First of all, I've looked through the tutes. Quickly, so I may have missed something. But... I see so many terrains that absolutely look perfect. Like someone used tractors and such to make it fit the scenery props. I've tried using the editor (driling, raising, etc...all those tools) but I don't seem to be able to have the ability to smooth things out where I want them smoothed or raise them up (or lower altitudes) the way I want. To me, it seems like it's hard to relate the terrain in the editor to the terrain seen in the windows. So, are there any tips that I can read about? Do people use PS or PSP to make bitmapped terrains at the altitudes and contours that they want or are they using just the editor? There's no need to spend a lot of time explaining things to me in this thread...but if someone knows of a few URLs where these techniques are explained, I can at LEAST read them for myself. I'm not too lazy to read...but I'm frustrated with trying to edit terrains because I never seem to get what I want. Thanks in advance.

...I never seem to get what I want... What do you want exactly???

I'm sorry, Guitta. I'll try to explain again (I even explain poorly...sigh). If I want a meadow..with slowly rolling hills, I have a hard time doing it. A better example might be that I want a terrain that is mostly level and I want to make a glen in it...or a gully. Or maybe I want a rolling terrain with a rise in it for a big oak tree or something... The problem for the terrain editor (for me) is when I am looking at it, it doesn't look like what I see in the windows. So, if I raise the elevation in a place in the editor, and look at it afterwards, it's in the wrong place. Or too high. Or something. I read somewhere that someone said something about always making sure the terrain editor is pointing a certain direction but I didn't understand. Even then, I raise or lower terrain too much in the editor. So, I was just wondering what different methods people used to "sculpt" terrain for their scene. I see lots of work people have done and they spend time explaining how they did the buildings or trees (or something). LOL...maybe "laying the terrain" is considered so easy by them that they never bother to explain it...grin. Maybe the best thing for me to do is find some art by people where I can ask how they shaped the terrain so wonderfully.

Ok, one trick is to start with a perfectly flat terrain. First, start by dropping any old terrain into your scene, and then right-click on it to Edit it. When you're in the terrain editor, click on the Reset button. This will flatten it out completely. Then, select the detail size you really want (maybe 512 instead of the default 256). Then use the painter to Raise the area for the big oak tree, or such. For what you are doing, it may be easier to always start with a perfectly flat terrain, and then paint onto it your landscape as you will.

without reading it all in deatil what you have written :-)) I think we all have this problem. One trick is not to do it in the terrain editor. Do a grayscale image in your favourite image processing software (Photoshop). I am very happy with 1200x1200 pixel (72 dpi). White is maximum height, black is minimum height. Paint the heights there or use other programs helping you doing that (CausticsGenerator for example - look for the correct name and URL in my last image). Then go back to the terrain editor. Reset everything and then go to "use image" (sorry i don't know the correct name - i am using a german version). Load your image and you will get a "perfect" terrain. Exactly what you wanted (if you define what you want after getting something). hope that helps a little

Tks, Forester (and you are truly good at this stuff!), for the reply. That's a good suggestion. But are there any good ways of controlling this "digging and raising" of this flat terrain? And if it's flat, you can't really dig much, can you? OK, another example... I want to make a stream that curves and winds its way into the background. And I want some of the land to gently slope down to it and in other places I want erosion to have carved out a much steeper slope (like on the outside curve of the stream where the rains have caused erosion). Can one do this in the editor? Or do they lay out a greyscale bitmap in PS or PSP? I'm sorry to be a bother.

Yes, you can do it in the Terrain Editor, but it takes a bit of practice. The Photoshop method that wabe is describing is also helpful, but it won't let you make an undercut bank, like I think you are describing for the erosion-steeper slope area. It can get you close to you ideal layout, and then you can use the Terrain Editor to tweak it further. If you don't have Photoshop, it can be Corel Paint, Painter, Paint Pro, or any of those things. Terragen is a free program that will also let you do this - needs skill about midway between that of wabe's method and skill at the Terrain Editor. Unfortunately, when I need to do really precise terrain work with stream banks, I use Truespace - a standard modelling program. But, a lot of the reason for this is to keep the polygon count of the mesh within reasonable limits. Can you post a sketch of what you want? Do you have some drawing tool that you can use to create and post a sketch. Wabe and I might be able to more help to you that way.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/tut.ez?Sectionid=12368

If you want it a beginner way, first of all when you open Vue, point your camera to north. This makes it easier to see what you have done later. You always can change the camera position to a better way whan you have got what you want.

Then create a terrain.
Double-click on it to open the terrain editor and here again, first of all, give it a 512x512 resolution.
Now, with the airbrush, setted to Maximum SOFT and about 30% FLOW, try to take off the mountain part (DIG) or add more hight (RAISE)where you want. Don't forgt that white parts in the terrain editor are very high, brown reddish parts are high, beige parts are lower, yellow greenish parts are lower again and green parts are really low.
Play around especially on the inside borders if you create a vally. GO SLOWLY!! GO SLOWLY!! Always "play" from south to north or from north to south (if you have pointed your cam to north).

