Useful Terrain Tools

[ulf.schroeter]

Just a new thread for a more centralized collecting of some useful tool links for terrain data creation and pre-processing

 

• WorldMachine Tool for procedural terrain height/texture/mask creation
  
• GlobalMapper Low-Priced Tool for spatial data manipulation
  
• GeographicImager Spatial imaging tools for Adobe Photoshop
  

[ulf.schroeter]

Very detailed

using WorldMachine, Mudbox, Photoshop tools. Targeted for CryEngine and UDK, but most parts are the same for Unigine.

[steve3d]

thanks for the video!

[Guest shane.ploenges]

These are great videos, with information that can be transferred to Unigine.

 

However, i would love to see some more Unigine specific tutorials out there .. When you search for "Unigine Tutorials" there is only one, and that is just exporting a mesh from max.

 

it would be fantastic to have a video like above, but going through the same setup in Unigine, and adding grass, trees rocks etc. This is something lacking in a major way for Unigine users at the moment.. good video tutorials.

[pascal.winistoerfer]

Hi Ulf

 

We use WorldMachine2 for this.

 

Excelent programm and with a bit of work in it (1-2 test worlds) you will get it.

Tiles are very confortable, so you can design your world and tile it right in the editor.

 

let me show you how it looks in our project, here some screenshots out of our developmentwiki, so, internal stuff:

 

This is what Worldmachine generates you, not even Diffuse Maps, also on your wish, Lightmaps,

they are awesome to use in photoshop to make your diffuse map, however you like it.

 

Here an Example of 1 of 14 terrains in our world. Rocky Northzone :)

 

Lightmap

 

Thats how it looks in the Editor

 

World Machine View

 

LOD 0 at 500m ingame (just for Rendering Purposes, not Real game State) from about 2000m above

 

Then with the Scattering and Depolarization, it looks pretty awesome i think:

 

Scattering, HDR about 2000m away

 

and ye.. the far background view is cool, if you turn LOD down, consumes about <5 FPS

 

Far View from Castle

 

And here an Example how you can tile your terrain, in our case, it's 14x 4097x4097pixels, unigine internal Step 1:1

 

Main Continent (only 13, 14th is an Island not shown here)

 

Hope to gave you a little Impression, i really can recommend you WM2

 

kindly

Pascal aka Hexentanz

[ulf.schroeter]

Pascal, you are absolutely right, World Machine 2 is a very powerfull tool for terrain and mask generation (that's the reason why I put it as first entry on the list). We used it with imported real-world terrain DEM data for automatic generation of UNIGINE terrain material blend mask textures and UNIGINE ObjectGrass mask textures based on height/slope/erosion flows.

 

Some screenshots of the terrain can be found here

[cor]

Hi Ulf

 

We use WorldMachine2 for this.

 

Excelent programm and with a bit of work in it (1-2 test worlds) you will get it.

Tiles are very confortable, so you can design your world and tile it right in the editor.

 

let me show you how it looks in our project, here some screenshots out of our developmentwiki, so, internal stuff:

 

This is what Worldmachine generates you, not even Diffuse Maps, also on your wish, Lightmaps,

they are awesome to use in photoshop to make your diffuse map, however you like it.

 

Here an Example of 1 of 14 terrains in our world. Rocky Northzone :)

 

......

 

kindly

Pascal aka Hexentanz

 

Hi Pascal.

 

I'm investigating if and how we can use WorldMachine for our flight/race game.

Could you please tell me a bit more about the work flow?

 

Did you create the hightmaps completely using WM? Or did you import some hightmaps made by some other program (like MudBox)?

Why are your tiles 4097x4097? Does this correspons to (more or less) 4Km x 4Km size? Why is this not 4096 x 4096? What is the minimal detail size in this case?

Did you also create other LOD versions? Or did Unigine do this for you?

Do you use the tiles for dynamic loading or for game play sections?

Which maps did you create and import to Unigine?

 

Thanks

Cor

[Guest shane.ploenges]

Hi Cor, we also use WM pro and are currently desiging a world tile loading/unloading system.

