LOD from image.

Jack Ruby · Post by **Jack Ruby** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 3:29 pm

I saw Bjarnes beautiful hills. I never really played around with load from image, read a few lines in the SDK docs and within 10 minutes realised how simple it is to do and really nice results, this was only a first attempt and I'm sure some really cool terrain can be made, I have had an idea for a map for a while ( well I got loads of ideas but not many are likely to be any use ) and this could be exactly the thing I was looking for.

I dont need any questions answered just thought I would give anyone else that hasnt found this function yet the chance to see what can be done with it

this simple map took about 5-10 mins to make, if I had edited vertices woulda taken a couple hours I imagine.

One big problem with it I just found was that when I opened the .map again the LOD has gone, anyone know why this is ??

Post by **Bjarne BZR** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 4:19 pm

Yep, its REALLY easy if you have a good paint program ( so you can use smoth brushes ).

Basically you cover the area you want to design with a LOD -> save it to an image -> Edit the image in a paint program -> Load it back in -> If not satisfied: Go back to the paint program.

Simple ( and very fun as well ).

bdbodger · Post by **bdbodger** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 4:25 pm

I have never had a problem with lod dissapearing . One other trick you can use is to detach part of the terain and save to image , edit it and load it back then move the patches over and back to bring up the merge dialog box and reattach it . Just be carefull about the edges where the patches will join . It is a good trick for lets say a trench or for those times when the terain does not match what you see when you compile usally after reloading it will match what you see . One other problem some of the time when you save to image you will see a message like scaleing by a factor of 2 to fit image , this will some of the time lower your nice big hills . One thing I like to do is to blur the image in the graphics program then change the contrast so that you get whiter areas (areas go gray after blur) which are the high areas .

Jack Ruby · Post by **Jack Ruby** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 6:12 pm

I figured it, in View/Filter terrain was ticked, never was before not sure why it changed itself but my terrain is back

This maybe the nicest, easiest Radiant feature I have seen yet, though I do like the E button with a brush selected

Jack Ruby · Post by **Jack Ruby** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 6:55 pm

Another question, I am gonna need a pretty big piece of lod, I am hoping that I can get my fps up if I use a small farplane and use farplane cull.

Will all the lod be drawn or will it be culled outside my farplane as normal brushes would be ?

Alcoholic · Post by **Alcoholic** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 8:57 pm

EVERYTHING will be culled outside the farplane.