Terraforming question

[schweitzerdude]

I have been playing around with using the grey scale (or displacements) feature to quickly create mountainous terrain. Some of you may not know that you can create (and save) your own grey scales within Surveyor by building a small scale model of a mountain somewhere off to the side, then select, get displacement, play with the rotation and displacement scale, and finally select and fill area. These mountains will not be very detailed but for background terrain or for a quick start to more detailed manually-adjusted terrain, it's useful. Now for the question: At the maximum displacement scale, you can't go much over 300 meters in height. So say I want to uniformly raise an area of terrain by 100m, I create an area off to the side at 100m elevation. Then select a rectangular area of this 100m terrain in tools, then select the area that you want to raise 100m, paste height, with the add-height option selected instead of the default replace-height option, and I should see this terrain uniformly raised by 100m. But when I do this, it only increases by a small amount in elevation (less than 1m) each mouse click. Anyone have a solution or can tell me what I am doing wrong?

 

[JCitron]

Increase the contrast in the window by adjusting the dial. The lighter the color, the higher the terrain. This is how this works.

To fill a whole baseboard, Select one corner and use the CTRL-key plus arrows to resize the selection marquee. It takes a bit of practice, but it can be done including over multiple baseboards.

 

[schweitzerdude]

I think you misunderstood my question which was more complicated than it needed to be. I have no problem doing what you describe. What I should have said is that the tools/copy and paste function does not work as it should in this situation: When the add height/objects option is selected with the paste height and paste objects options enabled, objects get added but the height does not get added except for a very small amount.

 

[SailorDan]

But when I do this, it only increases by a small amount in elevation (less than 1m) each mouse click. Anyone have a solution or can tell me what I am doing wrong?

Manually create your own displacement asset with a uniform texture of the right shade - closer to white, if I have remembered the setting correctly. The one you are creating within the game is a relative height, not absolute.

Note that you can save you custom displacements created in-game - that is the simplest way to start off the new one. Create a displacement from a flat surface, save it, and edit the image file to make it more white.

 

[schweitzerdude]

OK I will try making displacements in gimp or paint net to be closer to max white for the highest terrain, so thank you SailorDan.

But I'm back to my original issue that this is either a (1) a Trainz bug (same problem in TANE) or (2) a mistake by N3V in labelling the functionality, or (3) a user error:

In Tools/Copy and Paste/with Add height/objects option selected (instead of the default Replace height/objects) the objects are added but the height is not added to the target, except for a tiny amount.

 

[JCitron]

OK I will try making displacements in gimp or paint net to be closer to max white for the highest terrain, so thank you SailorDan.

But I'm back to my original issue that this is either a (1) a Trainz bug (same problem in TANE) or (2) a mistake by N3V in labelling the functionality, or (3) a user error:

In Tools/Copy and Paste/with Add height/objects option selected (instead of the default Replace height/objects) the objects are added but the height is not added to the target, except for a tiny amount.

I understand your problem now. I need to check that, although, I don't remember there being a problem unless it's recent.

 

[SailorDan]

In Tools/Copy and Paste/with Add height/objects option selected (instead of the default Replace height/objects) the objects are added but the height is not added to the target, except for a tiny amount.

I don't think it's a bug. When you create that flat displacement map it is created as zero displacement, regardless of the absolute height of the terrain at that point. That's what I meant when I said it creates a relative height map, not an absolute one. So when you use it you are adding a height of zero (or near zero) to any existing map. There are many ways that it could be done, but changing the default from relative to absolute would mean that there would have to be some connection between the displacement map offsets and the absolute terrain height, which at the moment does not exist in the displacement because it is controlled by the intensity slider.

 

[schweitzerdude]

SailorDan: I understand what you are saying. But that is not my question. Forget displacement maps - my issue is more basic and I should have asked this from the beginning. I am talking about raising any terrain however created by a uniform amount. The labelling of the buttons implies this is possible. The use for this functionality is for raising terrain that already has been terraformed to your liking, but then you want to raise it to match some other area without having to start terraforming from scratch on level terrain.

If you go to the Tools/Copy and Paste menu and hover your mouse pointer over the icons in the 2nd to last row, you will see they say "Replace Height/Objects" and "Add Height/Objects". The "Add Height/Objects" works for objects but not for height (except for a tiny amount) - even with the paste height button activated. To experiment:

1) Create a terraformed area with hills, valleys, etc
2) Say you want to raise the entire area uniformly by 50m with all the hills and valleys remaining intact. So off to the side you create a perfectly level area at 50m.
3) Select a rectangle of this level 50m terrain and copy it.
4) Go to your terraformed area and paste it with the Add Height/Objects option selected and the Paste Height button enabled.

The Add Height capability does not work except for a very small amount. Perhaps user error. Perhaps the intended function was planned by N3V but never implemented or not implemented correctly. I know it didn't work in TANE either.

 

[JCitron]

I was able to test this. I used an existing test route I've used for various versions since T:ANE.

