Help me make this heigthmap a mesh

[GorkerMorker]

Hi there,

While i'm pretty familiar with making maps for unreal engines, i'm not familiar at all with making organic terrain based maps (though i used some in my UT2004 maps).
I knew i needed a proper heigth map, and I think this one i made has just the right parameters for it. I'm using the SRTM3 scale (Black is high, white is low, going from red down to green).

Now how do I make this picture into a terrain mesh?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v58/Gorkermorker/QW.jpg

Any help would be most welcome.

Cheers, Gorker.

[[]v[]]

Try using my tutorial from the conversion section.
http://quakewarsmapping.blogspot.com/
Basically use Microdem too convert too a greyscale heightmap.
And then you have 2 options too convert to a mesh.

[GorkerMorker]

Awesome, glad i used the right scale. I will try that!

[grizzlybear]

v that tutorial is sweet
you rock! :)
t'internets a wonderful place

[[]v[]]

Cheers z!

I just tried loading up that pic into Wilbur and it outputted this .obj file.
http://i4.tinypic.com/6fzd0sh.jpg
Not sure if that was the desired shape.

[GorkerMorker]

Oh it looks better then I anticipated. But I tought green was meant to be lower then orange. That's what the SRTM3 scale says anyway. That green mountain range was meant to be a valley /gorge.

Now, I realised before hand that this map lacks 'border mountains' to block any distance fog.

If I had this kind of shape, would it be possible to build lower detail mountains around them not meant to be walked around on of course.

I missed the beta keys (no payed fileplanet account), how do the bordering work? Just like in battlefield? Were you get shot for deserting?

Damn I love this. I'm still struggling on the smoothing in the mesh itself but I'll figure that one out sooner or later though. After I made this a proper working map I'll start on a map based on 'Lac D'oo' a gorgeous mountain lake in the pyrenees.

[[]v[]]

How did you create that heightmap?

[ratty redemption]

is there a reason for not using greyscale heightmaps?

[Mordenkainen]

is there a reason for not using greyscale heightmaps?

Greyscale are usually 8-bit (sometimes 16-bit). If you can use more than one (or two) colour channels you cram in more information.

The problem is that few applications work with colour heightmaps and when they do it's never in a standard way. Throw in different image formats into the mix and things can get pretty chaotic.

Personally, I stick with 8-bit and 16-bit grayscale because of these work pipeline problems.

Oh it looks better then I anticipated. But I tought green was meant to be lower then orange. That's what the SRTM3 scale says anyway. That green mountain range was meant to be a valley /gorge.

It depends on what kind of conversion you do. Intensity will be biased toward red, CMYK will bias toward black and RGB will bias toward whites, etc.

I missed the beta keys (no payed fileplanet account), how do the bordering work? Just like in battlefield? Were you get shot for deserting?

With beta 2 you can play offline against bots so you can use that to see how SD built their terrain. As for borders yes you do get killed for going OoBs but the "borders" don't work like BF2's secondary terrains. You'll have to manually model the distant mountains and attach them to your playable terrain so you get a single model.

[ratty redemption]

mordenkainen, understood and thanks.

[MoP]

Just a note, for our terrains we used greyscale 16-bit and 32-bit floating point heightmaps wherever possible - 8 bit doesn't really have good enough accuracy to make a nice big terrain without some visible stepping.
Not sure where the colour heightmap stuff comes in, seems a little unnecessary to me. Easier to represent height as shades of grey IMHO :)

[GorkerMorker]

There's a reason why I used the colour in my heigthmaps. I wanted to know wether or not i could accurately import SRTM3 heigthmaps as a mesh.

SRTM3 goes from black/deep red towards yellow, and from there on lowers to green, bright green, white. Black is high, white is low.

Why all this? That nifty addon []v[] came up with uses the SRTM3 on google earth maps. This would basically mean that you could base your quake wars maps on real locations (and in a very accurate way) anywhere in the world. But converting the colour SRTM3 pictures to greyscales would mean that green isn't one of the lowest level colours anymore. As you can see, my gorge became a mountain.

