Land and Sky Please Help

[psYco]

I have loads of huge sky textures and loads of land textures and I was wondering how you generate a realistic out door terrain, (the ground) with bumps hills etc,
also I was wondering how you create a sky box/sky dome, Please help also if there are tutorials on either Id be glad if you pointed me in the direction of one!

[psYco]

Is there a way to make your textures for in RF edit pro larger than 512x512?

[paradoxnj]

Anything larger than 256x256 will impede performance as Direct3D and OpenGL do not handle textures over that size very well.

[Jay]

textures can be how large as you want. I had a 2048x2048 texture for an outdoor enviroment(with shadows baked in and so) once and it rendered no problem. However, the terrain was the only mesh to be drawn.

but i wouldn't recommend such sizes for normal things because in graphic memory the 2kx2k file is 64MB...things slow down when you use more texture memory than your graphics card does have.

Also, like paradoxnj said, such large textures (512x512 is actually 1MB!) are not the most efficient. It would be more efficient to split the texture into pieces that are each 256x256 texels big and then applying them to different meshes (this splitting of the huge mesh into several smaller ones is also good because then it's 'easier' for the game engine to find out which polys need to be rendered).

[psYco]

Thanks but can you answer the first part of my question, (how do you make realistic terrain?) since it sounds like youve done terrain before.

[Jay]

Oh yes i forgot.

First, i use NemsTerrainEditor for the terrains and export them to *.dxf, *.map AND *.bmp.

Then the texture:
I open TextureMaker (if you don't have it, it's the best 'free' program out there i think; and don't download the newest version, with the old you can do a trick to get around the limitation of 320x320 texels)

There i open up the textures for the different heights like grassland, hills, mountains and snow.

Then i open the *.bmp file i've exported(it's actually a heightmap), make a new texture with a size bigger than it and fill the new texture with the old using the 'add' filter. As a next step, i use the smoth filter on it to fake more detail.

With these opened textures i produce the base texture of the terrain:
For that i use the multitexture-mixer, i use the now 'better' heightmap as the mix-bitmap(hope that's the name for it i am using the german version) and theothers as the textures for the heights. You may change the RepeatX and RepeatY numbers for each texture to get better detail. Play around with it until it fits and then 'generate' the texture with a fitting file size (i used 2kx2k, more will lead to HOURS of generating) and the maximum supersampling (it's worth it!)

Now that we have the base texture, we will bake the shadow into it:
Open the Advanced shader(still in TextureMaker). Use your bad heightmap as the heightmap(the good one could lead to too soft or nonexistent shadows) and set the lighting as you wish. Play around and so on until it fits and then generate it, again with the maximum supersampling and the wished texture size.

Ok. Now we have the texture, but we don't get it out of TextureMaker because we have the free demo version. What do we do? We have to use 'cut texture into pieces'(or something like this) and cut the texture into 256x256 pieces.

Now you have the pieces of the big texture. Now comes the REALLY hard and boring part. Open paint and use copy and paste, copy and paste, copy and paste...until you have your texture completed. And yes save early and save extremely often because it can happen easily(even in 800% zoom mode) that your hand doesn't want as you want and that you mess up the texture with that.

Keep your enthusiasm (i know it's hard, i've done it and i don't want to do it again) and you will be rewarded by a wonderfull texture.

Now that you've got your texture in the right size and the right format, for the actor:
Open *.dxf file open with a modelling program (Truespace 3.2 for example can read them, Milkshape works too i think), apply the texture, and export. I would not recommend smoth edges because you have enough polys yet.

And now the last steps to the wonderfull terrain:
The *.map is imported into the level editor and then made to 'clip' brushes. The Staticmesh rendering the terrain has no collision set to it.

I am sorry i cannot attach a picture but i've reached my maximum upload quota.
EDIT: found the topic where i showed parts of the terrain: viewtopic.php?t=1116&highlight=white+plane

[psYco]

Thanks for all the help but what is nems terrain editor?

[Jay]

It's a good free terrain editor ( i have not yet used the new version, i hope it also does export to *.dxf):

http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?c=2

[GD1]

for a sky box, avoid using the skybox scripts unless you need dynamic day/night cycles. make a static mesh of a half sphere with the normals inverted to the inside. apply you sky texture to it and put it in the level as a static mesh. set it to render without lighting (fullbright) and change around the size untill it surrounds your whole level.

[Jay]

EDIT: this post was exactly the same as the first, somehow i managed to quote miself instead of correcting me...

[GD1]

oops, my bad, i didn't read your post.

at least now you know i agree with the way you do it, since I'm such an authority after all ;p

[Jay]

ahhr!!! i now know what happend!!! instead ofediting my post i somehow quoted it without knowing!
i have deleted this weird post.



What you said was right GD1, i didn't want to correct you or say that my way was the only right. I apologize.

[Juutis]

ahhr!!! i now know what happend!!! instead ofediting my post i somehow quoted it without knowing!

You probably pressed the 'quote' button instead of 'edit'. I've done that many times too.

[GD1]

ah, dont worry about it, i was just joking with you.

i find myself constantly mis-stating things or repeating something thats already been said, so i figured that was what happened. so if i do please let me know.

Your way of doing it is completely right. I'd love to see how it looks.