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Atlas 2 and Mapping

by Albert Steckenborn · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 08/30/2006 (3:44 am) · 11 replies

Hi guys,

i've read that Atlas 2 can handle nearly infinite terrain maps. For example i will make a map with 80 km x 80 km in game. Now i want to insert some Cities into these world. I see two problems with it.

1) How should i build the cities (i mean set the buildings into the world). With the build in editor (F11) ?
May be then i have a long move from one city to another.

2) The main terrain will be not so detailed. To build a city i need sometimes to correct or change the height of an small terrain area or make i planar to place a building on it. How can i handle this ?

Is there already a solution for it or is it necessary to programm something by my own ?

Thanks
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Torque Owner Stefan Lundmark
#1
08/30/2006 (4:45 am)
Quote:
1) How should i build the cities (i mean set the buildings into the world). With the build in editor (F11) ?

Yeah.

Quote:
May be then i have a long move from one city to another.

?

Quote:
2) The main terrain will be not so detailed. To build a city i need sometimes to correct or change the height of an small terrain area or make i planar to place a building on it. How can i handle this ?

You cannot yet alter the terrain within the game so you have to do it in your terrain tool.

Torque Owner Albert Steckenborn
Default Studio Name
#2
08/30/2006 (5:49 am)
If you want to set a House on a area then the area must be flat (around the house). If it's not flat then you have to do it in L3DT or another tool ? puuh this would be a hard work if you want to creat a city :-D

Torque Owner Stefan Lundmark
#3
08/30/2006 (6:09 am)
Yeah, right now that's the only way. :/

Torque 3D Owner Mary Westmacott
#4
08/31/2006 (3:23 pm)
You could also consider cutting out a section of the terrain where your city is located or just using your whole terrain and export it as a (DFX etc) grid. Then import the grid into your modeling program and build your city to conform to the terrain. When you are finished just save the city without the grid and place the city in the game.

Torque Owner Bobby Leighton
Imagn' Games
#5
08/31/2006 (3:45 pm)
Thats good advice!!....also as a side note in your modeling program make shure you are familiar with the scale of thing as they are related to Torque...max units to Torque units...ect....just a thought

Torque Owner Tim Holt
#6
08/31/2006 (6:09 pm)
Quote:
1) How should i build the cities (i mean set the buildings into the world). With the build in editor (F11) ?
May be then i have a long move from one city to another.
I know what you mean by this. Sometimes when creating HUGE worlds, there is no way to quickly zip from spot to spot. If you have two cities you are building, and they are 30 kilometers apart in game space, you can't just "fly" between them.

Personally I am very used to having a 2d side/top/front style of editor along with the 3d view. I would find this very useful at times when editing maps in TSE. The top view allows you to quickly center in on the portion of the map you want to work on, plus the other views make selection and alignment of items much easier as well.

Torque Owner Alan H
#7
09/01/2006 (12:32 pm)
This is the problem I'm having. I'm helping another project by building a ruined city for them. The gave me the HUGE terrain and, I kid you not, a satellite map of the part of the real world this ruins is in, and said, "have at it".

Well that was over a week ago and I still can't find the spot on the map to build the city - and neither can they. LOL!

Torque 3D Owner Mary Westmacott
#8
09/02/2006 (6:30 pm)
Tim said: "you can't just "fly" between them. "

Tim, I have some terrain created from 30 second data (which is about 926 meters) times 8192 (terrain width) or about 7.5 million meters. Its too far to walk, but in fly mode the movement speed which is normally between 5-200 meters per second can be given a little boost.

When I'm in fly mode and I hold down the 't' key I get a burst of speed until I release the key. When I get to where I'm going I hit F11 and drop the player. This is just quick and dirty but you get the idea. You can even give a boost to the boost. ;)

function flyTurboBoost(%val)
{
	if(%val)
	{
		if($Camera::movementSpeed < 2000)
			$Camera::movementSpeed += 2000;			
	}
	else
	{
		if($Camera::movementSpeed > 2000)
			$Camera::movementSpeed -= 2000;	
	}
}
moveMap.bind(keyboard, "t", flyTurboBoost);

Torque Owner Tim Holt
#9
09/04/2006 (2:52 pm)
Nice Mary, I had always wanted something like that. Good stuff!

Torque Owner Tom
#10
09/05/2006 (4:19 pm)
You could create the entire city as one giant dif, like with the floor etc, then you have like a think like a gate or something , or a railroad (in modern city?) that way no-one should notice the slight ramp from the terrain to the city map. its a quick and dirty hack that seems to work for me, but then again i use it for a fort of sorts so it works for the realism

Torque 3D Owner Jacob Dankovchik
#11
09/05/2006 (4:38 pm)
Just so you know, it's not gonna look too great. When you travel large distances like that, everything gets really jittery. I've made terrains where it got so bad my player litterally came apart.