Canyon Terrain Editor

[Entar]

Hmm, not sure what would cause those out of place triangles. I'll take a look into that. If you have too many vertices, there's a button to the right side that reduces the detail, which should help the compiler... not die.

[Chip]

Hmm, not sure what would cause those out of place triangles. I'll take a look into that. If you have too many vertices, there's a button to the right side that reduces the detail, which should help the compiler... not die.

No issue with the compiler, I just need the output to be perfect.

What about optimizing the final terrain? Any ideas? As in inside the map editor.

[Entar]

Well, for flat areas, you can merge some of the brushes (I know at least Radiant has this capability). If some of the brushes are nearly flat but not quite, you can use CTE's flatten tool to even them out and then merge them in the map editor.

Alternatively, you could also export a lower detail version and copy the parts that are farther away from the play area into the final version, and cut down some excessive brushes that way too.

[Entar]

Here's a little test I whipped up with CTE and GTKRadiant for Q3 .map export. It's not super detailed, but you get the idea.

[Entar]

Hey guys,
I've been starting up some development on this again, and I'll probably be making another beta release some time in the next few weeks. Before I do, though, I'm looking for more feedback on bugs to fix, features to add, suggestions to consider, etc. So, please give it a try and let me know what kind of experiences you have with it, and what would be really handy to have changed.
Thanks!

[Baker]

Entar ... just something small and it only has to do with the readme ...

The readme says something about using the output "for non-commercial use" or something to that effect, which actually makes using TerrainGen for a GPL project license incompatible.

So you can't use the tool to make a GPL map.

Anyway, for your consideration.

[Entar]

That's true, I think I'll look into doing something about that. However, TerrainGen is now outdated, because Canyon Terrain Editor can import heightmaps and export .map files, so you should be able to just use that in the meantime. Chances are good that I'll add some kind of random terrain generation to the next version of CTE too.

[Entar]

The second beta of Canyon Terrain Editor is now available. There's a fair chunk of new stuff in this version, including some slight improvements to the user interface, basic random terrain generation, some important bugfixes, and more. Give it a shot and, as always, let me see the cool stuff you make with it!

Here is a link to the totally informative blog post I wrote about the new release and its features: http://entardev.wordpress.com/2010/07/2 ... or-beta-2/

Link to the editor page: http://entardev.wordpress.com/other-pro ... in-editor/

[Spike]

someone needs to make a light tool that smooths light over edges.

[Entar]

someone needs to make a light tool that smooths light over edges.

Light tool? Do you mean that it smooths the normals without changing the vertex positions, so that the shading is more smooth? Sounds like a pretty sweet idea, actually, thanks

[Spike]

if you make the assumption that any angle less than 45 degrees between two surfaces is meant to be a curve, then you can blend the normal across the surface in the lighting util causing the light values received to be more correct for the logical normal if the surface were curved. Realtime lighting will still show the surface as a q1 surface.
in practical terms, you don't know which surfaces are your terrain by the time light is run, so it should be possible to run it on all surfaces as a general tool.
Q1/Q2bsp has edge lists for each surface. match these up to the neighbouring surfaces and there you have your neighbour.
I would be surprised if q3map2 does not already contain something along these lines.

[Entar]

While this sounds like a good idea, it occurs to me that .map files are constructed in such a way that you can't modify the normals without modifying the structure of the brush itself (as far as I know). So this would really only benefit people using .obj or some other model format that I may potentially add, or maybe people making stuff in the editor and taking screenshots.

[Spirit]

aguirRe's light tool actually has an _anglesense key to do that (if I understood it correctly).

[Spike]

it does?
well, there's your light tool! :)
would look much smoother then

[Entar]

Canyon Terrain Editor Beta 3 is now available! This release includes a number of important fixes for some annoying bugs (like that ugly pattern that appeared when texturing in one place for too long) and some new features (like a better erase brush and automatically added file extensions).

Here's a link to the full post about it on my website: http://entardev.wordpress.com/2010/09/1 ... or-beta-3/

Canyon Terrain Editor page: http://entardev.wordpress.com/other-pro ... in-editor/

Have fun, let me know what you think, and bring back some cool screenshots!