World machine can generate all of your necessary maps in one "Network" with multiple outputs including

-Height

-Diffuse

-Normal

-Detail Mask

-Clutter/Cluster Mask

-Grass Mask

 

All of this can also be done on a per tile basis. I can also tell you that our company paid for some enhancements to WM that they will roll in to a new release soon, it adds selective tile import and output, as well as deformation of terrain using 3d splines. (think of your race track cutting through a terrain)

 

i personally have been amazed by its results, however you will need to do a bit of work yourself in Unigine to get tiled import and Node sector streaming working.

 

Please feel free to ask nay more questions and i will answer them if possible.

 

Thanks

 

Shane

[Guest shane.ploenges]

Hi Pascal, i had some questions for you regarding your terrain setup as we are currently trying to implement something similar.

Are you using a sector streaming approach or loading the whole world? If you are using streaming are you using the node sector class? if so has it posed any problems?

has the 14 x 4097 tile set caused you any performance difficulties in the editor? we are trying to determine the optimum tile size and sector size - i was wondering why you chose this and not smaller tiles.

Thanks in advance

 

Shane

[ulf.schroeter]

Might be a good idea to start a new thread on world streaming as we are moving step-by-step away from "Usefull Terrain Tools" ?

[Rob]

I am working with Cor on the terrain for the flight/race game and I was wondering what options of WM2 you use to get the world in Unigine, do you use multiple extents which are used as multiple terrains in Unigine or do you use a single extent divided into tiles which automatically output all the maps?

 

I created a thread about streaming overhere:

https://developer.unigine.com/forum/topic/1077-terrain-streaming/

 

as it seems there are more people wondering how streaming works

[pascal.winistoerfer]

UIf,

 

GeographicImager

 

Can you tell a bit for what this is useful?

 

i don't get it :( :ph34r:

[Rob]

UIf,

 

GeographicImager

 

Can you tell a bit for what this is useful?

 

i don't get it :( :ph34r:

 

I think its mostly usefull when using tiles exported by any of the terrain tools, not sure tho

[ulf.schroeter]

GeographicImager is especially helpfull when dealing with real-world GIS data (both height data (DEM digital elevation data) and satellite imagery). Key working steps in this context most of the time require data format conversion of different import data formats, spatial transformation e.g. orthorectification/geo-referencing/transformation of different input coordinate datums to a consitent target datum like WGS84 and very often tiled image output for splitting large input images into image mosaics for efficient paging.

[pascal.winistoerfer]

GeographicImager is especially helpfull when dealing with real-world GIS data (both height data (DEM digital elevation data) and satellite imagery). Key working steps in this context most of the time require data format conversion of different import data formats, spatial transformation e.g. orthorectification/geo-referencing/transformation of different input coordinate datums to a consitent target datum like WGS84 and very often tiled image output for splitting large input images into image mosaics for efficient paging.

 

ah okay, so for DISI-Xtreme useful, but for a fantasy MMORPG possibly not ? :)

 

What i would love to have is a program which draws me excelent Diffuse Maps, but i think the only way is using masks based on height, angle and so on in world machine and then

work with that maps in photoshop as masks for textures?

 

that's how we did it until now, but i think the workflow is a bit complicated for what you get as return.

[ulf.schroeter]

What i would love to have is a program which draws me excelent Diffuse Maps, but i think the only way is using masks based on height, angle and so on in world machine and then work with that maps in photoshop as masks for textures? that's how we did it until now, but i think the workflow is a bit complicated for what you get as return.

 

From my experience WorldMachine is by far the best tool for large scale mask generation based on all kinds of terrain parameters. This is especially true if your worlds are really huge. It takes some time to get familiar with concepts and effects of parameter variations, but then you can do everything with this tool at an unlimited scale (no, I am not getting payed by WM, I just like the tool)

 

Do you use Photoshop for texture mixing based on masks ? If so, just an idea - it might be more conveniant to do this mixing also directly in WorldMachine or based on some UNIGINE scripts so a manual Photoshop step could be automated.

[binstream]

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[pascal.winistoerfer]

 

From my experience WorldMachine is by far the best tool for large scale mask generation based on all kinds of terrain parameters. This is especially true if your worlds are really huge. It takes some time to get familiar with concepts and effects of parameter variations, but then you can do everything with this tool at an unlimited scale (no, I am not getting payed by WM, I just like the tool)

 

Do you use Photoshop for texture mixing based on masks ? If so, just an idea - it might be more conveniant to do this mixing also directly in WorldMachine or based on some UNIGINE scripts so a manual Photoshop step could be automated.

