Where is The Terraform Editor in TGEA 1.7?
by Dimitris Matsouliadis · in Technical Issues · 05/17/2008 (12:36 pm) · 13 replies
Hi
I used to work with "The Terraform Editor" in demo TGEA 1.0 but I can't seem to find it in tgea 1.7.Is there another way of importing bitmap files and generating terrain in this version?
How can i create "mega terrains" in TGEA 1.7 with or without the terraforming tool. And how many bits can this new type of terrain be?
Thank You for your time in advance.
I used to work with "The Terraform Editor" in demo TGEA 1.0 but I can't seem to find it in tgea 1.7.Is there another way of importing bitmap files and generating terrain in this version?
How can i create "mega terrains" in TGEA 1.7 with or without the terraforming tool. And how many bits can this new type of terrain be?
Thank You for your time in advance.
About the author
entelsoft, commercial accounting software
#2
A technical question if you can help me...
I making a game and i need to have the real map of Greece... in year 500 before Christ.
I can make this map with teragen ( i have multilayer tga files of Greece ready)
What is your propose to i make? I have make many dif and dts files (all ancient towns in Greece) in 3ds and
gg constractor. So that i require a mega terrain and many missions? (1 mission is 1 town) And how i can connect 2 missions in real time in the game play? Can i do this in tgea?
Thank You for your time in advance... again.
05/17/2008 (3:15 pm)
Thanks i have found mega terrain ...A technical question if you can help me...
I making a game and i need to have the real map of Greece... in year 500 before Christ.
I can make this map with teragen ( i have multilayer tga files of Greece ready)
What is your propose to i make? I have make many dif and dts files (all ancient towns in Greece) in 3ds and
gg constractor. So that i require a mega terrain and many missions? (1 mission is 1 town) And how i can connect 2 missions in real time in the game play? Can i do this in tgea?
Thank You for your time in advance... again.
#3
As you mention TGA files and Terragen, I assume your map sizes are resonable, so for the terrain just go ahead and create it using either a MegaTerrain or Atlas. (If you are speaking of tiled TGA files and a complete, detailed map of Greece here, then you are most probably venturing firmly into the realm of not-out-of-the-box here).
As for connecting multiple mission files, if by that you mean having them loaded in parallel, that's not how Torque works. For simply transitioning from one mission to the next, however, there's the "loadMission" function.
If you don't have a large number of towns and the towns are not too resource-heavy, you probably can get away with just building all of this into one single map/mission. Beyond a certain level of detail and scope, you will have to resort to a more elaborate solution.
05/17/2008 (3:49 pm)
If I understand you correctly, you want to have one single map of Greece that the player can seamlessly walk across. Depending on how detailed you want that map to be and whether you want to build it to scale, this will be a challenge.As you mention TGA files and Terragen, I assume your map sizes are resonable, so for the terrain just go ahead and create it using either a MegaTerrain or Atlas. (If you are speaking of tiled TGA files and a complete, detailed map of Greece here, then you are most probably venturing firmly into the realm of not-out-of-the-box here).
As for connecting multiple mission files, if by that you mean having them loaded in parallel, that's not how Torque works. For simply transitioning from one mission to the next, however, there's the "loadMission" function.
If you don't have a large number of towns and the towns are not too resource-heavy, you probably can get away with just building all of this into one single map/mission. Beyond a certain level of detail and scope, you will have to resort to a more elaborate solution.
#4
I have 7 big towns... Athens is the bigger (My interiors have many ancient columns etc. Parthenonas have 148 columns and is 1 of 30 buildings) ... in tgea demo 1.03 i get 27 fps in 1280x1024 res. ATI 1950, with full town of Athens (have and 1 harbor and sea). Terrain is 32 size and is satisfaction for 2 towns.
Ok... i'll try to make a MegaTerrain to see how the detailed is.
Last question if you can... is a right way to make a MegaTerrain for the Greece map and use this terrain for
odds misions? 1 mission for 1 town but the identical terrain. Any player walk across and loading mission to mission by loadmission function?
Thank You :)
05/17/2008 (4:31 pm)
Thanks Rene ... you understand very correctlyI have 7 big towns... Athens is the bigger (My interiors have many ancient columns etc. Parthenonas have 148 columns and is 1 of 30 buildings) ... in tgea demo 1.03 i get 27 fps in 1280x1024 res. ATI 1950, with full town of Athens (have and 1 harbor and sea). Terrain is 32 size and is satisfaction for 2 towns.
Ok... i'll try to make a MegaTerrain to see how the detailed is.
Last question if you can... is a right way to make a MegaTerrain for the Greece map and use this terrain for
odds misions? 1 mission for 1 town but the identical terrain. Any player walk across and loading mission to mission by loadmission function?
Thank You :)
#5
My suggestion would be to chop up your master map of Greece into zones (or tiles) and then do something like the 1-mission-1-town thing you thought of. Have a bit of a buffer around each zone, so the player gets the impression that the map just goes on but when he/she actually walks out of the mission area, fire up a loadMission to transition to the next zone.
