I want my terrain heightmaps to look like this

[Lenn]

!!! Don't these look just great?

Made by worldmachine.

There are so many paramaters there on each stage... But i figure - maybe, just maybe, if I try hard enough, ill figure it out and in a month or two, who knows? Else, in a year or two.

Granted, some of these take up to 10 seconds to generate, and the most difficult and also cpu-intensive part is the excelent realistic erosion they have. *drool*

[Zaknafein]

You're going to need some normal-mapping-splatting or something else. There's no way you can encode so much detail in 2048x2048 texels, you need to have "detail maps" that represent bumps.

[Lenn]

Of course, but: I'd actualy want these to be huge, stationary sun and baked shadows like we have here. Viewed from RTS level - not airplane level or like from orbit or where the sun would move. If the sun doesnt move, the shadowmaps could just be baked. I'd guess that a chunk of terrain from worldmachine would actualy be something like at least 8x8 tv3d terrains lined up at BEST quality. Get my idea? I'm actualy in the process of modifying your terrain shader to work with baked shadow maps so the terrain looks self-shaded like this.

anyway, my point is - dont these look just great?

and do you think realistic generated terrains would bring a lot to a game?

[petroz]

Eye candy can help; but it wont make a game.

If you get this fantastic self shadowed terrain, will the foliage on the shadowed parts be shadowed as well? inconsistencies like that can really ruin the effect.

It would be impressive to see something that nice rendering at high speed but i think it would be difficult to make the rest of world have an equal level of detail.

Realistic terrain could bring a lot to a game, just like realistic textures, physics, dialog, animations, characters... it's just challenging to deliver.

-Petroz

[Lenn]

If you get this fantastic self shadowed terrain, will the foliage on the shadowed parts be shadowed as well? inconsistencies like that can really ruin the effect.

Of course they will. I agree!

It would be impressive to see something that nice rendering at high speed but i think it would be difficult to make the rest of world have an equal level of detail.

In fact, it wouldnt be very slow at all. If you render only about a half of one of the chunks presetned above at a time, even DirectX 7 can do it (but without specular maps) at very good speeds. It would be just a lot of polys and a shadowmap on top of splats. And todays hardware has no troubles with high polycounts, more with shaders.

Realistic terrain could bring a lot to a game, just like realistic textures, physics, dialog, animations, characters... it's just challenging to deliver.

Yes, it is. But for example if you had terrains like this in a game such as LotR: battle for middle earth, or Total War or Civilization, or even Battlefield 2 it would add a lot to the game and would not slow it down because it could be achieved with the same amount of techincal details as those games currently use. Just a different heightmap. In fact, if you had exactly the same level of graphical detail as you do now in the aforementioned games, and just had terrains as realisticly generated as this, it would fit better, much better! And each game would be on different terrain - taking into considerations gaming aspects such as terrain usability of course.

I guess what I'm trying to say it that in today's games, terrains are lacking far behind the rest of the graphics in terms of realism.

[Hawthorne]

Of course they will. I agree!

In fact, it wouldnt be very slow at all. If you render only about a half of one of the chunks presetned above at a time, even DirectX 7 can do it (but without specular maps) at very good speeds. It would be just a lot of polys and a shadowmap on top of splats. And todays hardware has no troubles with high polycounts, more with shaders.

Yes, it is. But for example if you had terrains like this in a game such as LotR: battle for middle earth, or Total War or Civilization, or even Battlefield 2 it would add a lot to the game and would not slow it down because it could be achieved with the same amount of techincal details as those games currently use. Just a different heightmap. In fact, if you had exactly the same level of graphical detail as you do now in the aforementioned games, and just had terrains as realisticly generated as this, it would fit better, much better! And each game would be on different terrain - taking into considerations gaming aspects such as terrain usability of course.

I guess what I'm trying to say it that in today's games, terrains are lacking far behind the rest of the graphics in terms of realism.

Not true at all. Check out Age of Conan, it probably has the most advanced landscaping in an MMO to date, and remember you can't go balls out with MMO's or you will program yourself into a technical corner that only 50% of the market can use.

-Pat

[Lenn]

Not true at all. Check out Age of Conan, it probably has the most advanced landscaping in an MMO to date, and remember you can't go balls out with MMO's or you will program yourself into a technical corner that only 50% of the market can use.

-Pat

In what sense do you mean techincal corner - in terms of ingame usability of terrain or minimum requirements?

I asume you mean requirements, in that case, you missed my point that better looking terrains can be made with exactly the same amount of detail. I was talking more about realism and variety. I just had another look at the AoC screenshots, and while the terrain is better than in most MMOs it could still use improvements. You never see mudslide remnants at the bottom of a mountain, or realistic streams and rivers formations, or even lakes, or realistic cliffs with vertical details where the terrain texture is not actually stretched (because they are applied on y axis), etc,etc.

[Fox1980]

You should check my tutorial on the wiki about realistic landscapes using L3DT.
The tutorial is a bit outdated since L3DT supports texture splatting now, but try downloading the program and playing with it.
If i recall correctly it can generate heightmaps, normal maps and light maps, it can bake the lightmap in the final texture too.

http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/

[Lenn]

found the link in the wiki, but:

page not found

http://www.seines.pt/landscape/tv.html

I know about L3DT, just never got round to testing it. The website is a bit ambiguous on what is generated using l3dt and what is from other apps. I can't figure out what sort of erosion modeling it has. I've seen some nice plugins, simulating water flow, but so far that's it. Would only be useful if I had the source, because i need to be able to create terrains in code in real time and adjust them to my format, etc, instead of just export/import from an application.

[Fox1980]

The link for the wiki is here:

http://wiki.truevision3d.com/tutorialsarticlesandexamples/create_a_landscape_in_l3dt

Images ain't showing tough, think image links got broken when forum was upgraded. But you're right, you can't use L3DT to create heightmaps on the fly.

[petroz]

In what sense do you mean techincal corner - in terms of ingame usability of terrain or minimum requirements?

I think he is referring to to minimum requirements. I think a bigger issue here is the workload involved. As an indie developer, modest goals and a focus on game play will get you a lot further than striving to rival the latest and greatest in terms of graphics IMO.

-Petroz

[Lenn]

As an indie developer, modest goals and a focus on game play will get you a lot further than striving to rival the latest and greatest in terms of graphics IMO.

-Petroz

True! But, maybe I am no longer an indie developer.

[petroz]

maybe I am no longer an indie developer.

Apologies then. I shouldn't have assumed. Well in that case i think if it is within your means to create realistic terrains then it would be a great idea! Those pictures you posted looked really good. Do you plan on texturing as well or using solid colour like those pictures?

-Petroz

[Lenn]

Heheh, I was just countering assumptions. In fact, we won't have terrains like this in the first version, but enough research has been done that there is a possibility we will do it in the next one. You probably don't know what I'm talking about because we haven't announced anything yet but we will soon.

Texturing - hah of course, like you said, if the textures, and other objects don't match the quality it will end up looking even worse. Foliage will be minimeshes that will follow the shadowmap and be shaded where they should, and there will also be other fixed objects (meshes) that cooperate with the landscape such as cliffs, stones, chasms, and a lot of manmade structures as well. Right now we're working on a file format that will accurately match splatting layers with minimeshes and meshes so that the ground will match what is on top of it, as well as support for LOD and seamless tilable terrains.

However, I'm using only a few more algorhythms than the most generic ones for terrain generation (perlin, terrace, pertrubations, etc), but I think we will have another more advanced type of erosion as well. Erosion brings a lot to the realism of terrain.