Author Topic: The Basics  (Read 1547 times)

Offline Lt.Dan

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The Basics
« on: 28-08-2012, 20:08:37 »
I will try to keep this as precise as possible,

I decided to try my hand at making a map.  I've been wanting to do this for awhile now.  I've been collecting all the reference material I can find for both the look of, the things I want to include in, and the feel of the map as I envision it. The more I've read the more my gears began to turn ;D. I've been scouring these forums and at bfeditor.org for a week now basically just trying to get a handle on where to start and I've come to some fundamental questions which have to do w/ the Terrain Editor at this point since this is my focus b4 moving on to the other editors. Basically I want a proof-of-concept b4 moving on. I have a specific battle, theater, events etc. in mind. I want to build a functional terrain 1st b4 adding anything else (from what I've read thus far this looks like the 1st step, right?)

Also,
I wanted my terrain to be as historical/accurate as possible to the terrain of a particular battle before vegetation, objects etc is added.  I don't want some generic random terrain which brings me to my main questions...

When creating terrain for FH2:

1) Do you use the in game terrain editor
                             or
terrain generators like World-Builder, Terragen, Geocontrol etc.,
           or
a combination of both?

2) If you use a terrain generator, how much control do you have over the layout of your terrain?  Is it random or is it better to do it all by hand in the in game editor?

From what I've seen so far there are a couple different tools, methods/techniques.
ie. there's this tutorial in the BF2editor.org forums: 

How To Make Beautifull Maps With Geocontrol 2 And Microdem
http://www.bfeditor.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=13935

Has anyone tried this and what are your opinions?

Thanks in advance for your input







Offline Nerdsturm

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Re: The Basics
« Reply #1 on: 28-08-2012, 20:08:13 »
I would recommend against doing all the heightmapping in the editor alone. If you wanted to have complete control over everything I would still suggest using photoshop or another image editor to make large objects like mountains.

I personally have used L3DT. That's a pretty easy tool to use and you define the approximate height at every point on the map, the tool just blends everything together in a way that makes it look realistic (you define a low resolution image and the tool forms it into a high res one). It does not do any texturing so you would have to use tpaint or something if you wanted textures to be automated as well.

Offline McCloskey

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Re: The Basics
« Reply #2 on: 28-08-2012, 20:08:22 »
Tbh it's best to use heightmap generated by some of the tools you listed and then tweaking it in the editor/photoshop if you want to have the most realistic terrain. Bear in mind though, it's almost a given that you'll have to tweak some stuff to make the map well balanced and fun. You can't just "copypaste" history into the game as there were very few battles that would be "balanced" in gameplay terms. If any.

Or just make a heightmap yourself based on topographic maps... it doesn't have to be "that" real as no one will notice few meters height difference anyway.

Offline psykfallet

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Re: The Basics
« Reply #3 on: 28-08-2012, 21:08:14 »
I use microdem+photoshop, but it gets abit tricky when the scales increase. So if you take a 10km wide area and scale it down to 2km things gets very compressed and you will lose some details, also some areas may be smaller or larger, higher/lower than you want because of this scaling, thats why I use photoshop to roughly correct this. But you will probably get best result from the more professional heightmap programs if you can learn to use them.



Offline [130.Pz]S.Lainer

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Re: The Basics
« Reply #4 on: 28-08-2012, 22:08:04 »

  To be honest for your first map I would suggest getting a nifty idea of a a fun easy to balance layout wise and just doing it up in the editor.  Trying to make the terrain perfect and historic is hard enough.  Once you get that out of the way you still are going to end up with all kinds of challenges getting it all to blend with whatever gameplay you had in mind.  Like psykfallet said getting a recognizable area with high resolution data to scale down to 2km is a giant pain in the nuts.

MDI


Now what?


My life wasted.....


In the end it was pretty fun seeing a real island come to life in the editor.  But for your first map I think you can make one much more fun and playable by leaving this shit alone.
http://www.bfewaw.com/campaigns/waw24/promo/campaign/waw24banner1.png
The purpose of this deployment was to "annoy and defy the United States ... on her with Bofors 40 mm guns from a range of 650

Offline Lt.Dan

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Re: The Basics
« Reply #5 on: 04-09-2012, 01:09:12 »
I've tried the Google Earth > 3dm/Microdem method and I'm having a hell of a time getting the file into/ from photoshop to a form and folder I can use to open it in the BF2editor (not to mention getting the right scale down which I probably won't know until I open it up in the editor). Feel like I'm chasing my tail at this point... :-\

Been reading all I can on the matter but any info is scattered all over the place. There's tutorials here and there but nothing comprehensive.

