Terrain Mapping Ultrathread (For Terrain Builders)

[Asgarath83]

I'm not sure if it's even possible, since your terrain is covered by huuuuge shader. It's not "printed" on perticular triangles, it's more reference to .prt or .srf file (cannot remember right now, basically it's not in the Radiant itself). My advice - use some sort of references. For example - place some posts or blocks on your map in even distances between eachother. Compile your map, use high cull distance, take screenshot from far distance and use it as your major reference. Or just leave your game running, minimize it and check it when needed. Kinda sloppy method, but I can't see any alternatives.

 

Edit: Lol, I was joking about that title. Ok, let it be ultrathread then! We should feel superior.

 

You not never underestimate the power of your mind! use the force, Luke!

What you think, is real!

 

Okay, stop jokes.

Mmm, there is another way but is... crappyng. convert on map format the bsp of my ingame map. that's will convert terrain entity into brushes, and so i will get the surfaces o.o

i not lose the light entities or uvmapping of the map because i not place again nothing like that.

the terrible thing is:

1 - map become more massive and structural 

2 - some brush of the terrain will be leaked.

aw, craps. ._. working with game open and map load maybe it's really the best and fast way.

[Asgarath83]

Found the solution at my blinding dilemma.

i debuld the map. the map project i obtain get the terrain converted in brushes. at this point i need simply to make a folder for radiant with the texture i used, in the same numeration of the palettes of easygen (terrain0, 1, 2, etc ) 

and so i can load in radiant a map version that i use as reference for place in the right coordinates the misc_models.

once time i done with all objects, i select it all and i copy the misc_models into the true map, with terrain entity. they will be placed at the same origins, so... problem fixed.

[NumberWan]

A bit out of turn, but looked through my saved links on the matter (I had a lot of issues with terrain creation in JA, and actually still overcoming them), and just remembered, that gensuf is considered to be outdated. It was originally made for a different kind of aditor, thus the newer versions of Radiant don't have this plugin at all. One site actually suggests a different way for making a rock or mountain and you can see some tutorials on this website.

 

I also remember, that one of the early mods for JO wasn't made in Radiant, but it was Quark! I don't think it differs much, but what if that editor has other options for making terrain.

 

There is also a different way, which I tried only once and not for making natural environment: it's to create a map outside Radiant in some sort of other editors (e.g. Worldcraft for Half-Life 1 also makes *.map format and it can be opened in GtkRadiant). The issue is perhaps that if you create something too great (too cool) in a newer program, it might cause trouble in Radiant and Jedi Academy.

 

Also this tutorial

https://youtu.be/62zJ5Fr-qcs

[Asgarath83]

A bit out of turn, but looked through my saved links on the matter (I had a lot of issues with terrain creation in JA, and actually still overcoming them), and just remembered, that gensuf is considered to be outdated. It was originally made for a different kind of aditor, thus the newer versions of Radiant don't have this plugin at all. One site actually suggests a different way for making a rock or mountain and you can see some tutorials on this website.

 

I also remember, that one of the early mods for JO wasn't made in Radiant, but it was Quark! I don't think it differs much, but what if that editor has other options for making terrain.

 

There is also a different way, which I tried only once and not for making natural environment: it's to create a map outside Radiant in some sort of other editors (e.g. Worldcraft for Half-Life 1 also makes *.map format and it can be opened in GtkRadiant). The issue is perhaps that if you create something too great (too cool) in a newer program, it might cause trouble in Radiant and Jedi Academy.

 

Also this tutorial

https://youtu.be/62zJ5Fr-qcs

 

http://www.simonoc.com/pages/articles.htm Pretty interessing procedure, more precise that easygen.

the editor used for that tutorial is quark or a new version of radiant or something like that?

[Langerd]

A bit out of turn, but looked through my saved links on the matter (I had a lot of issues with terrain creation in JA, and actually still overcoming them), and just remembered, that gensuf is considered to be outdated. It was originally made for a different kind of aditor, thus the newer versions of Radiant don't have this plugin at all. One site actually suggests a different way for making a rock or mountain and you can see some tutorials on this website.

 

I also remember, that one of the early mods for JO wasn't made in Radiant, but it was Quark! I don't think it differs much, but what if that editor has other options for making terrain.

