Atlas: Alternative to Terragen... maybe
by Erik Madison · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 06/04/2005 (1:11 pm) · 8 replies
I just ran across this, it appears to have all the power of terragen and more. A commercial license is $20. I've only started to play with the demo, but as far as I can tell, its a nice alternative.
FreeWorld3D
FreeWorld3D
About the author
#3
Thanks for the links everyone :)
Ben, can't you guys at GG get together with some of these other "parties" and
give us some GG "approved" apps to fulfull our potential :)
(no I mean approved, not assimilated ;) )
I'm sure you and everyone in the Indi scean is aware that its cool for the
Techy programmers to understand how to create "whatever", but the
guys / girls with the artistic talent, usually, need something more.. errr
easy ?, to control.. I know you know what I mean... I have a couple of
artists who have great skills, but they really don't need the extra headache
of knowing the specific techy stuff to convert their skills into game design...
awwwhhhh, man too much brandy tonight I think, but I hope you get my drift right?
Huey
btw Tom, how's the Western theamed game comming along ?
We (that is InSynerate) are very close to putting ALL out efforts into TSE,
and we could do with some more Western talent in our midst (hint hint),
WildWest FPS IS the future... look out your space age / WW2 junkies,
your time is nigh.. lol
06/06/2005 (1:35 pm)
Mmm so much choice, too much choice :(Thanks for the links everyone :)
Ben, can't you guys at GG get together with some of these other "parties" and
give us some GG "approved" apps to fulfull our potential :)
(no I mean approved, not assimilated ;) )
I'm sure you and everyone in the Indi scean is aware that its cool for the
Techy programmers to understand how to create "whatever", but the
guys / girls with the artistic talent, usually, need something more.. errr
easy ?, to control.. I know you know what I mean... I have a couple of
artists who have great skills, but they really don't need the extra headache
of knowing the specific techy stuff to convert their skills into game design...
awwwhhhh, man too much brandy tonight I think, but I hope you get my drift right?
Huey
btw Tom, how's the Western theamed game comming along ?
We (that is InSynerate) are very close to putting ALL out efforts into TSE,
and we could do with some more Western talent in our midst (hint hint),
WildWest FPS IS the future... look out your space age / WW2 junkies,
your time is nigh.. lol
#4
The western game is still on the back burner for us. It seems Rockstar will beat us to market, but i imagine they're game will be fairly predictable looking at their past western game. Now that the new terrain stuff is working i'll find time to do some prototyping of the western thing.
06/06/2005 (1:44 pm)
Well both sides gotta give in a little. Artist can't be expected to do everything with command line tools, but they shouldn't expect to be completely clueless to technical subjects either.The western game is still on the back burner for us. It seems Rockstar will beat us to market, but i imagine they're game will be fairly predictable looking at their past western game. Now that the new terrain stuff is working i'll find time to do some prototyping of the western thing.
#5
can help the artists put their creations into game :)
mmm rockstar.. that's where my "partner" ended up... I wonder if any of this is his doing
(BoltyBoy was my partner in crime for the first release of WildWest (RtCW mod)) He went to
RockStar as a "scripter" and his work can be seen if GTA4... never decided if I'm jealous or not !
But as I said... Western FPS is the future ;)
Huey
06/06/2005 (1:54 pm)
Yeah Tom you are right, I guess the important thing is to have someone on the team whocan help the artists put their creations into game :)
mmm rockstar.. that's where my "partner" ended up... I wonder if any of this is his doing
(BoltyBoy was my partner in crime for the first release of WildWest (RtCW mod)) He went to
RockStar as a "scripter" and his work can be seen if GTA4... never decided if I'm jealous or not !
But as I said... Western FPS is the future ;)
Huey
#6
i have been using a modified version of a open source Height Map hme.sourceforge.net(I modified it to save 16 bit raw files). it get around the file size limit that shareware terrigen has. athough the terrains generated don't look as good. but it's good for testing.
06/06/2005 (9:31 pm)
According to the help docs there is going to be an in-game editor for atlas terrians in a future milestone(hopfully). so these other apps are just temperary until then.i have been using a modified version of a open source Height Map hme.sourceforge.net(I modified it to save 16 bit raw files). it get around the file size limit that shareware terrigen has. athough the terrains generated don't look as good. but it's good for testing.
#7
Was L3DT does so well is take large-scale parameters with a large range of user-control and create a height-map and accompanying texture map that looks absolutely fantastic in real-time. It takes some getting used to, but the results are undeniable.
One of the problems I've often had with terrain generators (like Bryce or Terragen) is that their results look fantastic from a distance, but as soon as you get down to ground level, they just don't look so good anymore. I know detail textures are a/the solution to this, but I've never been able to eke out satisfactory results (for me).