Could you guys show me the way you would create your maps from heightmap data? Or at least point me in the right direction?

Much appreciated

Offline [130.Pz]S.Lainer

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Re: The Basics
« Reply #6 on: 04-09-2012, 06:09:52 »
Can't talk you out of it Danny?  :-\

http://bfewaw.com/showthread.php?t=270392
http://www.bfewaw.com/campaigns/waw24/promo/campaign/waw24banner1.png
The purpose of this deployment was to "annoy and defy the United States ... on her with Bofors 40 mm guns from a range of 650

Offline psykfallet

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Re: The Basics
« Reply #7 on: 04-09-2012, 09:09:30 »
Well I dont download from google earth but from here, like in the tutorial lainer posted
http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/version2_1/SRTM3/
usually you have to download several close by the coordinates you want to get the right area

after that load the files in terragen, can load all at once. Now you have to select the area you want, probably not the whole area since its huge. So you can resize the area (zoom in) with f6. You can also resize the selection square by clicking and dragging in the top right corner of it. When you think you got all the area you want you got file->save terragenterrain->selected area.

After this you gotta open it with terragen, resize it to a size you want, modify terrain units (I dont fully understand this part) to 0-10 units, export it with the exact settings in the tutorial lainer posted. You can then import the file in photoshop for further editing, remember the settings you saved it in (16bits Intel, 1 channel).
You will have to save it in the same format for it to work in bf2editor. Also beware that the size of the file has to be around 2mb wich the file you got from terragen is not. So to get this file you will have to create a dummy heightmap in bf2editor first with the same size you want your map to be (like 1024 pixels). That file will always have the right filesize wich means you can copy the picture from your terragen file and put it into the bf2editor file.
In photoshop you do stuff like trim out some unwanted parts, wich means when you resize it back to the correct size some areas will stretch. You might want this actually since normally the terrain is very compressed (the terrain have the same height as irl, but it is much smaller leading to small spiky mountains etc). Also some blurring is a must since everything is usually very blocky if you open in straight in the editor. Basicly you do all kinds of resizing of areas, brighten (heighten) areas etc because the editor is worthless for editing large chunks of terrain.
Note that you may have to change the mode from 16 to 8 bit to edit it fully, remember to switch it back again. Also the editor reads the file upside down, so always rotate the image before saving.
Here's the tutorial about basic photoshop-heightmap
http://forgottenhope.warumdarum.de/tutorials/heightmaps.php

another thing to remember about realworld data is that if it has water, like sea or a river, the heightmap wont reflect this, so usually the lowest point in the map will be water surface height. This will mean that when you add water to your map it will be put on top of the water surface height. Thereforce it is necessary to increase the contrast between water areas and land areas manually, that is water areas will have to be much darker than the land areas.
you can get a quicker 3d "preview" if you load your heightmap in geocontrol, but it also exaggerates the height a bit so you cant really rely on it. Plus you cant tell scale in relation to ingame objects anyway. As for other uses of shaping in geocontrol or terragen like zeno does is not explained so I have no idea how to do this. Like you said the info to each different step in the mapmaking process is scattered all over the internets and its a pain in the ass to piece together everything.
« Last Edit: 04-09-2012, 10:09:19 by psykfallet »



Offline Lt.Dan

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Re: The Basics
« Reply #8 on: 05-09-2012, 00:09:51 »
I've been messing around w/ these different programs based on your replies and trial and error and I think I finally got close to being ready to open the heightmap file in BF2editor but...and this may be a simple one, When I create and name a "new level" in the editor, I can load it from the editor but I can't find the folder in the mods\fh2\levels directory which I thought the editor was supposed to designate.  From what I understand thus far, the heightmap file I'm ready to open in the editor has to first be put in this map level folder?

Offline psykfallet

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Re: The Basics
« Reply #9 on: 05-09-2012, 09:09:10 »
Did you save the level? Dont know why else you cant find the folder otherwise. when you create a new level it creates a file called heightmaprimary.raw wich is the one you play in, and 9 other heightmaps wich are surrounding terrain.



