How to make a good looking Atlas terrain?
by J.C. Smith · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 10/02/2006 (3:36 am) · 19 replies
Hey all. First off I don't want anyone to misread this as a bash or a slur against Atlas. Obviously it's a work in development and suffering from cryptic and hard to use tools at the moment. But I do know that it is able to create some pretty good looking terrains, but after about a week of lots and lots of fiddling, I have yet to create one.
In general the terrain looks very blurry to me, even when I'm giving it 4x the resolution in the texture by using tiles. Part of that is undoubtedly from the lack of detail textures or normal maps, which could be added in, but I also think it probably also has to do with somethign I'm missing when creating the terrains. I've been using L3dt Pro.
Anyone have any tips for generating a terrain that will look good in first person mode?
In general the terrain looks very blurry to me, even when I'm giving it 4x the resolution in the texture by using tiles. Part of that is undoubtedly from the lack of detail textures or normal maps, which could be added in, but I also think it probably also has to do with somethign I'm missing when creating the terrains. I've been using L3dt Pro.
Anyone have any tips for generating a terrain that will look good in first person mode?
#2
10/02/2006 (4:19 pm)
I can say that Ive gotten a bit higher res textures by replacing the ones in the L3DT folder in the terrain water demo with mine that are a little larger and then in the Atlas surface shader I play with the numbers at the bottom of the HLSL that control the tiling....look around in there...but I have to agree there defiantly needs to be something done with making some integrated tools for creating atlas terrains 
#3
10/02/2006 (4:30 pm)
Yes I was wonder this too. I really need high quality terrains not long view distances. Dont get me wrong, atlas looks amazing when viewing large landscapes from far away, but I would like to see what it is capable of doing up close. From the screens and demos, it looks the same as the legacy terrain.
#5
What is your geometry TOC? What is your texture TOC? Tile size? Are you using the blended texturing or the unique texturing option?
Screenshots would be helpful as well to identify what the issue might be.
It's entirely possible to get 8, 16, even 32tx/meter density, although performance will start to suffer at those high densities. But on a mid-range or higher 2.0 capable card you can pretty reasonably have unique texture data for every pixel on the screen. And that's w/o having any detail textures...
10/02/2006 (8:04 pm)
It's much, much better, but there are some limitations. What is your geometry TOC? What is your texture TOC? Tile size? Are you using the blended texturing or the unique texturing option?
Screenshots would be helpful as well to identify what the issue might be.
It's entirely possible to get 8, 16, even 32tx/meter density, although performance will start to suffer at those high densities. But on a mid-range or higher 2.0 capable card you can pretty reasonably have unique texture data for every pixel on the screen. And that's w/o having any detail textures...
#6
The terrain in the distance is automatically turning a hard black color. Not from fog, but it's from something else. For example if I set my fog to be a very far value and give it a color to notice when it kicks in, like say I set my cloud distance to 10000 and my terrain distance to 5000.... Well around 1000 distance the terrain turns dark, similar to how fogging effects would do if your fog was black. Not sure what is causing it, for the time being I've just set my viewable distance to 1000 and gave it some fog at 900 to cover it up.
10/03/2006 (1:49 am)
I was able to get it looking decent with using a 16x resolution on the TOC textures and unique terrain last night. I haven't tested anything yet with blended terrain yet. With 16x resolution it looks pretty good, but I did have another strange problem that I have noticed in some of the other terrains, maybe someone knows what is causing it.The terrain in the distance is automatically turning a hard black color. Not from fog, but it's from something else. For example if I set my fog to be a very far value and give it a color to notice when it kicks in, like say I set my cloud distance to 10000 and my terrain distance to 5000.... Well around 1000 distance the terrain turns dark, similar to how fogging effects would do if your fog was black. Not sure what is causing it, for the time being I've just set my viewable distance to 1000 and gave it some fog at 900 to cover it up.
#7
This was using blended terrains, but it may be the same with unique terrains
Generally, as Ben said, if you use the blended maps you can get very nice detail in your terrains without any messing. It's slightly harder to understand, but worth the little extra effort.
Cheers,
Dave.
10/03/2006 (2:47 am)
JC, I get that problem (or something very similar) even fairly close up when I use very high detail alpha maps. The lower the alpha map detail, the less I see the darkness. If I use a low res map (1x) it doesn't happen. Any greater and it does, including sharp corners where the tiles are. Try a low res alpha map and see if it eases off.Generally, as Ben said, if you use the blended maps you can get very nice detail in your terrains without any messing. It's slightly harder to understand, but worth the little extra effort.
Cheers,
Dave.
#8
10/03/2006 (6:26 am)
Hi guys, I was thinking of buying l3dt for my terrain. Is that a good idea?