 

There is also a different way, which I tried only once and not for making natural environment: it's to create a map outside Radiant in some sort of other editors (e.g. Worldcraft for Half-Life 1 also makes *.map format and it can be opened in GtkRadiant). The issue is perhaps that if you create something too great (too cool) in a newer program, it might cause trouble in Radiant and Jedi Academy.

 

Also this tutorial

https://youtu.be/62zJ5Fr-qcs

Well i am always making terrain this method ^^ My Morin modification take place in the cave... Yeah... It is good method but rly time consuming one And If You want create smooth change from grass/dirt or snow/rock there is no other way than creating the texture that has half dirt and half grass on it.

 

 

Look on the grass on the left. These are Jedi outcast's  textures. They are made like that

 

 

It is cool method but also ... many times pain in the ass. I use it to make my rock burned from the lava and the effect was nice ^^

 

 

I think for terrain or caves it rly depends what we want to achieve. If You are making map that is in the mountains... NEVER do it from shaping the brushes... i mean how much time would it take :/ Shaping the brushes is my favourite method but it serioulsy depends

 

MD3 models are also cool idea.. And i was always thinking - If Making mountains with easygen create a hell of a lot of the brushes (think about it .. 6 side shape) Wouldnt it be better to make the terrain or mountain with for example blender, Put it on the map and hit solid. EVEN if it create a patch (or brush i dont remember ) per triangle .. Wait. Easygen creates it in the SAME way!!! But it creates not patches but 6 SIDED brushes... I was alwasy thinking about it :/

[Ramikad]

MD3 models are also cool idea.. And i was always thinking - If Making mountains with easygen create a hell of a lot of the brushes (think about it .. 6 side shape) Wouldnt it be better to make the terrain or mountain with for example blender, Put it on the map and hit solid. EVEN if it create a patch (or brush i dont remember ) per triangle .. Wait. Easygen creates it in the SAME way!!! But it creates not patches but 6 SIDED brushes... I was alwasy thinking about it :/&&0

 

Yep, that's a good technique too. Tried shaping and texturing some mountains in Blender, although very low poly, and putting some copies of them in a very large map just for test. Heck, I managed to get lost in that rocky mess.

[Langerd]

Yep, that's a good technique too. Tried shaping and texturing some mountains in Blender, although very low poly, and putting some copies of them in a very large map just for test. Heck, I managed to get lost in that rocky mess.

Hmm You can also find program that generate the mountains as the 3D model. Even if it would be high poly You can always use decimate tool Dont know if it would be good or bad result

[NumberWan]

Yesterday I tried a slightly different and much easier way. It doesn't involve the smooth change in the textures, though with some effort you can apply it on theis terrain as well. You don't need Easegen for this, though some of the options exist there too. I tried to use gensurf In Radiant.

Basically it's what the Gensurf says, that you can create walls, floow and ceiling in Radiant. You can choose type of the terrain (valley, hills, waves, etc). But there is also a bitmap terrain. This one is the candy, but a bit tricky.

I made 1024x1024 picture in Black and white of the location I want to make, making lighter places the mountains (white = top), and darker places the place, where the Player can walk (black = lowest canyon). Then I saved them as different formats to try (BMP, but either greyscale, monochrome or 8 bit something like that). You can make these in Paint or Photoshop, in latter case it might be smoother.

I wanted to make a really big map and the problem was always, that despite the heights map (BMP) the location was pretty square, no hills. The problem seems to be with the huge brush I use to create. Thus I made a much smaller (2-5 times smaller) brush and made it with BMP. It works perfectly. After that you can you use the Scale option (Selection > Scale...) and make it the size you want. Just be careful with the number of brushes (Divisions 60x60 worked just fine (8x8 by default), and I used decimate). This allowed to create a map of a size of t2_trip. In total about 1700 brushes (problems start usually after 4000, though it's not the possible maximum).

[Langerd]

Yesterday I tried a slightly different and much easier way. It doesn't involve the smooth change in the textures, though with some effort you can apply it on theis terrain as well. You don't need Easegen for this, though some of the options exist there too. I tried to use gensurf In Radiant.

 

Basically it's what the Gensurf says, that you can create walls, floow and ceiling in Radiant. You can choose type of the terrain (valley, hills, waves, etc). But there is also a bitmap terrain. This one is the candy, but a bit tricky.