The results in L3DT look consistently fantastic, even up-close. You have to play with the settings to get the right texture resolution for the size of the terrain you're creating, but once you get it down, it looks awesome. There's an accompanying program you can download from the same website to view and navigate the terrains in real-time 3D.
The customization is great, too. For example, I started off with a large area that steadily sloped down to a large lake. I decided that I wanted there to be more of a drop-off around the lake.. so I just selected each of the sectors around the lake, changed their settings to the appropriate height and land feature (you can set them to plateau, mountain, crater, etc. along with many other settings). Re-generate the heightmap and bingo.... I had a steadily sloping landscape that led down to a series of cliffs that dropped almost perfectly straight down into the water... complete with random terrain details, small rocky cliffs, completely natural looking.. Then you just re-calculate the necessary maps (each is a separate step and creates its own image map that can be saved, modified, etc) and voila.. you have a newly modified terrain that would have taken far longer to accomplish with other applications.
That brings me to another point.. You can make a terrain as massive or small as you like. I created one terrain that was 1x1 Kilometer.. I created another, a mountain range, that was around 60x60 kilometers. You can get as detailed as you want.. your 1x1 kilometer terrain can start off with 16x16 segments, 4x4, 32x32... all of which can be customized at any time, as many times as you need. It all depends on how fine of control you want/need over the given region.
Best part is, it has the ability to save an entire single texture map, or to break the map up into segments. The former being *perfect* for how the new TSE terrain system will work. I'm quite excited to play around with this.
Bah.. I'm just rambilng here, but trust me, it's worth checking out... Oh by the way.. It's free and the author is continuing to work on it... he's going to be adding some very sweet-sounding features later that will give you even finer control over the map's topography.
http://users.tpg.com.au/blakest2/l3dt/
Have at it!
06/17/2005 (6:36 am)
L3DT is, hands-down, the best terrain creation program I've ever used. Albeit, it doesn't give you the ability to go in and grab individual vertices, raise or lower them.. but I'm sure there are other programs that could be used if you want that fine of control.Was L3DT does so well is take large-scale parameters with a large range of user-control and create a height-map and accompanying texture map that looks absolutely fantastic in real-time. It takes some getting used to, but the results are undeniable.
One of the problems I've often had with terrain generators (like Bryce or Terragen) is that their results look fantastic from a distance, but as soon as you get down to ground level, they just don't look so good anymore. I know detail textures are a/the solution to this, but I've never been able to eke out satisfactory results (for me).
The results in L3DT look consistently fantastic, even up-close. You have to play with the settings to get the right texture resolution for the size of the terrain you're creating, but once you get it down, it looks awesome. There's an accompanying program you can download from the same website to view and navigate the terrains in real-time 3D.
The customization is great, too. For example, I started off with a large area that steadily sloped down to a large lake. I decided that I wanted there to be more of a drop-off around the lake.. so I just selected each of the sectors around the lake, changed their settings to the appropriate height and land feature (you can set them to plateau, mountain, crater, etc. along with many other settings). Re-generate the heightmap and bingo.... I had a steadily sloping landscape that led down to a series of cliffs that dropped almost perfectly straight down into the water... complete with random terrain details, small rocky cliffs, completely natural looking.. Then you just re-calculate the necessary maps (each is a separate step and creates its own image map that can be saved, modified, etc) and voila.. you have a newly modified terrain that would have taken far longer to accomplish with other applications.
That brings me to another point.. You can make a terrain as massive or small as you like. I created one terrain that was 1x1 Kilometer.. I created another, a mountain range, that was around 60x60 kilometers. You can get as detailed as you want.. your 1x1 kilometer terrain can start off with 16x16 segments, 4x4, 32x32... all of which can be customized at any time, as many times as you need. It all depends on how fine of control you want/need over the given region.
Best part is, it has the ability to save an entire single texture map, or to break the map up into segments. The former being *perfect* for how the new TSE terrain system will work. I'm quite excited to play around with this.
Bah.. I'm just rambilng here, but trust me, it's worth checking out... Oh by the way.. It's free and the author is continuing to work on it... he's going to be adding some very sweet-sounding features later that will give you even finer control over the map's topography.
http://users.tpg.com.au/blakest2/l3dt/
Have at it!
#8
I'll be downloading L3DT tonight. It looks like it is exactly what I want since I wasn't too impressed with the textures terragen generated.
Mike V, could you give us a tip or two on getting the terrains into TSE?
08/17/2005 (6:47 pm)
I managed to stumble onto this thread while looking for info on terragen.I'll be downloading L3DT tonight. It looks like it is exactly what I want since I wasn't too impressed with the textures terragen generated.
Mike V, could you give us a tip or two on getting the terrains into TSE?
Associate Kyle Carter