Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
5.1.2 r
esearCh
and
f
inding
i
nspiraTion
for
m
aKing
C
ompelling
T
errain
d
esigns
There are many places you can ind inspiration for your landscape designs. Watching documentary ilms like
The National Parks: America's Best Idea
by Ken Burns [3] or looking at the 3D worldwide terrain geogra-
phy available on Google Earth should provide you with a broad range of excellent examples displaying the
magniicent compelling terrains we have around us.
For more aesthetic inspiration, to ind the “mood” and “personality” in a landscape, look to the great
landscape paintings throughout history. As early as the Minoan and Roman eras, we painted images of our
landscapes, inspired by what we saw around us. Worldwide, our common desire to make images of our land-
scapes is shown in the work of Chinese painters like Fan Kuan, Tabriz from Persia, and Toyo and Hiroshige
from Japan. In Europe, there were painters such as Friedrich from Germany, Turner from England, and Corot
from France. In more modern eras, Van Gogh, Cezanne, O'Keefe, Thiebaud, and Sanchez have created land-
scapes that speak to our souls. Online searches for “great landscape paintings” and “best landscape painters”
will bring up hundreds of examples for you to examine.
For inspiration of a more virtual nature, visit places in Second Life and OpenSim. Examples of several
interesting landscapes are shown in Figure 5.2. In the top picture, you see the sculpted mesh mountains sur-
rounding the Oni Kenkon Creations Tower built by Nebadon Izumi on the OS Grid. In the middle picture
is an image of Shambala, a massive multiregion build surrounded by an estuary, built by Hiro Protagonist.
The bottom frame shows a two-picture sequence of Mac Kanashimi's “Scripted Fractal Landscape,” built in
Second Life, in the LEA27 region. This incredible build constantly shifted its underlying shapes to create an
ever-changing landscape for the visitor.
5.2 METHODOLOGIES FOR TERRAFORMING USING INWORLD TOOLS
There are two inworld methodologies for creating changes in your terrain, and they are not mutually exclu-
sive. The irst and most universally accessible is using the Land Tools in the Build menu of your Firestorm
Viewer. Anyone can utilize these tools, provided the Edit terrain permission is granted to them by the owner
or they own the land themselves. The second method is uploading a grayscale height map (or height ield)
image ile speciically created to generate terrain on your region. Please note the second method for terra-
forming is only available to owners of the land; estate managers and land renters will be locked out of that
menu on the viewer.
5.2.1
i
mporTanT
s
eTTings
and
l
and
T
ools
in
The
f
iresTorm
V
ieWer
Before you start terraforming on your land, and if that land is accessible to the public, there is one important
detail to check in the About Land menu. In the Firestorm Viewer, in the World tab/About Land/Options
section, there is a set of check boxes under “Allow other residents to:,” and you want to make sure the box
next to “Edit Terrain” is left unchecked (see Figure 5.3). If you leave it checked, other residents of your world
will be able to alter your terrain and possibly ruin your carefully built landscape.
There are three basic menus you will need to know about when you are doing terraforming: the Land
Tools in the Build menu, the About Land tools, and the Estate/Region tools.
Let's start by looking at the Land Tools in the Build menu. This method is useful for terraforming a land
area or parcel that is under one Region in size (less than 256 meters square). You can see the Land Tools by
opening your Build menu and selecting the tiny bulldozer icon on the top right. Let's go through them one by
one (see Figure 5.4 for images of this).
