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Re: Terrain Generator plug-in
someone has a video about the how to do?
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currently ;China
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Re: Terrain Generator plug-in
wow Keet! You are the best. just the Video explains all. Many thanks!
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Re: Terrain Generator plug-in
wow Keet! You are the best. just the Video explains all. Many thanks!
You should read this thread from the beginning. All these videos are listed in posts in this thread
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Re: Terrain Generator plug-in
Is there any way I can super impose a background image for a terrain? I would like to design based on an image. Please advice.
Not a background image but you can set your image as the floor texture for the room you are using for the Terrain Generator. Set the texture on the room, then adjust the scale and position of the image so it nicely fits the room. Then start The Terrain Generator and it will show the room with the texture.
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Re: Terrain Generator plug-in
I don't know if this behavior is intentional, or what sense it makes, but... When I create a level with a space for terrain around my house, e.g., with a depth of -200, and then activate the generator, the generator's preview window always shows the terrain mesh to be edited only at level 0, without the actual room depth. As a result, the ratio of terrain to house doesn't match, and terraforming can only be done by feel and in "blind flight." Only after completing the generator does the terrain appear at the correct level. This makes it practically impossible to orient the terrain to the house. Am I doing something wrong?
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Re: Terrain Generator plug-in
I don't know if this behavior is intentional, or what sense it makes, but... When I create a level with a space for terrain around my house, e.g., with a depth of -200, and then activate the generator, the generator's preview window always shows the terrain mesh to be edited only at level 0, without the actual room depth. As a result, the ratio of terrain to house doesn't match, and terraforming can only be done by feel and in "blind flight." Only after completing the generator does the terrain appear at the correct level. This makes it practically impossible to orient the terrain to the house. Am I doing something wrong?
That is the default (and fixed) behavior. The floor thickness is not a data point for the generator, only the room circumference. The generator creates 'depth', i.e. raises selected points of the terrain grid. At the bottom right you can select to display a wire frame of the house.
The fact that the generator always uses level 0 was discussed some time ago, until then I didn't even realize that was the default behavior and I experimented a lot! You state that the ratio of terrain to house doesn't match but I assume you mean the (start-)height of the terrain that you want at a level with elevation -200. I depends on what you want to achieve but since you want the terrain object at a level -200 I assume you want parts of the terrain below the 0 elevation. There are tricks but it depends on what what result you want. Explain it a little more and I can give better advise.
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Re: Terrain Generator plug-in
I'll try to explain this and hope it comes across reasonably clearly: I have a house that's built on a slope (Level 0). The house has a platform in the rear (north) section that's used as a parking area and also serves as the flat roof for the back part of the house (one level above... about 2.8 m). From there, an outdoor staircase leads to the entrance area (Level 0). In front of the house, there's a terrace spanning the entire west-east length (Level 0); this flows into a lower terrace via a staircase (Level -1, about 1.5 m lower). This lower terrace is bordered by a stone wall that stabilizes the rest of the slope, since the ground level drops about 6 m afterward.That means the terrain ranges from about -700 cm to about +280 cm.I'd now like to model the surrounding slope terrainâfrom the -700 up to the first terrace at -150, to the house level, the upper terrace at Level 0, the parking platform at +280, and beyond that (the mountainside)âas well as the surrounding slope structures. To do that, I'd need to build the terrain from the bottom up, and in the preview window, I'd have to be able to see the existing house/terrace construction so I can properly "mold" the terrain to fit against the structures. If I can't see the terrain I'm building in relation to the house while I'm doing it, it just won't work.If the terrain always starts at Level 0, I'd have to begin with the deepest point as Level 0, which would be a massive undertaking given the already constructed house and its internal levels. So, I hope that's somehow understandable...
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Re: Terrain Generator plug-in
That's quite a complex set of elevations to manage.
First a little lesson on how terrains are stored. Terrain elevations are stored in the Home.xml file in your .sh3d project file (The .sh3d file is a zip file). The generator adds a line for each point of the terrain grid in the section for the room it belongs to. It looks something like this:
It is not uncommon that the number of lines for a terrain grows to tens of thousands of lines which makes the file size of your project a lot bigger, really a lot bigger. Since you only need the room object(s) to generate the terrain object(s) it is common sense to use a copy of your project just for generating the terrain objects. You can then copy the generated terrain object to your original project without having the burden of the huge room object stored in the project file. You can always use the copied project if you want to change the terrain. When you select a room that already has terrain points the generator will read them and display the terrain. This makes is easy to edit an existing terrain. It's just that those thousands of lines are never used again, only by the terrain generator. The copy project also allows you to use additional objects for reference as you will see next.
The real problem is that the terrain generator shows both the room and the house on the same level. (Discussed before here .)As you found out that makes it difficult to relate the terrain elevations to the elevation of the house. What I do in such cases is to copy only the outside walls of the house to the copy 'terrain project'. Assume the shown terrain in the generator to start at the bottom, no matter what elevation that is. Calculate the height from the bottom of the lowest level to the bottom of your house level, in your case 700 if I read it correct. Set the height of the walls to that number. Select the walls and export them to 'walls.obj'. Import the walls.obj and set its height to the original height of your house walls and elevate it to the top of the existing walls (place it on top of those walls). This construction will show the house outline in the terrain generator by displaying the walls to the bottom of the house and the "house" itself as the walls.obj model on top of it. Of course you can only use the elevated model but the walls give you an extra reference. Since you now have a reference to the elevation and outline of your house it's much easier to create the terrain. And of course you can use multiple object for reference. Just elevate them to the correct position in relation to the room.
You can use multiple rooms for your terrain and of course they will all show on the same level. When you select multiple rooms and start the Terrain Generator it will show all selected rooms and you can edit them at the same time. This is useful for several reasons: smaller rooms are faster to handle in the generator and you can have separate textures for the terrain parts. The connecting rooms will elevate at the same time to ensure a prefect flow from one to the other. Although the generator will generate a single object for all selected rooms the data is stored per room. That allows you to delete the combined terrain object, select a single room and use that to generate a terrain only for that room. Repeat for all rooms and you have a terrain objects that you can give its own texture.
Now with multiple rooms you can do some really neat things! First read this post . It's an easy way to create rivers or paths since you can set a different texture for each room. it allows you to create a path or river that goes along with the flow of the terrain. Since then I found that there's an easier way to create a room-between-rooms: make sure the walls are enclosed and don't click inside the walls to create a room but click ON the wall. It will create a room using the outside outline of the walls instead of inside the walls. That will nicely fit against the room(s) you create on the outside of the walls.
If the terrain always starts at Level 0, I'd have to begin with the deepest point as Level 0, which would be a massive undertaking given the already constructed house and its internal levels.
There is a hack to easily edit the elevations of all levels but you will have to edit the Home.xml file in the .sh3d project file. When you open the Home.xml file with an editor it shows the levels like this:
As you can see the elevation is listed as "elevation='0.0'" in each level line. It's much easier to edit the elevation numbers this way if you have a lot of levels. Of course make sure you have a backup copy of your project before you try this!
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