Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Following the logic of the landscape is important in deciding where the textures will show on a terrain,
as shown in Figure 5.13. Let's start with the volcano in the northwestern quadrant of the sim. Obviously, here
we would like to show the burned stone and darkened ground seen around a volcanic crater. By setting the
Texture Elevation Ranges in the northwestern quadrant irst, we can effectively set the scheme for the whole
sim. Set the Low setting in the northwestern quadrant to 2.0 meters and set the High setting to 20.00 meters.
By doing this, you are pulling the volcanic stone texture down low, all the way to the 20-meter waterline, and
pushing the ocean bottom texture to the lowest depths of the undersea area.
Now, ly over to the southeastern quadrant of the sim. On this side of the sim, we want a tropical para-
dise, and we are assuming that there is no volcanic heat to kill the vegetation. By putting the Low setting to
15.0 meters and the High setting to 50.0 meters, we will see a nice grassy, sandy beach surface. Now that you
have established the looks of the two deinitive environments on the island, you can ill in the transitional
quadrants. The northeast will have Low = 2.0 meters and High = 50.0 meters, and the southwest will have
Low = 15.0 meters and High = 50.0 meters. These settings should provide you with a nice transition from
tropical paradise to volcanic crater on the terrain settings. Again, if you have not baked your terrain, please
do so now. Put the water level back to 20 meters and admire your work so far.
5.5.1
C
onsideraTions
for
m
aKing
g
ood
T
errain
T
exTures
Eventually, you will want to make your own textures for terrain. Three important things to remember as you
generate them in Photoshop or GIMP are tiling, scale, and saturation of color.
Since a texture is tiled many times across the sim, if it is not blending smoothly on all four sides, it will
start to make its own pattern across the simulator terrain, which looks distracting. You can avoid this effect
by testing; save your new terrain image as a ill pattern, create a new test ile at 4× the size of your terrain
image in your paint program and ill it with the terrain pattern you are developing. Immediately, you will see
if the texture creates an unwelcome pattern across the landscape. Pushing the texture off center a little bit
with an offset ilter and adding some border blurring will help that. Filter Forge (http://www.ilterforge.com/)
is also an excellent tool for seeing how a pattern will tile; it plugs in to Photoshop and comes with access to
a large online library of procedural texture generators. In terms of scale, keep an eye on recognizable terrain
elements such as lowers or seashells on the landscape. You do not want them too big or too small, as they
cover the terrain, unless you are going for a fantasy or “Alice in Wonderland” effect. Finally, you should pay
close attention to saturation of color. As you work, think of how mountainous landscapes look and how they
tend to soften in color and go a bit gray with the atmospheric perspective created by the distance. If there
is a way you can work this effect into your landscape textures, such as toning down the colors on mountain
peaks or deepening the saturation of color on the ocean textures, a greater and subtler sense of depth will be
created in your terrain.
5.6
OTHER APPLICATIONS FOR CREATING LANDSCAPES
When you start to design terrain it is handy to have a few other software tools around to alter, view, and transfer
terrain iles. Two simple terrain editors are the freeware programs Bailiwick (for Windows; http://www.
spinmass.com/Software/Bailiwick.aspx) and Backhoe (for the Mac; http://www.notabene-sl.com/Backhoe/).
On the more professional or “pro-sumer” level are terrain programs like Terragen (http://planetside.co.uk/)
and L3DT Pro (http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/). If you really want to go crazy making huge and varied
terrain, there is the World Machine program (http://world-machine.com/index.php).