Be sure to handle data meant to be persistent across zone transitions correctly.
This is a workable but certainly not the most elegant solution. The proper solution would be to have the engine do automatic zoning and paging. Don't know how the MMOKit guys approached this problem (or whether they approached it at all), but this is basically a standard issue with MMO-type games.
Still, you are avoiding a hell of a hassle by just going with the simple and straightforward solution of doing the zoning by level transitions.
05/17/2008 (4:55 pm)
Yes, you could do that, but if you do a loadMission when transitioning from zone to zone, then it does not make sense to have the entire map in each mission (doing a single map of Greece with MegaTerrains will be impractical anyway).My suggestion would be to chop up your master map of Greece into zones (or tiles) and then do something like the 1-mission-1-town thing you thought of. Have a bit of a buffer around each zone, so the player gets the impression that the map just goes on but when he/she actually walks out of the mission area, fire up a loadMission to transition to the next zone.
Be sure to handle data meant to be persistent across zone transitions correctly.
This is a workable but certainly not the most elegant solution. The proper solution would be to have the engine do automatic zoning and paging. Don't know how the MMOKit guys approached this problem (or whether they approached it at all), but this is basically a standard issue with MMO-type games.
Still, you are avoiding a hell of a hassle by just going with the simple and straightforward solution of doing the zoning by level transitions.
#6
05/17/2008 (5:01 pm)
Clarification: by "buffer around zone", I mean have the zones overlap each other so that to the player it looks like he/she's looking into the next zone while walking towards it.
#7
With sincety your support is most to sufficient!
I'll try your counsel ... thanks again :)
05/17/2008 (7:06 pm)
Thank you Rene for your help...With sincety your support is most to sufficient!
I'll try your counsel ... thanks again :)
#8
Never been to Greece but judging from the pictures I've seen, it looks like it has some rather beautiful places.
05/18/2008 (5:10 am)
You're welcome. Hope to see some nice shots of this some day :)Never been to Greece but judging from the pictures I've seen, it looks like it has some rather beautiful places.
#9
I hop this too :)
05/19/2008 (4:48 am)
Can i put some sreenshots in this site? I have 2 towns ready, Athens and Sparta...I hop this too :)
#10
As far as I know it was made for this exactly. Although editing is limited to 3rd party software. Since you already have the maps, you might not even need any software at all to edit them .
The loading of zones is already handled there really well. Just an idea.
05/19/2008 (7:32 am)
Wouldn't it make it easier / be more resource friendly if you used Atlas in this scenario? As far as I know it was made for this exactly. Although editing is limited to 3rd party software. Since you already have the maps, you might not even need any software at all to edit them .
The loading of zones is already handled there really well. Just an idea.
#11
My terragen is old and supports max 512x512 size = 15,3x15,3 Khm
Yesterday i make a MegaTerrain (4 square, - 2048, -2048 to 0,0)
Any square have the capability to load diverse textures
This have some tiredness, but if working properly at the time, the problem of 1 big map is finish.
05/19/2008 (8:11 am)
Yep... :)My terragen is old and supports max 512x512 size = 15,3x15,3 Khm
Yesterday i make a MegaTerrain (4 square, - 2048, -2048 to 0,0)
Any square have the capability to load diverse textures
This have some tiredness, but if working properly at the time, the problem of 1 big map is finish.
#12
I have now 15.300 sq Km (1/10 of real map) 2 hours of town to town real time walk now is 12 min! (movementSpeed = 5 )
I feel how this blanket my thinking for this time :)
TGEA 1.7 conceal capabilities that we not imagine
Excellent work of GG people!
05/19/2008 (3:42 pm)
Ok multi megaterrains working properly...I have now 15.300 sq Km (1/10 of real map) 2 hours of town to town real time walk now is 12 min! (movementSpeed = 5 )
I feel how this blanket my thinking for this time :)
TGEA 1.7 conceal capabilities that we not imagine
Excellent work of GG people!
#13
I have load 4 Mega terrains (16 terrains togeather in 1 map and 1 mission) terrain square is 2 and texture is 128 bit. All working properly and Terrain Graphics is better to good. Frames in a blank 16 terrains map is 285 fps, 305 is with only 1 terrain.
The result is consinderable ... try to check any :)
05/30/2008 (12:09 pm)
For information....I have load 4 Mega terrains (16 terrains togeather in 1 map and 1 mission) terrain square is 2 and texture is 128 bit. All working properly and Terrain Graphics is better to good. Frames in a blank 16 terrains map is 285 fps, 305 is with only 1 terrain.
The result is consinderable ... try to check any :)
Associate Rene Damm
The terraformer is not available in 1.7 but will probably be available again real soon.
- MegaTerrains
Just add a MegaTerrain object (found under environment objects in the world editor creator) and up comes a dialog that allows you to specify the various ingredients.
- No. of tiles
Theoretically, a MegaTerrain can be as many tiles as you want (given the result is something square) but there are practical limitations to this. Each tile will use quite a fair amount of resources, so you might be exceeding graphics cards limits pretty soon.