As stated above...I don't want jagged mountains...I want smooth rolling hills with nice easy slopes. Any help would be appreciated. TIA

That's a really tough one with Vue's terrain editor, I've actually resorted to using USGS DEM files in a lot of instances, just grabbing any old DEM from a hilly area and working with that as a starting point. If you don't want to go that route you could try using the mountain setting and applying a lot of erosion effects to it to get one hill, and then make more for more hills, this takes a little more work but I've found that almost all of the terrain editor terrains need a lot of work in order to look real. Hope this helps, if not I'll try some things later on when I have more time and post some screens here.

I've tried using spheres...stetching/pulling, that looks like crap....I've tried eroding....it's OK...but just OK. This has to be one of tuffest things to date I've tried doing....Been at this since 8am >:(. I've got something kinda close..but not really..if you know what I mean. I've got terrain slanted...that's the best I've been able to do.

Do you mean something like this:

This is fairly close-up, but could give a broader vista with a larger terrain and shorter focal length.

Looks good spedler :) Now...how did you do it????

Message edited on: 08/09/2004 15:33

It's a terrain height map imported into the terrain editor. I've been playing around with these things and have got 50+ examples now! I thought of writing a short tutorial about this - would anyone be interested?
All you need is an image editor (e.g. Photoshop) and use it to produce a greyscale image. For this one, I created a 256x256 image, then used the clouds filter to generate a terrain map, which was heavily blurred with Gaussian blur to make it a soft image with no hard edges. This is loaded into the terrain editor (click the 'Picture' button) and set the blend proportion to your satisfaction :-)
As I say, I can do a more detailed explanation if there's any interest. You can create all sorts of interesting terrains with this method. I've uploaded this map to my site if you want to play - http://www.microbion.co.uk/temp/gentle1.jpg

I'd like a tut!!!!!!! I have PSP, so I'm a go :) Thanks!!!!

Me too.... LOL!

I've had really good luck creating my own from scratch - open the terrain editor and don't check the box to let Vue generate a terrain. Then, using a large brush and a soft terrain, just create the shape of terrain you want and crop. After I'm back in the image, I usually have to raise it up a bit, but that's about it. - Lin

Soft terrain???? I'm showing my ignorance here...as I've always let Vue do it's thing with some minor adjustments. So, what exactly is a "soft" terrain"???

~Leaves forum red faced~

Message edited on: 08/09/2004 20:20

Oh, yes please - give us a Tut. :)) Me too, I am never really content with Vue's handmade terrains.

Okay, I'll get busy writing. I'll include the various maps I've got so far with it. I guess it'll be a few days before it's done though :-)

Thanks spedler.....look forward to it:)

Sounds great spedler, thank you :)

I've actually been trying the same PhotoShop technique but to create a smooth lagoon and beach scene. A sort of inverse rolling hill. KPT's Blurrrrr filter if you have it. I'd be interested in seeing how you do it.

Message edited on: 08/11/2004 14:25

You could try using something like WorldMachine which is a dedicated terrain builder and free to download .. then save the terrain to bmp and import to Vue .. I've used WorldMachine for a while in conjuction with Terragen and it's quite easy to pick up and can produce so great terrains to work with ..

Message edited on: 08/11/2004 15:04

Niandji, this looks perfect! What did you use for the grass texture? Thanks, Norm

Hi Norm, a 512x512 jpeg of some grass. It was a freebie from the web, but as I d'loaded it over a year ago on a texture hunt, I've haven't got a record of where it came from, sorry!

Thanks for your reply! It just doesn't have that tiled look. Now I know why!! I took some jpegs myself, but I can't get entirely away from tiling, somehow. Gotta work on that some more. Norm

Aha -- going UP instead of down, I've not tried scaling up. Will do tonight! Thanks again, Norm