Use of World Machine to generate terrain for Trainz?

[schweitzerdude]

My interests include geography and geology and the creation of realistic but non-prototypical terrain (call it world building if you want) for Trainz routes on a large scale is difficult and time consuming. I came across World Machine: http://www.world-machine.com/ and was wondering if anyone here has found a way to use it for terrain in Trainz.

 

[JCitron]

It might work if it can export b&w height maps, which are 1024 x 1024 pixels in size.

I downloaded the free Basic version to check it out.

Edit:

I just tried the program and produced an output file, which I resized in Paint.net from 513 x 513 to 1024 x 1024. I will further check this out in T:ANE to see what it produced.

 

[JCitron]

Here's a terrain generated from the simple preset.

The process is simple:

1) Generate the terrain
2) Save output as gray scale image

The image defaults to a 513 x 513 .tga file.

3) Resize in your favorite image editor to 1024 x 1024 ; I use Paint.net

4) Save as a .bmp

5) Search in Content Manager for displacement

6) There are some already created. SAP has some on the DLS. Download the file, if there are no local ones.

7) Clone.

8) Edit the config.txt file to point to the output.bmp, change the name to something else you want.

9) Submit

10) Use.

 

[JCitron]

Sorry for spamming thread, but there's more interesting stuff about the program.

I checked out the professional version on the web. In this version you can tile terrains so you can make a continuous map so that displacements can be tiled. There are other output options too including mesh formats plus scripting support and support for multiple threads.

Thanks for asking about the program and thanks for the link.

 

[Azervich]

Spamming?, no way John, this is useful information.

Cheers.

 

[Vern]

Could be useful for templating basic terrain on model or upscaled miniature railways, where you don't necessarily want to try and craft the terrain from flat.

 

[schweitzerdude]

Thanks for all the replies, and particularly JCitron who was able to try it out in the short time after I posted it. I'm going to start fooling around with it ASAP.

 

[clam1952]

Looks like a useful program!

 

[pware]

Not clear from their web site if they use real data (eg. DEM) or is it for "fantasy" worlds only.

The Indie price is $199USD, the Professional price is $299USD.

 

[JCitron]

Not clear from their web site if they use real data (eg. DEM) or is it for "fantasy" worlds only.

The Indie price is $199USD, the Professional price is $299USD.

It's fantasy worlds, procedurally generated. The professional package allows tiling of images and supports other formats such as obj, etc. I'm looking at how to convert the grayscale images to DEM using LandSerf. Landserf, however, is a Java (blah!) based application which Windows 10 refuses to run even with JRTs installed. I have downloaded the program to my Sun Linux VM and was able to run it in there. That program can convert images srtm data, etc, to other formats which means perhaps we can then bring it through TransDEM to Trainz.

It's a bit convoluted but it's worth the try, I think.

 

[schweitzerdude]

Yes John well worth the try. Thanks for your efforts and keep us informed.

I followed your instructions and at least in TANE Build 90945, the displacement assets show as Type: Misc in Content Manager. (I remember in earlier versions of Trainz, they showed as Type GroundBrush as I recall) This means finding other's users displacements on the DLS is impossible unless you know the name/user. Not sure why N3V did that. So just create your own and give it a name meaningful to you and clone and follow John's instructions. The other thing I wanted to add is in World Machine, use the Height Output device to create the .tga file. I got an error message when trying to use the Bitmap Output device.

Anyone trying this should experiment with using various sizes (# baseboards) of terrain to create. The larger the selection, the more gradual the slopes. One disadvantage of using displacements to create terrain is that Trainz won't create altitudes of much over 300 meters even at the max displacement scale. Anyone know of a workaround let us know.

 

[JCitron]

Yes John well worth the try. Thanks for your efforts and keep us informed.

I followed your instructions and at least in TANE Build 90945, the displacement assets show as Type: Misc in Content Manager. (I remember in earlier versions of Trainz, they showed as Type GroundBrush as I recall) This means finding other's users displacements on the DLS is impossible unless you know the name/user. Not sure why N3V did that. So just create your own and give it a name meaningful to you and clone and follow John's instructions. The other thing I wanted to add is in World Machine, use the Height Output device to create the .tga file. I got an error message when trying to use the Bitmap Output device.

Anyone trying this should experiment with using various sizes (# baseboards) of terrain to create. The larger the selection, the more gradual the slopes. One disadvantage of using displacements to create terrain is that Trainz won't create altitudes of much over 300 meters even at the max displacement scale. Anyone know of a workaround let us know.

I've been going through the tutorials with the program and there's one on using the bitmap output device. This requires another output device in addition to that one in order to produce an image. I think it doesn't matter for us anyway because we are using the grayscale image and other is for combined textures and landscape, and our grayscale images are already a bitmap anyway.

I've been searching for ways to take the bitmap images and covert them to DEM format. I got LandSerf working via my Ubuntu install - a pain in the rear to install and it also requires Java there, but being in a VM I don't care anyway. I need to find an output format that's acceptable to TransDEM, which will produce the mesh. The process is a bit convoluted, but it's the only way to bring in the data into TransDEM that I can think of, and this is the only way to get around the height limitation of the displacement map.

Why displacements changed to Misc, I don't know. I called mine Displacement 100 - test, but it's a test anyway to do a proof of concept. Now to get past this limit and the inherent limits of the displacements, and we'll be on to something.

What I do like about the Pro version is the tiling ability. If I can get the maps to work in TransDEM, then a tiled output would be the way to go to produce our fictional worlds ready for track laying. At $299 it's a bit expensive to just try and see if it works. Back in my younger and working days, I would have purchased the program, but now I'm retired and count my pennies.

You're welcome. No problem it's been fun!

 

[ajrf]

Looks interesting. Maybe I should give it a try.