of the terrain, and use that model for the map alone.

When you change the terrain in 3d modeller, continue working with the original model without holes! so don’t overwrite the ST-model with a cut model.

It sucks, as you basically have to re-cut all holes for each terrain iteration. Maybe keep the cuts in a “layer” of your 3d modeler or something. Or just see if generating megatexture with the holed model gives no errors.

2: Yes, you can freely alter terrain after megatexture generation. megatexture and terrain have nothing to do with each other. It’s just a special model with a special texture (“special” being the keyword here:D), but works the same way.

So the workflow ist:
a) create/edit original terrain without holes
b) make MT
c)SAVE TERRAIN WITHOUT HOLES!!!
d) cut holes into a terrain copy and put cut model only into map

e) when you want to change the terrain, continue with a)

(arrrh, wall of text for a simple issue, sorry:infiltrator: i can’t say it better, hope it makes sense.)

(light_sh4v0r) #3

Key thing is you can do whatever you want as long as you keep an original copy of your terrain in case you want to redo the MT.

(hozz) #4

Well, you could just close all holes in 3d modeller in worst case, then you have a version without holes again:)
But better to have a save with an uncut version for further editing.

Not sure if anybody even had the orange border problem when creating a MT with a cut terrain. It was just said somewhere that it can happen.

(Scrupus) #5

I think the megatexture will look strange if you try to render it with holes, but never tried.

btw, if you get problems with UV mapping (or other terrain model weirdness), try to use ASE version of terrain model rather than OBJ (if your software can export ASE). I think ASE can be recommended in any case - it seems to work better for the terrain models in QW.