 

well i generate the maps in world machine direct. about the scale of wm: yes it's awesome, we currently have 14 tiles of terrain planned, they are all in one huge WM file.

 

i have the masks directly in WM and only need to safe them, that's all fine. but what i'm looking for is for a good way to draw diffuse map for terrain, not the mask maps for textures.

the diffuse which is used by terrain in distance to look good and modifies colors in details also.

 

and that's were photoshop comes into play at this time: i use the WM generated maps to create diffuse maps in photoshop, use the masks as mask for the texture layer in photoshop and so on.

 

i think the current terrain doesn't look bad in our project, but i'm still thinking about a bit optimization.

 

do you know, is it possible to use external textures (dds or png, whatever) as colors in WM ? this could make diffuse map creation interesting in WM again.

[ulf.schroeter]

do you know, is it possible to use external textures (dds or png, whatever) as colors in WM ? this could make diffuse map creation interesting in WM again.

 

Just an idea, but I would try FileInput device with setting [interpret as RGB] to true....

[Rob]

Overhere:

https://developer.unigine.com/forum/topic/1570-external-terrain-creation-tools/

 

You can find the Valley.zip for the WM source files Unigine used, this might be helpfull for you as they also use the FileInput device on the files generated by WM

[Guest shane.ploenges]

Hi Pascal, as Ulf suggested, you can indeed use a file input device to load texture maps when use RGB is ticked. you can also put this through a combiner to blend this with other textures or proceduray generated ones.

I suggest you also look at some of the supplied WM macros for generating color maps - they can do a great job if setup correctly with erosion inputs etc.

[paul.chaney]

Hi everybody

 

We are using the Global Mapper tool since we need to have our real landscape in WGS-84. I can extract the data in the pgm format with 16Bit. But if I import it to build a new world in Unigine, I just get a flat landscape! I've already checked the header of the pgm data file, see below. It seems to me, that the exported data contains all the data.

 

Does anybody used already the Global Mapper or the pgm file format to create a new world and observed similiar problems? Or does anybody has a hint, what I'm missing?

 

Thanks a lot

 

 

*** Header ***

P2
# Generated by Global Mapper (www.globalmapper.com)
# ncols         1025
# nrows         1025
# xllcorner     4.0083333333
# yllcorner     41.4583333333
# cellsize           0.00833333333333333
1025 1025
65535

196 204 205 231 219 211 219 224 234 240
232 231 240 243 250 257 261 264 266 271
275 280 285 289 290 291 293 287 281 281
287 290 290 290 290 290 290 290 290 295
300 307 304 306 300 278 314 306 320 323
326 318 328 338 343 345 340 349 350 360
290 293 333 355 373 371 352 361 372 352

.... data .....

[ulf.schroeter]

What maximum terrain height value do you specify during import ? All imported height values will be scaled to 15 bits integer values (bit 16 hole indicator). In best case the maximum height should be chosen to match the highest exported height in your dataset.

 

Also is there any scaling applied to your height values during GlobalMapper output to PGM format or do the height values in above pgm example represent real-world height values in meters ?

 

If so, this might be the reason for flat results because 16 bit input format values will be scaled according to following formular

 

( heightvalue / 65535.0f ) * terrain height max      

[paul.chaney]

Hi Ulf, I tried different maximum height values and the results remain the same. And yes, the output from the GlobalMapper represents real-world height values in meters.

 

But in the preview of the 'Load Terrain' I already just see a black square. Other 8 bit outputs are displayed properly.

 

On the other side, if I export an .ter data file and load it as terrain in Unigine, I get the following error:

 

Terrain::load(): wrong magic 0x52524554 in "../newWorld.ter" file

[silent]

Hi Paul,

 

 if I export an .ter data file and load it as terrain in Unigine, I get the following error:

 

Terrain::load(): wrong magic 0x52524554 in "../newWorld.ter" file

 

Engine is using own intermal *.ter file format, so exported *.ter file from GlobalMapper will not work.

 

But in the preview of the 'Load Terrain' I already just see a black square. Other 8 bit outputs are displayed properly.

 

Do you have any erros in console when you are trying to use this file as a heightmap for terrain?

  

I can extract the data in the pgm format with 16Bit. But if I import it to build a new world in Unigine, I just get a flat landscape! 

 

Could you please provide exported *.pgm image? We will check it.

 

Thanks!