MM Example - Using Google

[Mraah]

To test Stridor's MM program I'm going to build my HeightMap by hand using Google Earth as a reference.

I chose real terrain near the city of Kharkov. The screenshot below shows the real world image overlayed on the AI map I'm creating. The river is ~ 88m above sea level and the bottom right corner of the map is ~ 120 meters above sea level. The north side of the river is ~ the same height of the river so I'm going to have to make it slightly higher. The bottom left corner of the river will be a shallow crossing or back door for getting across the river.

As you can see from the screenshot it appears to have natural defences on each side of the bridge since the terrain at each end of the bridge needs to be "built-up" . Although I'll try to match the height I'm also going to build in height changes that should give it some tactical help, ie defensive positions on each side of the bridge.

If you want to see the actual location in Google Earth you can create a Placemarker using this lat/long (decimals), this should zip you over to the bridge area I'm working on ...

Latitude 49.675769
Longitude 36.435332

Set your view settings to :

Latitude 49.678372
Longitude 36.434775
Range 2558m
Heading 4.0
Tilt 0.0

I'll show you later on as to how the sculpting parts came out.

Thanks for looking,
Rob

[Mraah]

This is a rought draft ... generally sculpting the terrain from scratch takes longer ... obviously it's faster to start with contours and tweak them with the tools.

That is all ... making real world maps take longer ...

EDIT NOTE : Doesn't take forever ... nor is it impossible ... By the way, closer examination of google earth reveals this to be a RailRoad crossing!

[Stridor]

Nice work Rob [:D]

If you go over the riverbanks with the adjust and filter tools you can eaily make the rivers look natural and avoid the Z buffer errors of the PCK engine [:@] (eg you need ~ 0.5 Meters between the river surface and the next HM step up to the river bank).

Regards

S.

[Mraah]

Yeah ... the smoothing tool helped a bunch, but knowing the 0.5 trick will help even more.

Rivers are still a major PITA ... they require a lot of patience.

It's taken me a lot of experience to get the roads to level to my liking ... again, it takes time to work out the small details but it's worth it!

I'm going to move along (actually away from rivers!).

There's still some more tricks to get it right ... such as smoothing, noise, etc. I found myself chasing my tail after smoothing (glad you'll have an undo key later!).

Thanks!

Rob