 

I made 1024x1024 picture in Black and white of the location I want to make, making lighter places the mountains (white = top), and darker places the place, where the Player can walk (black = lowest canyon). Then I saved them as different formats to try (BMP, but either greyscale, monochrome or 8 bit something like that). You can make these in Paint or Photoshop, in latter case it might be smoother.

 

I wanted to make a really big map and the problem was always, that despite the heights map (BMP) the location was pretty square, no hills. The problem seems to be with the huge brush I use to create. Thus I made a much smaller (2-5 times smaller) brush and made it with BMP. It works perfectly. After that you can you use the Scale option (Selection > Scale...) and make it the size you want. Just be careful with the number of brushes (Divisions 60x60 worked just fine (8x8 by default), and I used decimate). This allowed to create a map of a size of t2_trip. In total about 1700 brushes (problems start usually after 4000, though it's not the possible maximum).

Smaller the brushes, smoother the look of the terrain but.. more brushes

 

You are talking about scaling in the gtkradiant? It works strange sometimes .. specially for brushes and i personally dont using it.

[Asgarath83]

Yesterday I tried a slightly different and much easier way. It doesn't involve the smooth change in the textures, though with some effort you can apply it on theis terrain as well. You don't need Easegen for this, though some of the options exist there too. I tried to use gensurf In Radiant.

 

Basically it's what the Gensurf says, that you can create walls, floow and ceiling in Radiant. You can choose type of the terrain (valley, hills, waves, etc). But there is also a bitmap terrain. This one is the candy, but a bit tricky.

 

I made 1024x1024 picture in Black and white of the location I want to make, making lighter places the mountains (white = top), and darker places the place, where the Player can walk (black = lowest canyon). Then I saved them as different formats to try (BMP, but either greyscale, monochrome or 8 bit something like that). You can make these in Paint or Photoshop, in latter case it might be smoother.

 

I wanted to make a really big map and the problem was always, that despite the heights map (BMP) the location was pretty square, no hills. The problem seems to be with the huge brush I use to create. Thus I made a much smaller (2-5 times smaller) brush and made it with BMP. It works perfectly. After that you can you use the Scale option (Selection > Scale...) and make it the size you want. Just be careful with the number of brushes (Divisions 60x60 worked just fine (8x8 by default), and I used decimate). This allowed to create a map of a size of t2_trip. In total about 1700 brushes (problems start usually after 4000, though it's not the possible maximum).

 

That's should be cute! how can i get gensurf and add into my gtk radiant 1.5.0 ? D:

[NumberWan]

I don't think it exists for 1.5. I use several Radiants depending on my tasks. The smoother the terrain is, the more brushes you have - that's true. However in smaller maps you'll get the better results with smooth terrain and a larger amount of brushes. In large maps it can be hidden via fogs, some props, etc. A big maps are suaully made for vehicles or space.

 

Scale works okey in Radiant if it's offered to Scale option from the menu. If you try to rescale the objects manually, it will result in errors and devastate your map.

[Guest KENNITHH]

Heya Asgarath, sorry for answering this late but I haven't been checking jkhub for a few days.

While reading the first posts I also wanted to send the site of Simonoc, he has some great things there but stuff I haven't tried either. There are some other sites aswell that contain info about gtkgensurf like here:

 

http://www.pythononline.co.uk/et/tutorial23.htm#gtk ,found from http://www.urbanterror.info/forums/topic/22397-creating-terrain-hills-canyon-etc/

 

 

While making a terrain is difficult, the people from Enemy Territory make amazing stuff with terrains and I think they mainly use GTKGenSurf but I'm not 100% sure like look at Fueldump and Railgun which are original maps from Enemy Territory:

 

 

Now a last thing I wanted to mention, if you are good with models, there is a new technique (probably not new but not used often) which gives stunning results, just look at this:

 

https://jkhub.org/topic/7473-maps-made-out-of-models-lightmap-aswell/

[Langerd]

Heya Asgarath, sorry for answering this late but I haven't been checking jkhub for a few days.