Offline Fenring

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Re: The Basics
« Reply #10 on: 05-09-2012, 15:09:33 »
Some good advice here already!


1) Do you use the in game terrain editor
                             or
terrain generators like World-Builder, Terragen, Geocontrol etc.,
           or
a combination of both?

The best way is the semi-procedural approach, you sculpt a basic heightmap in bf2editor, photoshop, mudbox, earthsculptor and erode it in Geocontrol or World Machine. Important is to preview the output in world machine since Geocontrol uses a 2D renderer and not a real time 3D renderer, World Machines rendering is much more similar to BF2's rendering, spiky terrain will not look good with bf2's quite aggresive terrain lodding, especially with larger viewdistances.

You can also easily build the surrounding terrain as well this way, make a 4096 heigthmap render resize to 3075, save as tiff and use bf2hmt v1.03 to get it into your level, you can also do this in editor by cropping your terrain to 1025 save as 16-bit primary heightmap, after save undo in photoshop, so your back to 3075 size again, now resize this to 771x771 save as 8-bit raw, put in root bf2 folder and import with editors import surrounding terrain patches function.

Remember scale here! what youre looking at now if you have 2x2km map size is 6x6km of visible terrain! even the smallest peak will be several hundrer meters long, its very easy to lose track of how your map will look ingame for the little soldier. But its great to get this kind of big terrain so fast. Now you can start to build your level in middle of the map, usually the playable area for infantry even in 2x2km maps is just 1x1km, here you put all your efforts with sculpting cover, roads, paths, hills to make the level playable, its great that all the huge area surrounding this is already done.

Some more tips:
  • We also use world machine and geocontrol to generate slope masks for rocky texture, height for beach level, mountain snow tops etc
  • Use only texture layer 1-3 for the main part of your map, each additional layer 4-6 costs more memory and is only used for detail stuff like gravel, trash, rubble, fine sand and waterpuddles within the playable area layer 1-3 is used for the basics, for example rock, grass, dirt that covers most of your map
  • Good terrain looks are done by combining good heightmap geometry, lighting and fitting textures.
    Dont forget the contrast in the terrain light, to make erosion pop a bit more, use a angled light with darker blue sky and brighter sun to make erosion cuts more visible
  • Play BF2, Bad company 2, Battlefield 3 look at how they did the terrain , get inspiration from textures, light and enviroments
  • Never ever stop until your are 110% satisfied with your terrain, its hard going back when your have placed objects made roads etc, you spend most of your mapping hours on the gameplay area, its foolish to satisfy with half assed surrounding areas because your stuck with them later on.



2) If you use a terrain generator, how much control do you have over the layout of your terrain?  Is it random or is it better to do it all by hand in the in game editor?

See above the semi-procedural technique is great allows huge amounts of control with high realism factor. DICE used this in Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, Bad company 1 & 2 and Battlefield 3, here is a good dev blog from them from bf3 armoured kill map alborz mountains and how that was made:
http://blogs.battlefield.com/2012/08/inside-dice-alborz/


How To Make Beautifull Maps With Geocontrol 2 And Microdem
http://www.bfeditor.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=13935

Has anyone tried this and what are your opinions?


Its a good tutorial, just remember to use Geocontrol 2 version 42 its the last version that works with importing heightmaps and eroding them! Higher versions has a bug that makes this not possible.

Offline psykfallet

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Re: The Basics
« Reply #11 on: 05-09-2012, 16:09:36 »
I think you mean crop the image in photoshop  :)
But got any good tutorials on how to use WM or Geocontrol?



Offline Lt.Dan

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Re: The Basics
« Reply #12 on: 05-09-2012, 19:09:19 »
That's a very interesting and insightful article Fenring.  I love hearing them explain the developement and reasoning behind the process. 

Did you save the level? Dont know why else you cant find the folder otherwise. when you create a new level it creates a file called heightmaprimary.raw wich is the one you play in, and 9 other heightmaps wich are surrounding terrain.

Yeah, created a new level and saved it so I'd have a place to put the heightmap data I want to use but when I go to the directory folder, only the original FH2 maps are in there.  However, I can load the new level I just created from the editor.  Hope I don't have to reinstall the editor again  :'(

Offline psykfallet

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Re: The Basics
« Reply #13 on: 05-09-2012, 21:09:57 »
it doesnt make any sense.. do you see the other fhmaps in the load menu?