best file type for height-mapped terrains?
by Mark Alsip · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 03/29/2009 (8:03 pm) · 2 replies
I've built some grayscale terrain heightmaps for my game world, but am having a hard time getting TGEA to recognize any of them. I am wondering if this could be due to the file type of my Photoshop-exported map image? I've tried .PNG, .JPG, and .BMP, all 256x256 pixels square.
Loading the heightmaps into my world via the Terrain Terraform menu option, choosing output type (operation) to Bitmap, and navigating to my heightmap file, TGEA doesn't seem to be having any trouble loading them, but then applying the heightmaps as per the tutorial -- nothing changes. I'm still looking at the original (old) terrain. I don't seem to find any problems in the mission log file so I'm kind of baffled
One odd thing about this, it's almost like the last terrain I loaded is cached someplace. (Yeah, I'm really clutching for straws on this one).
Thanks in advance for any thoughts and suggestions you might have about this..
Loading the heightmaps into my world via the Terrain Terraform menu option, choosing output type (operation) to Bitmap, and navigating to my heightmap file, TGEA doesn't seem to be having any trouble loading them, but then applying the heightmaps as per the tutorial -- nothing changes. I'm still looking at the original (old) terrain. I don't seem to find any problems in the mission log file so I'm kind of baffled
One odd thing about this, it's almost like the last terrain I loaded is cached someplace. (Yeah, I'm really clutching for straws on this one).
Thanks in advance for any thoughts and suggestions you might have about this..
#2
If I completely delete the terrain node and everything under it, remove any references to terrain files from the TGEA folder structure for all missions, not just the one that's giving me problems, create a new terrain from a flat gray image that should give me a flat landscape throughout, and write a new terrain to disk -- I still get the default back. I went through all the deletion nonsense just mentioned on the thought I might have an accidental reference to some other terrain file.
It's so frustrating. Torque has allowed me to go farther in creating a viable game world, in a shorter time than any other engine or environment I've worked with. To be stopped dead for 2 days on something so simple. so frustrating.
03/30/2009 (3:19 pm)
I'm running v1.8 Michael. Thank you for the reply. I found a reference in Kenneth Finney's "3D Game Programming All in One" that says the "min height" field in the terrain properties is mislabeled and should say "Max" so for grins I went back in and tried swapping values there, but no joy. I'm still stuck with the default terrain. If I completely delete the terrain node and everything under it, remove any references to terrain files from the TGEA folder structure for all missions, not just the one that's giving me problems, create a new terrain from a flat gray image that should give me a flat landscape throughout, and write a new terrain to disk -- I still get the default back. I went through all the deletion nonsense just mentioned on the thought I might have an accidental reference to some other terrain file.
It's so frustrating. Torque has allowed me to go farther in creating a viable game world, in a shorter time than any other engine or environment I've worked with. To be stopped dead for 2 days on something so simple. so frustrating.
Associate Michael Hall
Distracted...