Ground Type Help

[cisfe]

Hi I have been experimenting with new ground types and have run into a bit of a problem. I am looking to make a field of grass. However i seem to go from one extreme of completely 2d looking to the other side of looks good but I cant tell its supposed to be a field. I have a pic of the two I made one a golden color, the other green. I made these two from scratch and have hit this problem. If anyone can help i would appreciate it. The goal is to create a grassy field in which the grass is as tall as men.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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[Gigantus]

Ground type textures will appear 'flat' unless you work with some shadow and bump mapping, the display being 2D in nature. There is an obvious limit as to how much you can get depth into it.

[cisfe]

Thanks I was hoping that there was some way I knew it was a long shot. I guess the only way to get fields that high would be to make a ground type that complements a tree type or vegetation that looks similar to fields grass. @

Gigantus

do you know if there is a mod with different vegetation/trees that would be a source. If not any tutorial to create my own trees/vegetation. Thanks for answering my previous question.

[Gigantus]

I am not exactly sure about the mechanics of it, but I think you can link CAS files to ground types\climates. Makanyane and Wilddog work intensively with the IWTE project which might help to get some insight into this mechanic.

[makanyane]

is this for strat map or battle map? it's a bit hard to tell from the pic and discussion so far...


EDIT; actually looking at the edge blending I assume strat map...

so NOOOOOOOOOO don't try sticking grass in as a .cas model. You can't do fine detail with the tree .cas models, too many poly's will grind the game to a halt, and it doesn't do alpha'd textures well so that's not a solution either.


would suggest screeny a flat bit of battle map with 'grass' and fiddle with it to try and make it tile.

[cisfe]

Yes it is for the strat map. I will try and find a good pic in the battle map to take and use that, if not i will have to go with the greener looking grass in the pic above. I have made it yellow and it doesnt look to bad ( my impression was it may look like the desert but it doesnt).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

so NOOOOOOOOOO don't try sticking grass in as a .cas model. You can't do fine detail with the tree .cas models, too many poly's will grind the game to a halt, and it doesn't do alpha'd textures well so that's not a solution either.

So you cant make a grassy looking tree .cas model without it crashing? I thought that might be the only solution to bring the fields 3d with the limitations of how ground types look.

[makanyane]

it's not necessarily going to be a straight crash but if you try making a model with lots of points close together you get the shadow bug thing, as discussed here
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...t-glitch/page2

& generally overloading the strat map with; lots of different / big models, does nasty things... different nasty things but it's never good!

the problem with trying to make the model as a big chunk and alpha'ing the texture is that the bits seen through the alpha'd areas appear without shadow when the other bits around it don't - which makes the whole thing stick out like a sore thumb...

you just need to work on getting the 2d texture to look right - it's only viewed from a limited range of angles so you can include shadows within it without it looking wrong

you should also consider adjusting the map and using subtly different textures for low_fertility, medium_fertility etc and/or mixing the climates so you get a varied result instead of something that shows edges/tiling effect too much.

[cisfe]

Thanks for the help, I understand what your say about the trees. The 2d texture has been hard to get just right bc when i zoom in it looks good and zoomed out not so good or vice versa. Its been hard to find the middle ground where it looks "ok" in both zoom and zoomed out.

I planned on using diff ground types to mesh the diff fertility lvls. I have managed to limit the tiling effect to an extent but your right I will have to make small changes in each of the fertilizes to mask the shadows. Thanks for the help on this. Once I get the ground types all settled I am gunna try to do a few things on the IWTE so I may have questions there if i cant find the answer in previous posts .