Re: Ideas for a Mapping Tool

**asch** · 03-31-2006, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by flux

So besides costing money, what do you have against the existing fractal terrain tools? Are they missing features too?

I guess for me I'm looking for a more simpler terrain editor. So far my favorite editor was the Battlecraft editor.

Allow the user to draw major features. This could be done with different brush colors. So different colors could be assigned to features such as Mountain, River beds, rolling hills, flat areas. These would be layed down by the user in very broad strokes. Maybe even allow general height identification through color intensity. The tool would then allow you to generate fractal terrains consistent with your "Feature Mapping".

I like this idea as it gives you more control over what you are generating as opposed to continually hitting Generate on the entire map which generates wildly different features. This way the major features stay somewhat the same.

I like this idea too.

**Barracuda_Magoo** · 03-31-2006, 08:22 PM

Originally Posted by flux

Allow the user to draw major features. This could be done with different brush colors. So different colors could be assigned to features such as Mountain, River beds, rolling hills, flat areas. These would be layed down by the user in very broad strokes. Maybe even allow general height identification through color intensity. The tool would then allow you to generate fractal terrains consistent with your "Feature Mapping".

I also like this idea. I haven't gotten around to getting terragen yet, so my basic process has been to draw the major features in photoshop, throw on some blur, and then use the map editor to refine it and fill in the blank spots. It's time consuming, so I'm probably going to have to bite the bullet and get start using terragen.

Off topic: My biggest gripe with the current editor (besides all the crashing and poor performance) is textures being offset/corrupted until you do a final lightmap. Grrrrrrr.

**flux** · 03-31-2006, 11:46 PM

Originally Posted by Barracuda_Magoo

... so I'm probably going to have to bite the bullet and get start using terragen.

Terragen is not your only choice. I think the full version is up to $100 now. You can still work on maps up to 512, but you will need to register to do anything bigger. The larger renderings come in handy if you want to generate textures from Terragen, which are a bit difficult to get to work in BF2 so probably not worth the effort at the moment. I'm still trying to perfect my Terragen texture scripts for BF2.

Maybe you can get Asch to post a link to some of the other fractal terrain generators. I don't have them handy.

**asch** · 04-01-2006, 01:47 AM

www.world-machine.com

**Barracuda_Magoo** · 04-01-2006, 02:59 PM

Much thanks. I'm far enough into my current map that I don't want to start over, but that could come in handy if I ever finish this one and try another. :/

**Kilrogg** · 04-01-2006, 03:36 PM

The map I've been working on for the TG contest started with a Terragen terrain but I've changed the layout of the entire map so many times that there just isn't anything left from Terragen

. It's not necessary, it's just nice if you're making a large map and want your surroundings (like mountains) to look believable. I myself don't really have that problem since I'm making a forest-heavy map so you won't really see the surrounding terrain.

Thread Tools

Display