LOD Terrain Mapper Wanted

CommandoKiller · Post by **CommandoKiller** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 8:44 pm

I want to create a map that has a mountian in the middle. I hate working with LOD terrain and im not very good with it. Anyone wanna make me a snowy mountain that has enough room for a small house on top? Ill make the base of the mountain and surrounding area. Just want the mountain itself.

Alcoholic · Post by **Alcoholic** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 9:27 pm

if you want a mountain with a nice, flat top, just select a number of vertices that form a nice, neat circle, then drag them all up at once. click lod terrain>area filter to make smoother settings.

General Death · Post by **General Death** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 11:10 pm

To use LOD or to use Gensurf, which is terrain useing brushes, depends on three things.

(1) How much of the grid will the terrain take up?
(2) How much editing of the terrain do you plan on doing after its creation?
(3) How much detail do you plan on having in the map?

LOD terrain eats up alot of rescoures but is easier to edit. If you have a medium to small outdoor map and not a large amount of models and other brushes your fps will maintain a high level.

Brush terrain can take up alot of grid space but can be more difficult to edit later as far as "smoothing areas" and allows a higher level of detail in your map.

Someone can create terrain for you but you will find learning and doing it yourself will prove very important when you need to fix an area due to layout issues or something else. If your not worried about things like that some more info on how you would want the mountain to look like would help

Balr14 · Post by **Balr14** » Fri Aug 01, 2003 2:17 am

You can't make much of a mountain with LOD terrain. it only rises 512 units per section, which averages out to a 45 degree pitch.

Alcoholic · Post by **Alcoholic** » Fri Aug 01, 2003 2:18 am

i think you can alter the radius and bulginess to make it higher

Balr14 · Post by **Balr14** » Sat Aug 02, 2003 11:27 pm

Alcoholic wrote:i think you can alter the radius and bulginess to make it higher

No you can't. You can make the section of terrain mostly flat, then rise to 512 over a short distance, then do the opposite (sharp rise then flat) on the next section of terrain, but you wind up with lots of steps and a rather unrealistic looking mountain. If you don't know how to use brushes, use patch meshes at 5 x 5 and reduce the complexity when you are done. You get a much nicer results without confining yourself to a rectangular shape.

CommandoKiller · Post by **CommandoKiller** » Sat Aug 02, 2003 11:42 pm

Im thinking like the mountain in the OBJ map Prado. If youve seen it, you know what i mean. I just want one side of the mountain and im gonna have a town at the bottom (i will make). I want a snow texture, but i can change that on my own. And wouldnt u be able to make multiple LOD terrain and stack them like stairs to make a taller hill/mountian?

Post by **Bjarne BZR** » Sat Aug 02, 2003 11:59 pm

A prado village like mountainside would best be done with Patch-meshes... think Prado is done with regular brushes... LOD cant be used ( to my knowledge, I'v been wrong before ).

General Death · Post by **General Death** » Sun Aug 03, 2003 12:49 pm

Yes you could do multi Lod sections....I dont think that would be the way to go performance wise.

For what you are describing I think Gensurf would best fit your layout and give you the best performance.

Balr14 · Post by **Balr14** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 3:15 am

BlackOp wrote:Im thinking like the mountain in the OBJ map Prado. If youve seen it, you know what i mean. I just want one side of the mountain and im gonna have a town at the bottom (i will make). I want a snow texture, but i can change that on my own. And wouldnt u be able to make multiple LOD terrain and stack them like stairs to make a taller hill/mountian?

I'll send you the Prado map file (also Prado 2) if you want it. By the way, it's triangle brushes. Prado2 already has the start of a town at the bottom of the mountain and nobody will know you didn't do it, because the map was never released.

Post by **Bjarne BZR** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:35 am

Balr14... you are obviously one of the good guys. I wish there were more guys like you, willing to share. ( Actually there are a lot, but the more the merrier )

CommandoKiller · Post by **CommandoKiller** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 1:48 pm

well i decided to try and build the hill side last night. I just used alot of brushes and cut them and fit them. And i would like to see Prado 2.

General Death · Post by **General Death** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 4:18 pm

Prado2 is an excellent map!!!

I think you will really enjoy that terrain!

Balr14 · Post by **Balr14** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 3:47 am

Here is a bunch of my Prado stuff, maps, bsps, etc. Do what you want with it, I no longer have any use for it.

http://hitp.gdn.net/Balr14/PradoStuff.zip