To solve this i need a way to translate SRTM3 into grey in an accurate way, or i need an addon for google earth that uses greyscales.

I'd really want Lac D'oo as a map in ET QW. It's one of the awesomest places to have a battle in.
Lac'doô pictures (http://www.lacsdespyrenees.com/lac-212-Lac%20d'O%F4.html)

[ratty redemption]

interesting.

[[]v[]]

As you can see, my gorge became a mountain.

To solve this i need a way to translate SRTM3 into grey in an accurate way, or i need an addon for google earth that uses greyscales.

If you use the tut you will get a compatible file. The srtm file input seems to be buggy on my version of Microdem. But you can load the asc files through open dem.

I tried finding that area for you.

This is the asc file in microdem
http://i2.tinypic.com/66ajhnc.jpg

This is the greyscale heightmap
http://i5.tinypic.com/4qsyu11.jpg

This is the model mesh
http://i19.tinypic.com/54lmpmw.jpg

Im sure thats the area, but its simple to do. Not so easy to find the exact area you want.
You could save that greyscale height map and use that, but its for a fairly large area.

[GorkerMorker]

You're absolutely amazing!

I'd really like to try that myself now. And try to play around with some stuff (the lake has a dam, and is of course deeper then the heigthmap (that only measures the water surface) suggests. But this is indeed awesome!

[[]v[]]

This is a slightly better area.
Just the lake and surrounding mountains.
http://i7.tinypic.com/6akkxkx.jpg

[PytoX]

Nice stuff []v[] ;)

[GorkerMorker]

Will do! (Or at least try).

The editor tools haven't been released as of yet right? I mean, i can't try to generate a megatexture yet or can I?

[Hakuryu]

Um...if you are using Microdem (like in the Google Earth to heightmap tutorial), you can change the appearance to greyscale easily.

Just right click on the colored image when Microdem starts, choose "Display Parameters" then "Elevation" ... that will open a window in which you choose "Greyscale".

Walla! Your SRTM has been changed to greyscale.

[GorkerMorker]

Yeah okay, but does that mean that the green zone here will be lower then the rest? Because if you put everything in a greyscale in a normal way the green will become darker and you get the effect []V[] showed us, the gorge becomes a mountain which is not the intention.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v58/Gorkermorker/QW.jpg

[[]v[]]

To do what Hakuryu suggested you would need a file that is compatible with microdem.
If you just have the jpg it's pretty much useless.
Either use the greyscale image i gave you to create an obj terrain mesh or
start from the beginning of the tutorial to create your own.

[kat]

Just a note, for our terrains we used greyscale 16-bit and 32-bit floating point heightmaps wherever possible - 8 bit doesn't really have good enough accuracy to make a nice big terrain without some visible stepping.
Not sure where the colour heightmap stuff comes in, seems a little unnecessary to me. Easier to represent height as shades of grey IMHO :)Plus of course colour TONE doesn't translate well for the same reason it buggers up normal maps made from images.. the tools don't know 'blue' and 'red' are supposed respresnt height/depth, whereas you do (I don't mean 'you' personally MoP ;) heh).

You should be using greyscale images, rather than converting a colour images bit depth to "8 bit greyscale" you should actually be desaturating them becasue that keeps the bit depth (24bit) and give you better tonality - that is unless the tools are only looking for actual 8 bit greyscale source files?

[sion47]

That Lac'doô looks like a nice place but it would make a map pretty similar to the Valley map which we already have ingame -if u wanna make it in a summer setting. U would get a more unique map in a winter setting with the lake frozen (dunno if its supported by the engine though :( ) so u can drive through it with vehicles (and terrain would need less vegetation which is a nice thing fps wise.. i guess) IMO.

The pics gave me some inspiration about objectives as well:

-Some objective in an ice-cave would be cool (behind that waterfall would be a great place for such cave) maybe repairing/blowing up a generator or stuff like that would fit in there.