To create a vally in the center, always in using airbrush and DIG, go slowly and soft (again!!) with about 20% or even 10% of FLOW. Go really slowly and take all your time. Because it needs time.

Sometimes you may click OK to see how it looks in Vue quick render. If you don't like it, go back to the terrain editor and do whatever you want, add or dig.

Also try to push the slider (at bottom of the terrain editor, called CLIP), to 8 or more %. This is very useful, because once back in Vue you can see exactly how the terrain looks, where it ends and where the "naked" parts, (rivers or roads) are.

But there are many other ways to try until you get what you want. A sample is to export the terrain as a BMP or JPG, to modify it in your paint program and then load it again.

You also may create a completely new grey scale image in your paint program, then open the terrain editor in vue, click RESET, PICTURE and load your grey scale image. This is, for me personally, a great way. But here we have to remember, that paint programs only allows 256 gradients of grey. Vue's terrain editor has more!!! You also can add a greyscaleimage to an existing terrain. Insteed of clicking RESET, just leave the existing terrain and add your greyscale image.

You may like Kutter's great tutorial "Distribution mapping a pathway" for creating and mapping a terrain, available at the link above.

But if you see a terrain created by somebody else and you would like to get this kind of shape, just show the image here, we may then help even better:-).

:-)Guitta

Oh, this is more attention than I expected! First of all, thanks to the great Vue artists who have responded. That is very nice of you! First of all, I must apologize for my English. I know Guitta is French. But, I forgot how international this program is (sad face) and I used words that might not be easy to know. I lived in Germany for many years and sometimes, when I was speaking to people (or trying to speak to people...grin), I used words that were not common...and THEN, they thought I knew MANY different words...hehe. Boy! Were they wrong! Now, I see above many suggestions for help. I will print this message and save it to refer to later. I don't have anything in my mind to do. All I can say is that I start to work on something and I always get angry at trying to make the terrain how I want it. Even if I DID have something in my mind, I could not draw it (I'm not an artist...that's why I use these programs to help me BE an artist). Maybe it just takes more time than I expected (thanks, Guitta). Maybe I don't understand how much work you guys put into your work. Shame on me. And, thanks again, MUCH, for the suggestions!

This kind of dialogue is the purpose of this forum - to help each other.

That is true. But I never have any help to offer and I always feel bad when I ask for help. I am just glad people are so generous.

Right! What forester said:-).

And don't feel bad Chuck. Just believe that we all were beginners:-)

Seems like I will be forever a beginner, Guitta. Lots of interest but not a lot of time. By the time I learn something, I forget it the next time I need it....grin. So, being such a beginner, I try NOT to bother people too much. NO one likes a pest.

A great thread. Thanks, ChuckEvans for bringing this whole thing up. I, too, have the same trouble with terrains. One (of my many)problems is when I see the terrain in the editor, I'm never sure how it will be placed in the scene. Guitta, when you say, aim the camera "north", do you mean towards the top of the screen? Or, is the camera position when you open a new scene north? And, then, is the top of the terrain editor screen north?

when you say, aim the camera "north", do you mean towards the top of the screen? YES:-) This is the most simple way to see NORTH:-)

I thank you all too. My PC is still sick, still need to uninstall Vue... In the meantime I still check here - there's always an answer to be found. I have always wanted to ask this same question.

Just curious. There's a 3d railroad train program called "Trainz". In it there's a surveyor mode in which you see the landscape you are creating for your railroad and can edit it (raise, lower, paint on it, etc.) while viewing it. I believe it's based on gmax but I'm just wondering if such a capability of landscape editing might be possible in Vue or are the two systems of representing 3d very different. If anyone knows.

In the terrain editor you can also copy your terrain into the clipboard and go to photoshop (or whatever)paste,edit and copy back into vue. Kinda cool feature.

Not the same!! In Trainz you can watch your terrain as you manipulate it. When you use the clipboard with PS all you see is a bw overhead height representation. I'm talking about actually seeing your results immediately as you do it with all the buildings, trees, bushes, tracks right there in front of you as you raise, lower or plateau the ground.

I was refering to editing heightfields earlier in the post

Nothin' wrong with that one!!

Very nice, Jimbo! Can I ask? Is that one terrain? or several? And did you resize it in the scene? Are the trees resized or is that the size they came in as?

That is one big terrain except for the very distant hills in the back. It's in a volumetric atmosphere so I made it really large to get a nice haze effect. I don't think I had to resize the trees.

Thanks for the info! And good idea to do that for the atmosphere which is really nice here. The terrain really still looks good enlarged like that.