Art Tools for Terrain in TSE?
by David Dougher · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 07/12/2005 (5:02 pm) · 3 replies
I have been doing some serious hunting for the past week and I have run into a tools issue with TSE that I am hoping someone in the Art community can help me with.
TSE uses a 16 bit RAW file to act as a heightmap for terrain and allows you to overlay that heightmap with a single giant texture. The texture must currently be a .jpg, so that limits the maximum size to 64Kx64K
Here are my problems...
1. I cannot find a single art tool that can adequately handle 16 bit greyscale files. Both the latest Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro have art tools that can handle 8 bit grey scale but the majority of their tools do not work on 16 bit. Converting from 8 bit to 16 bit means that any fine grained height control is lost creating huge jumps in the terrain size.
2. Neither Photoshop nor Paint Shop Pro can generate a 64Kx64K texture. Paint Shop Pro 9 goes to 32,767x32,767 and Photoshop only goes to 32,000x32,000.
So does anybody know of any art tools that can handle 16 bit greyscale properly? And does anyone know of any art tools that handle .jpg textures up to 64Kx64K?
Thanks.
TSE uses a 16 bit RAW file to act as a heightmap for terrain and allows you to overlay that heightmap with a single giant texture. The texture must currently be a .jpg, so that limits the maximum size to 64Kx64K
Here are my problems...
1. I cannot find a single art tool that can adequately handle 16 bit greyscale files. Both the latest Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro have art tools that can handle 8 bit grey scale but the majority of their tools do not work on 16 bit. Converting from 8 bit to 16 bit means that any fine grained height control is lost creating huge jumps in the terrain size.
2. Neither Photoshop nor Paint Shop Pro can generate a 64Kx64K texture. Paint Shop Pro 9 goes to 32,767x32,767 and Photoshop only goes to 32,000x32,000.
So does anybody know of any art tools that can handle 16 bit greyscale properly? And does anyone know of any art tools that handle .jpg textures up to 64Kx64K?
Thanks.
About the author
Owner - Pariah Games, Adjunct Professor - Bristol Community College, Mentor - Game Design - Met School Newport, Mentor - Game Design - Met School Providence
#2
2: Photoshop CS can handle textures over 64k x 64k (afaik it's only the old version that don't)
Hope it helps.
-Joseph
edit: Sean beat me :p
07/12/2005 (5:13 pm)
1: if you have access to the TSE private forums read 16 bit raw / photoshop problems / new terrain2: Photoshop CS can handle textures over 64k x 64k (afaik it's only the old version that don't)
Hope it helps.
-Joseph
edit: Sean beat me :p
#3
Joseph - Thanks, I'm a TSE owner so I'll be reading the other forum post as well.
Thank you both for the help.
07/12/2005 (5:32 pm)
Sean - Yeah I don't have CS. I guess I'll see if they have a trial version and look into an update if it can handle it. Sounds really good.Joseph - Thanks, I'm a TSE owner so I'll be reading the other forum post as well.
Thank you both for the help.
Torque Owner Sean T. Boyette