- Created some substantial hills and valleys.
- Selected them
- Ensured only terrain height was selected
- Pasted all over the route.

It works fine in a previously created route.

I then created a new route.
- Created a bunch of hills and craters.
-Selected them
-Ensured only terrain height was selected.
-Pasted all over the route.

It works fine in a new route.

Just to ensure it's not AND/OR related, I tried both of those modes as well and it works fine.

My conclusion is look at what you're carefully compared to the past to doing what's different.

 

[schweitzerdude]

John thanks for your response.

What you did works. It's a way of replicating an area of terrain to use in other areas of the route. I do it all the time.

But that's not what I want to do. I want to raise that terrain uniformly by 50m. Don't select the terrain you want to raise. Select a 50m high level bit of terrain and then copy it and paste on top of the terrain you want to raise by 50m everywhere. The fact that the button is labeled "Add height" implies that it should work yet doesn't.

 

[JCitron]

John thanks for your response.

What you did works. It's a way of replicating an area of terrain to use in other areas of the route. I do it all the time.

But that's not what I want to do. I want to raise that terrain uniformly by 50m. Don't select the terrain you want to raise. Select a 50m high level bit of terrain and then copy it and paste on top of the terrain you want to raise by 50m everywhere. The fact that the button is labeled "Add height" implies that it should work yet doesn't.

Oh... I get it. I just tried it!

I think there's a bug here.

The height comes out at 50% of the terrain height.

Why?

It's simple... The displacement you've selected is only at 50% brightness of the selected area you can see this in the color of the selection. If you adjust the selection height brightness, you can increase the height, but the copied height is never close, at least without a lot of faffing around, to the original height.

It maybe we're not understanding how to use the tool and it's acting as intended, but I would report this as a bug anyway.

I think discovered another bug with the copy paste tool.

- Copy the terrain already raised.
- Choose an area and paste.
- The height will only rise up a few meters, maybe 5 meters instead of to the full height.
- use the replace height, and the full height is placed.

Shouldn't the add height/grid to objects on the right-side add to the height of the base by that newly selected area?

Example the terrain is at 5 meters.

Select an area that's 50 meters.

Paste it down using the replace terrain height/object and we get the area now at 50 meters.

Paste using the add to height/objects, and the selected area only rises up 5 meters and does not become 55 meters.

 

[schweitzerdude]

John thanks again for your response. The first part of your response is concerning displacements and the issue is more basic. It's in the second part that you and I are now focused on the issue, although I get less height increment than you for who knows what reason. Assume Terrain A is variable and Terrain B is fixed at 50m. You should be able to copy/paste Terrain B onto Terrain A resulting in Terrain A being 50m higher than before at every point of the grid. And you should be able to copy/paste Terrain A onto Terrain B and get the same results. Neither way works. Maybe the work around is to continuously click the mouse to get multiple tiny increments until you get the desired results, although that can't be what N3V intended. Thanks to all who responded.

 

[SailorDan]

You should be able to copy/paste Terrain B onto Terrain A resulting in Terrain A being 50m higher than before at every point of the grid. And you should be able to copy/paste Terrain A onto Terrain B and get the same results.

Copy and Paste is not suitable for this task - the appropriate options are in the topology tab.

If you want to adjust the height of an area by a fixed amount, select your uniform height displacement (an image with grey values greater than 128) and use the height up or adjust height tools at the top. Use the radius button to select the area and the sensitivity button to select the adjustment required.

If you want to apply some existing terrain as height adjustment elsewhere in the map create a custom adjustment from the existing tool (it automatically becomes the default) and then use height up/down or height adjust.

The option you are looking for in copy paste may become available if we ever also get the ability to add objects to what is already in the pasted area - something that has been requested for some time.

 

[JCitron]

The option you are looking for in copy paste may become available if we ever also get the ability to add objects to what is already in the pasted area - something that has been requested for some time.​

You already can:

This is the original paste mode we've had since the early days:

Replace height/objects. 'S'



This here is the Add height/objects 'L'



This mode allows the user to create scenes such as this here by adding in details and objects within areas that are already covered with objects. The user of course needs to use judgement when adding stuff because that can cause issues later on with performance. The results, however, are quite stunning, and this only scratches the surface of what can be done. The bushes were placed first then the trees were added afterwards and then things were pruned back and adjusted.

 

[SailorDan]

This mode allows the user to create scenes such as this here by adding in details and objects within areas that are already covered with objects.

It appears that this was planed but never implemented. It is shown in the screen shots, but there is no reference to it in the guide. The screen shot is too small to figure what it was intended to do.
http://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/..._Paste_Height.2C_Textures.2C_Objects_or_Track

 

[schweitzerdude]

SAilorDan - thanks for this link. My memory is coming back to these buttons - Relative & Absolute. Some time later (maybe TANE), they got their names changed to Add Height/Objects and Replace Height/Objects which is in my opinion an improvement. I agree with your view that the functionality was only partly implemented since it works for objects but not height.