-The stroggs mining laser (which we could have seen in a few videos already on ark and area22) could melt a hole in the icy side of the mountain revealing some hidden research facility (similar to ark's) which might even contain some secret stuff u gotta steal as attacker. Or even better! -the mining laser should blow up the dam u mentioned there! -That would be an epic ending for a map isnt it? :D

-Or the dam could be a great place for some indoors action with some hack/destroy objective in the depths of it.

(ps: yes im totally clueless about modding/map making, just though i might give some creative ideas about your plans for that nice terrain if u want to make a nice et-style map out of it :D)

[MoP]

GorkerMorker: Just do what Hakuryu said (and []v[] in his tutorial!), microDem should convert your SRTM3 heightmap to a greyscale heightmap correctly.

Those are all nice ideas sion47, I really like the sound of a frozen lake and ice caves... would look really cool :)

[ratty redemption]

mop, I think its very cool how much help and encouragement you sd guys are giving this community :)

[Kamikazee]

mop, I think its very cool how much help and encouragement you sd guys are giving this community :)

That's because them guys are kewl.

[GorkerMorker]

That Lac'doô looks like a nice place but it would make a map pretty similar to the Valley map which we already have ingame -if u wanna make it in a summer setting. U would get a more unique map in a winter setting with the lake frozen (dunno if its supported by the engine though :( ) so u can drive through it with vehicles (and terrain would need less vegetation which is a nice thing fps wise.. i guess) IMO.

The pics gave me some inspiration about objectives as well:

-Some objective in an ice-cave would be cool (behind that waterfall would be a great place for such cave) maybe repairing/blowing up a generator or stuff like that would fit in there.

-The stroggs mining laser (which we could have seen in a few videos already on ark and area22) could melt a hole in the icy side of the mountain revealing some hidden research facility (similar to ark's) which might even contain some secret stuff u gotta steal as attacker. Or even better! -the mining laser should blow up the dam u mentioned there! -That would be an epic ending for a map isnt it? :D

-Or the dam could be a great place for some indoors action with some hack/destroy objective in the depths of it.

(ps: yes im totally clueless about modding/map making, just though i might give some creative ideas about your plans for that nice terrain if u want to make a nice et-style map out of it :D)

What makes Lac'doo so interesting is that you need to go trough a truly spectacular (european standards of course) mountain passage to actually get there, with lots of narrow pathways and spots to lay in ambushes, almost unaccesable for but the lightest vehicles.

My idea was that a huge strogg beacon/fortress droppod has landed in the lake (maybe even trough the ice as you suggested, War of the World's style). The GDI need to take over the controls of the pod, which are being situated in the nearby house. Activating the pod which makes it unfold itself, and become a huge construct beacon above the water surface. This exposes the pod to attacks, be it from the inside or outside, still have to figure that one out.

Above the lake are also a few smaller lakes, connecting to D'oo with a brilliant waterfall.
Letting that freeze over would make it a brilliant icecave, a research facility which would create excellent possiblities for a secondary objective.

[sion47]

I'd suggest to blow up its "core" from the inside with the "standard" solja goes in, plants explosive method (maybe there should be a hack objective as well on the outside of that pod to turn off its energy shields so there would be an outdoors objective as well) . Bombarding from outside might look more epic but a lil indooor fight never hurts :)
Do whatever u wish ofc just throwin ideas :D

[ratty redemption]

sounds cool and reminds me of james bond movies. probably some inspiration could be taken from those :)

[GorkerMorker]

I'd suggest to blow up its "core" from the inside with the "standard" solja goes in, plants explosive method (maybe there should be a hack objective as well on the outside of that pod to turn off its energy shields so there would be an outdoors objective as well) . Bombarding from outside might look more epic but a lil indooor fight never hurts :)
Do whatever u wish ofc just throwin ideas :D

Instead of an energy field i'd like to submerge to the surface of the lake after that it becomes accesible and maybe a spawpoint for strogg.