how can I effiectivly create this kind of terrain?

[steve3d]

We know, in many games, the shape and the height of terrain system don't need to match the reality, in game, the terrain should look great and suite the need for the game.

 

But in our project we need to create terrain system exactly match the reality, in another word, we need to recreate the terrain based on the reality. for example, the terrain like the attachement.

 

we need the shape, height, anything, not so precisly match the real terrain, but it must almost precisly match.

 

So, how do we create this kind of terrain in unigine? currently, we are using the modeling software to create the terrain( almost ground, road and something else) by hand, this is not efficient. and the terrain created by 3d modeling software has so many polygon count, and don't have any optimization.

 

so I just want discuss the possibility of another way to create this kind of terrain efficient, and making use of the terrain system in unigine.

 

Any thoughts or advice will be very appreciate. :) and , sorry for my bad english.

 

the attachment was grabbed in AutoCAD.

[steve3d]

sorry for the attachement. here it is.

[ulf.schroeter]

based on your requirements maybe a mesh-based approach might be more suitable that a heightfield-raster-approach, as it seems that you have to incooperate detailed things like streets etc (hard to achive with geo-morphing heightfield terrain)

 

First step would be in both cases import of your AutoCAD raw data into 3DSMax, followed by a UNIGINE mesh export.

 

If you use UNIGINE static terrain meshes, detailed terrain texturing might be possible with the up-comming mesh_terrain_base material, scheduled for next release.

 

If you use UNIGINE heightfield terrain, you would have to convert the mesh to raster format. At least for the previous terrain system there was a commandline tool terrain_x86.exe for such kind of conversion (but I don't know if its already adapted to the new terrain format)

 

For sure there are more detail aspects to solve, but I guess first of all you have to decide which general path is more appropriate for your requirements.

[pascal.winistoerfer]

hi guys

 

the way i would do that:

 

A) Take a Software from which you can grab Reallife Heightmaps of Real Terrain in the world "Geometry" there are some good Freewares around

 

B ) Import this Heigtmap to Unigine (that's the easy way), else use C)

 

C) You take the software World Machine 2 and import the Terrain Height there. World Machine can export Meshes and they are like you said huge loud of vertices, if you wish that, but you also can drive on low vertices/polygon count.

 

i personaly would export a height polygon mesh, safe that and use for the game a mesh with optimized modifier which reduces your mesh's vertices.

 

 

PS: World Machine gives you nice tools like erroding, canyoning, creation of beaches, even water caves, seas, and so on.

 

 

Our Terrain (a part of it) is not reallife heighten, but the only thing you would make different is add a heigtmap that dictates the program how to create hills and stuff - not like in our case generated virtual ones.

[cory.sharplin]

hi guys

 

the way i would do that:

 

A) Take a Software from which you can grab Reallife Heightmaps of Real Terrain in the world "Geometry" there are some good Freewares around

 

B ) Import this Heigtmap to Unigine (that's the easy way), else use C)

 

C) You take the software World Machine 2 and import the Terrain Height there. World Machine can export Meshes and they are like you said huge loud of vertices, if you wish that, but you also can drive on low vertices/polygon count.

 

i personaly would export a height polygon mesh, safe that and use for the game a mesh with optimized modifier which reduces your mesh's vertices.

 

 

PS: World Machine gives you nice tools like erroding, canyoning, creation of beaches, even water caves, seas, and so on.

 

 

Our Terrain (a part of it) is not reallife heighten, but the only thing you would make different is add a heigtmap that dictates the program how to create hills and stuff - not like in our case generated virtual ones.

 

 

Hi Pascal,

 

If you would be so kind I would appreciate a tutorial on how you are performing your world machine to Unigine exports? And, what's the best way for mapping ground textures for Unigine from WM2?

 

Currently we use GeoControl2 export as a 4096*4096 bmp then convert the bmp to png in photoshop expand the png to 4097*4097 then import into Unigine and flip 180. (terrian looks fine) But I am unsure the best method for texture mapping for the terrain from this point on?

 

Anyone willing to share more info on the terrian pipeline?

 

Cheers,

Cory

[steve3d]

so, the best way might be the wcs, or virtual nature studio. I will try these thanks a lot

[pascal.winistoerfer]

it's very easy with World Machine, you can set under Document Preferences how big your terrain should be, this prevents you from having to scale it in photoshop and within that to loose quality.

 

you have an option directly on the same screen to give the map n +1 pixel, so you ahve for example 4097 Pixels Maps, you even see how many meters will be on one quad and so.

 

then you just render the world and export the .png "highres" via Heightmap Output from the Output tab (or the one in the default project)

 

if you need more details, just hook up with me, i can share that if it helps you :)

 

regards

pascal

[steve3d]

hi, pascal, you might not fully understand what i want, I don't want to create a terrain from scrach, instead, I need a terrain recreated from reallife terrain, precisly terrain.

 

But, anyway, thanks a lot, how can I contact you? msn? or something?

[danni.coy]

hi, pascal, you might not fully understand what i want, I don't want to create a terrain from scrach, instead, I need a terrain recreated from reallife terrain, precisly terrain.

 

But, anyway, thanks a lot, how can I contact you? msn? or something?

 

I would try getting the data as a GeoTiff if you can. you could then try using Photoshop to convert it to a 16bit greyscale dds file or use ImageMagick to convert to a 16bit greyscale png (Photoshop screws up the png conversion I haven't tried the dds but it is a plugin and may behave differently). We are looking at Krita (www.krita.org) as a possible replacement for hand tweaking height maps when a windows version is released as it exports 16bit greyscale maps. 16bit greyscale maps give much better results than 8bit greyscale maps.

 

Currently we do all our terrains as static meshes. But we are taking a look at terrain again now that the new system has been released. Another approach is to bring a mesh into a 3d modelling package and save it as an obj and then use the command line terrain generation tool that ships with unigine. (does this still work with the existing system?)

 

What I would like to see is a a terrain conversion tool in engine. It wouldn't be that hard to write in unigine-script. you would just want to define a bounding region and choose a resolution then do a whole bunch of collision tests and render the results to an image.