Saving heightfields
by John Garrison · in Artist Corner · 04/28/2002 (12:25 am) · 4 replies
Is there anyway to save the heightfields I create in the terrain terraformer within torque to a bmp file (or any other image file) for tweaking in another program?
Torque crashes everytime I try to edit the terrain, but hopefully I figure out what I'm doing wrong and stop it soon.
If I can't do it that way and must create a heightfield from scratch in order to use another program, what size should the heightfield be? As extension to that question, I want to create a dirt road, how would I know how wide in pixels to make the "flat" part? Is it a trial and error thing? Can the terain be scaled if it is the wrong size at first?
Torque crashes everytime I try to edit the terrain, but hopefully I figure out what I'm doing wrong and stop it soon.
If I can't do it that way and must create a heightfield from scratch in order to use another program, what size should the heightfield be? As extension to that question, I want to create a dirt road, how would I know how wide in pixels to make the "flat" part? Is it a trial and error thing? Can the terain be scaled if it is the wrong size at first?
About the author
#2
First and foremost the terrain editor crashes just about everytime I do anything.
Secondly I'm creating a track. I want the inner part of the track to me much less bumpy than the outer part of the track.
It would be quicker to create a bumpy terrain, export. Create a not bumpy terrain, export. And merge the who with the track in an image program, than to go over
every inch of the terrain and tweak it by hand. At least at my skill level with the terrain engine.
I did realize though that I could start the road with the flatten tool before exporting the terrain, it would give me a perfect idea how wide the pixels for the road should be, how long it should be, etc.
04/28/2002 (9:19 am)
I though of that, flatten does work well, but there are two problems.First and foremost the terrain editor crashes just about everytime I do anything.
Secondly I'm creating a track. I want the inner part of the track to me much less bumpy than the outer part of the track.
It would be quicker to create a bumpy terrain, export. Create a not bumpy terrain, export. And merge the who with the track in an image program, than to go over
every inch of the terrain and tweak it by hand. At least at my skill level with the terrain engine.
I did realize though that I could start the road with the flatten tool before exporting the terrain, it would give me a perfect idea how wide the pixels for the road should be, how long it should be, etc.
#3
The editor really really really like the newest drivers.
// Clocks out
04/28/2002 (9:24 am)
If the editor crash all the time you probably just need new drivers for your gfx card.The editor really really really like the newest drivers.
// Clocks out
#4
04/28/2002 (10:54 am)
Cool, next time I get online with the mac I'll download the latest drivers. I'm fixing to go try it on my laptop, that has a different video card, maybe it'll work better. 
Torque Owner Jeremy Noetzelman
go into the terrain editor, make sure you're in the terrain generation mode, and the File menu will have the 'export bitmap' option enabled.
As to roads and such, I'd do the editing right from inside the engine. With the functionality of texture painting and various height editing modes (flatten comes to mind for your purposes) it's much better than 'edit bitmap, import, test, repeat'