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Level Design Terrain Issue/Question

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Linoleum

Linoleum

Grizzled Veteran
Mar 18, 2006
199
0
Midlands UK
#1
Basically i have two terrains one for the normal level and one for the floor of a trench system. i copied and pasted the first terrain to make the trench floor terrain. i was wondering if they have to align up or something? because when im changing the levels in the two terrains it keeps 'disfiguring' it and when i re build and test the level the terrain around the trench system and play the game the terrain is all pointy and stuff. 'eres sum pics...

this is what it looks like in UnrealED:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v630/HalfDigested/2.jpg

this is what it looks like ingame:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v630/HalfDigested/1.jpg
 
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#3
If you post the map up I could take a look. This has happened to me before but I cannot remember what caused it or how I fixed it. I always set my terrain to 0, 0, 0 under location and then lock them into place (under Terrain Info > Advanced) to prevent any accidental moves or rotations. I suspect this is a problem with the heightmap in some way but I can't be sure without seeing the map.

Do you happen to have a previous version before this problem occurred? If you do then go back into that one and copy the terrain into the file you're currently working on so you don't lose all of the other work you did on the map. Hope you get the issue resolved because redoing terrain late in a map's development is a real pain.
 
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#4
you dont think maybe its because i copied one terrain and pasted it maybe and its confused the editor, because they both have the same heightmap info..

i have two terrains:
terraininfo0 <<normal terrain
terraininfo2 <<trench terrain

They both have the same heightmaps which is:
Heightmap
Format:G16
Size:256x256
Scale: 64.0 / 64.0 / 64.0 <is that what you were on about setting to 0?


I save a normal file and a backup file before i do anything drastic so yeah i have a file before i put the terrain. Im going to try in a min creating a whole new terrain rather than copy and pasting and see if its that. i dont have to have one zone info per terrain do i??

This is actually my first map, im pretty new to mapping and ive only been learning a couple of weeks.
 
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#5
SchutzeSepp said:
i have never seen that happening. instead of making 2 terrains you should maybe make the trench floor out of bsp, and give it the right texture. 2 terrains are verry hard on the engine, and cost you alot of fps
Click to expand...

It you have 2 full-scale terrains, true.. and it's not nesscary hard on the engine is you're drawing alot of triangles.

For something like a trench bit or other smaller area, it's pretty acceptable to use a smaller size & scale terrain (or several). Plus you should be able to set a CullDistance on them too so your extra terrains aren't even thought about being rendered until you get near the trenches.

---

As for the original problem, I can honestly say I've never seen that sorta thing.. and I'm a triangle tweaker on terrains too..
If that is your only trouble spot, you might want to just flip the triangle there and see if does what you want it to do.
 
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#7
UncleDrax said:
It you have 2 full-scale terrains, true.. and it's not nesscary hard on the engine is you're drawing alot of triangles.

.
Click to expand...

from the screenshot it looks like the terrain has a pretty dense triangle pattern, and he said he copied the first terrain to make the second one.
so linoleum, i would suggest that you find another way to do this.
make the floor out of bsp, or like mentioned make smaller terrain patches, but nothing tells us the problem will disappear then.

@LtKettch, stretching the terrain with the scale settings works perfectly fine for me, even no need to have values that are powers of 2. simply stay off the Z value, only change X and Y
 
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#8
okay ive seemed to have worked it out now. i opened up the level with one terrain in and put another terrain in, manually this time though not copy and paste and it seems to have worked fine.
here's a pic of it now:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v630/HalfDigested/3.jpg

so i guess the problem was because it was duplicated the editor did'nt know what heightmap to change...

SchutzeSepp is it hard to make bsp terrain? i aint done it before. couldnt i just create another terrain and use the visibilty tool to make all the terrain except the trench floor invisible? surely that should take take a load off the engine?
 
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#11
Linoleum said:
SchutzeSepp is it hard to make bsp terrain? i aint done it before. couldnt i just create another terrain and use the visibilty tool to make all the terrain except the trench floor invisible? surely that should take take a load off the engine?
Click to expand...

Using more then 1 terrain is not going to kill the FPS in your map. Especially if it's for something like a trench floor. For example, Smolensk Stalemate is made up of 4 terrains and it runs fine.

Just make sure you build every terrain separately and don't copy the terrain actors to make new ones.
 
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Upvote 0
#12
Rak said:
Check if your terrain actors have moved accidentally too. This one got me go nuts while doing Kryukovo . . . Place all the static meshes and then realise that the terrain was 20 centimeters off.
Click to expand...

This is a prime example of why you should start with your main terrain info in the center of the world (xyz=0) and lock the location (Terrain Info Properties > Advanced > LockLocation = True). Of course any secondary terrains will not be at xyz = 0, but they should still be locked in place at all times.

Linoleum, you could make your secondary terrain(s) the same size as the main terrain and then just go to town with the visibility tool but this is not very optimized. The map size will definitely suffer because of the larger sized heightmap. My advice would be to create a much smaller heightmap (eg, 128x128) instead of another 512x512 (or whatever you're currently using). That should not hurt the FPS very much at all (as the other guys mentioned) and will be easier to work with.

Glad you fixed the problem though, well done. :cool:

While we're on the topic of terrains I thought this little tidbit may be of interest. Embedding your Terrain Info into an AntiPortal (say, under a large hill) will make your terrain completely disappear. To fix this simply move the AP out of the way. until you move the AP. Would be nice if there was a way to offset the Terrain Info actor so you could still have the AP there.
 
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#13
the visibiltity tool only makes the terrain unvisible, the engine still has to render it all.
on the first versions of my map pariserplatz i had a 512 x512 terrain and later on i replaced it by a 256 x 256 terrain that i scaled up twice, you wouldn't believe what that did to improve performance. especially on a map that is already flirting with the orange-red line of fps.
 
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#15
DrGuppy said:
My advice would be to create a much smaller heightmap (eg, 128x128) instead of another 512x512 (or whatever you're currently using).
Click to expand...

just to make sure do you mean create a smaller second terrain (i.e the trench floor) ?
so main heightmap 512x512 then secondary terrain(s) 128x128?

is there anyway i can edit the current xy size of my terrains?

one small problem, when i test the map and die in the trench, the player model sort of flashes dark and bright really fast.
 
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#16
maybe the zone info, try make a copy and put it in the trench, it might sorta Z fight between zoneinfo(and also zonelighting) terrain0 and zoneinfo terrain1
maybe no zoneinfoactor for terrain1 means black(unlit) texture, maybe this causes the fast changing of dark / bright.

just guessing but it could just be the case.

(also you can now try have shade in your trench, set zonelight lower than in normal terrain, worth a try)
 
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#19
You can scale the terrain up or down using DGUnreal's Heightmap Conversion Software (http://www.lilchips.com/dgunreal/tools-hmcs.asp). I used this to extend my terrain size without losing the original shape deformations I had made (note: All edge turn and visibility tool changes will revert to a default state).

For more terrain information than you'll ever need to know check out these two links.

http://www.lilchips.com/dgunreal/ldro-tutterraindesign.asp
http://www.redorchestragame.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6883
 
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