dont get me wrong EsyGen is a genious prgram and i LOVE it
But im picky and want to do everything by hand is there anyone that can give me tips for editing terrian by hand? like how large i should make the terrian triangles angling the faces and so on.
Or is this just something i should mess with on my own
im just searching for little tips and whatnot. my map doesnt have alot of exterior terrian so this way is probibly best for me
Guess you’ll have to do it by the trial and error method; do it until you do it right. I’m currently making my terrain by hand, mainly because I think it suck that easygen cant use larger images then 33x33 for the terrains.
I’m using the “drag vertices” (hotkey V) mainly and for something the clippertool. there is also the the “drag edges” (hotkey E) but use it before using vertices, otherwise it can screw up the piece I’ve noticed 
I’d suggest using the gensurf plugin to start you with a nice even grid of triangles. You don’t have to use it with a heightmap, you can use fractal with a 0 roughness value to start with a flat terrain.
If you use vertex edit, it is better if you lock the X and Y axis before you move stuff. If you want to move the corner of brushes in X or Y, use edge edit first, and then vertex edit to ensure the vertexes are on the grid in Z
yobiko,
gensurf can handle heightmaps larger than 33x33. It will go up to 128x128 divisions. I’m shocked that easygen doesn’t. Perhaps there is an option somewhere that you missed. Howerver, you should remember that the number of triangles grows rapidly as you increase the size of your bitmaps. Eventually, you start hitting compiler and engine limits, not to mention risking high r_speeds.
The terrain manaul included with the editor tells you a fair bit about the requirements of terrain and using gensurf. Some of it is a bit out of though.
or in easygen use the modifer mode and ctrl+shift+leftclick to drag verticies which is a lot easier imho.
easygen can handle larger files but the terrain will get more detailed and complex then… as for just little areas this would be ok
i believe i read somewhere that u can use hightmaps larger than 33 by 33
ya have to change the config settings is all.
There are three icons on the toolbar to lock the different axis’.
They are white squares with the letter x, y, or z inside. When you mouseover them, the text ‘Scale X’, ‘Scale Y’, or ‘Scale Z’ shows up.
I made my heightmap at 512x512 then imported it to easygen, I then just lowered the subdivisons to 32 so that the edges of a square (2 triangles) fit on a 256x256 grid in gtkradient.
You just need to enter the width/height you want it to be.
You obviously lose alot of definition but you do get a beter control this way. I then exported the .bmp at the corect size and re-edited by hand.
I know what you mean and I certainly prefer to make terrain by hand. The SD radiant does come with some nice features for the terrain purist! You can paint select a group of triangles and vertex edit together. With Axis locking it works very well. Also got a triangle flipping plugin on the toolbar. (Need to select 2 triangles only and they must be snapped to grid)
But using a base terrain from easygen can be useful for testing and scale reason and worthwhile checking out. If you use a terrain from easygen remember to snap it to the grid first before any triangle editing in GTK. Select the whole terrain, enable vertex edit mode (Press V), and press CTRL-G. (Snap to grid) It may take a while depending on the size of your terrain.
Sock
:moo:
You can use a heightmap of almost ANY size you want. I use a 89x77 pixels bitmap and it works perfect.
With the import .map function you can import your whole map (after you imported your heightmap), and then with the modifiers you can adjust your terrain perfectly to your buildings. This way I tuned my terrain several times. Only the last tuning will be done in GTK (that s y I found this thread).