#9
10/03/2006 (6:50 am)
I understand the concept behind the blended terrains, wasn't sure of an efficient way of designing opacity maps though, other than doing it all by hand. Does anyone know of a good program or tutorial for them?
#10
@JC, L3DT produces opacity maps for you. You need the registered version to generate PNGs. The unregistered version spits out a pile of BMPs instead.
All the best,
Dave.
10/03/2006 (8:00 am)
@Malcolm, it's a great idea for randomly generated terrains. It produces lovely stuff and is hugely customisable through climates files (these can be complicated). However, if you want to do any sculpting you will also need another tool that can edit heightmaps or meshes.@JC, L3DT produces opacity maps for you. You need the registered version to generate PNGs. The unregistered version spits out a pile of BMPs instead.
All the best,
Dave.
#11
10/03/2006 (9:10 am)
Ahh k, thanks. Yeah I have the registered version, I didn't see where to do it though but will figure it out. Thanks a bunch.
#12
One thing to note is for every 4 textures you get an alpha map. TSE can only handle one map at the moment. So keep your textures down to 4, or use the "layer" attribute to put more than one texture in a layer on the first alpha map dialog.
10/03/2006 (10:02 am)
Go to "operations/alpha maps/generate maps"One thing to note is for every 4 textures you get an alpha map. TSE can only handle one map at the moment. So keep your textures down to 4, or use the "layer" attribute to put more than one texture in a layer on the first alpha map dialog.
#13
Before I read that I started playing around with Freeworld 3d BTW. I did get blended terrain working with it. Going to try with L3DT next.
10/03/2006 (11:06 am)
Thanks Dave. I guess I just always assumed that everything in the Operations Menu was from the menus when you calculate, never saw the Alpha down there. =)Before I read that I started playing around with Freeworld 3d BTW. I did get blended terrain working with it. Going to try with L3DT next.
#14
Since it's new tech, there really aren't any strong workflows established yet. We know what we like to do with it so far, but I'm positive that the community can come up with some really spectacular workflows and tools that may very well become one of the "best practices" work flows.
Even if you don't have the time to type up an extensive description (which is obviously awesome if you can, and TDN would be the place to put them), we'd still like to hear what you've discovered and worked out, and here or email is great!
10/03/2006 (2:14 pm)
On this note, we (GG) would really like to hear about in-depth workflows that people are developing regarding Atlas, especially with high quality screenshots.Since it's new tech, there really aren't any strong workflows established yet. We know what we like to do with it so far, but I'm positive that the community can come up with some really spectacular workflows and tools that may very well become one of the "best practices" work flows.
Even if you don't have the time to type up an extensive description (which is obviously awesome if you can, and TDN would be the place to put them), we'd still like to hear what you've discovered and worked out, and here or email is great!
#15
Other than the rather cryptic importation process currently and no out of the box detail texture support, no real complaints. The terrain looks good once you figure out how to tweak it properly.
10/03/2006 (10:30 pm)
The L3DT blended terrain was very easy to do, thanks Dave on that tip. The visual quality is good so long as you make your texture or lightmap a mosaic and make it in a high resolution, like x8 or x16 then it looks really sharp even without details or normal maps, though I'm thinking that will be my next task is to add those in and experiment.Other than the rather cryptic importation process currently and no out of the box detail texture support, no real complaints. The terrain looks good once you figure out how to tweak it properly.
#16
Cheers
Mal
10/03/2006 (10:59 pm)
Dave thanks so much for that, I'll make sure I get the professional single license.Cheers
Mal
#17
@Steven - I'd be happy to write up some stuff when I'm through if someone doesn't beat me to it. But I still have virtual texture size to play with, mosaics (JC did you manually renumber all the tiles or find a way around that?) and then find a tool to sculpt meshes! I'm learning ten new careers here, so it may be some time ;-)
10/04/2006 (4:42 am)
No problem folks, I've been bashing my brains out doing tedious repetitive terrain experiments/generations for weeks. I'm happy if I can save some people from going through the same pain :-)@Steven - I'd be happy to write up some stuff when I'm through if someone doesn't beat me to it. But I still have virtual texture size to play with, mosaics (JC did you manually renumber all the tiles or find a way around that?) and then find a tool to sculpt meshes! I'm learning ten new careers here, so it may be some time ;-)
#18
10/04/2006 (9:30 am)
If you import from L3DT, no renumbering or anything should be necessary. Just export and go. No flipping should be required, either. If this is the case and you're running latest HEAD, let me know - it's a bug.
#19
10/04/2006 (12:00 pm)
I didn't flip anything at all. I used the same format as used in the tutorial for the mosaics (off top of my head "directory/lm_x%dy%d"). Worked fine. Only problem I've had is the black terrain thing. Not sure what is causing that.
Torque 3D Owner Bobby Leighton