 

While reading the first posts I also wanted to send the site of Simonoc, he has some great things there but stuff I haven't tried either. There are some other sites aswell that contain info about gtkgensurf like here:

 

http://www.pythononline.co.uk/et/tutorial23.htm#gtk ,found from http://www.urbanterror.info/forums/topic/22397-creating-terrain-hills-canyon-etc/

 

 

While making a terrain is difficult, the people from Enemy Territory make amazing stuff with terrains and I think they mainly use GTKGenSurf but I'm not 100% sure like look at Fueldump and Railgun which are original maps from Enemy Territory:

 

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Now a last thing I wanted to mention, if you are good with models, there is a new technique (probably not new but not used often) which gives stunning results, just look at this:

 

https://jkhub.org/topic/7473-maps-made-out-of-models-lightmap-aswell/

Holy Shiet dude..

 

Someone should make the tutorial about how make these kind of lightning and terrain OqO

[ensiform]

I don't think it exists for 1.5. I use several Radiants depending on my tasks. The smoother the terrain is, the more brushes you have - that's true. However in smaller maps you'll get the better results with smooth terrain and a larger amount of brushes. In large maps it can be hidden via fogs, some props, etc. A big maps are suaully made for vehicles or space.

 

Scale works okey in Radiant if it's offered to Scale option from the menu. If you try to rescale the objects manually, it will result in errors and devastate your map.

You can scale the whole map approximately with q3map2 scale option too I believe.

[NumberWan]

@@ensiform

Not sure, which one do you mean? Sounds like it would change the scale via the compilation process. Or do you mean something else?

[ensiform]

It changes the scale of a bsp not a map.

[NumberWan]

@@ensiform

I see, that's what I suspected. However then this method isn't exactly, what would be best to use. The catch was to make the terrain in the map (for GtkRadiant), and then place other objects, like md3, buildings, NPCs, waypoints into it. And then compile to be played.

[Langerd]

I will check the blender method soon.. The only problem i see is creating the texture .MD3 file can use seams! We dont need to split the edges This is cool thing about them... but when we want a md3 model that is suing two,three diffrent textures - 1 texture per object. This also mean that objects must be seperated. If we want to create a cave , terrain mountain model - only one texture allowed if we want to make md3 models. Dont know about spawnflag 2 :S (that spawnflag that change the shading of the md3 model)

Some Phong shader black magic should solve that.

Anyway - phong shader works with the misc_models ?

[Ramikad]

Anyway - phong shader works with the misc_models ?

 

From my tests, it should work.

Since we're at it, normal maps work too, just for static lighting though. It would be interesting to try it with ground and rocks.

 

http://s23.postimg.org/fpybix4jv/shot0336.jpg

 

Left is without normal maps, right with.

[Langerd]

From my tests, it should work.

Since we're at it, normal maps work too, just for static lighting though. It would be interesting to try it with ground and rocks.

 

http://s23.postimg.org/fpybix4jv/shot0336.jpg

 

Left is without normal maps, right with.

Good to know

 

Now i am aking terrain and... I found one .. method.

 

We can make terrain high poly, shape it, bake it and put on the low poly model

 

 I made it right now and it looks.. nice OuO

 

 

[ensiform]

You have to use regular misc_models if you are going to use them for terrain.  And I would manually place clip brushes rather than use the 'solid' flag as its only approximate, I think?  The BSP size will balloon up quite a bit using models just saying

[Langerd]

You have to use regular misc_models if you are going to use them for terrain.  And I would manually place clip brushes rather than use the 'solid' flag as its only approximate, I think?  The BSP size will balloon up quite a bit using models just saying

Or invisible solid shader that also use the sand material

[Guest KENNITHH]

I'd use ase models instead for terrain stuff, and you can autoclip it no problem, no need to scale it or something, you can keep the original size etc

[Asgarath83]

@@NumberWan and @@Langerd

recently, i am searching some good and faster terrain generator that can make terrains for JKA maps 

(i have an entire world to build with terrains, i am starting to preparing some of the heightmaps (converting a old 2d maps of an oldest game into grey scaled maps) of the territories, but really some program better of easygen should be really fine.

what i am looking for, is something more fastly and easily to use of easygen.

i was begin to looking terragen this days. 

i not know if you use it but if i have just a few question.

1: what is the best software for making terrains for JKA (modelling shapes, mountains, hills, create the valley when put liquid lava or water inside the map, cliffs, etc etc)

2: obvious, need a way for exporting the software creations into some format that JKA can read (MD3? Map? )

I wait for suggestions

[DT.]

Would be great if JKA could get with the times and use misc_model_static for everything except the basic block out & ents. So much better than brushwork for just about everything..