increasing terrain size

Bug Reports
#1

Hi,

I am working on an animation where the camera flies across a terrain which I built in World Machine at 2048 pix.

Its not long enough in the direction I am flying so I need to extend it.

I tried rebuilding the terrain in World Machine using the same settings on a 4097 world size but the build just runs forever and never produces anything.

So I thought an easier way to do this would be to export the terrain I already have as a bmp using FEO. Then tile it up in photoshop, flipping the tile so the connection is seamless, then re-import it into terragen in a larger world using FEO Inflator or Firmament bmp import.

All works ok - I end up with twice the flight length and no visible connection in the terrain.

My problem is that whatever I do, the re-imported file has had some noise introduced into it and results in a rougher surface appearance than was in the original.

This occurs even if I only export and re-import the same file with no changes.

It also seems to occur if I export from World machine in any other format than terragen.

Is there any way around this - as the extra roughness is ruining the effect I need.

Perhaps I should be thinking about importing the same 2048 terrain into World Machine twice then sticking them together - having flipped one to avoid seams - then output directly in Terragen format from WM.

Is this possible ? If so how do I do it ?

Thanks for any input.

Cheers

Geoff

#2

hmm…

let me make something clear before continuing:
:arrow: Building a terrain @ 4096 will produce the same result as @ 2048 (with the exception of having twice the detail). So that shouldn’t be a solution to your problem all by it self…

It is not easily possible (v.99) to input files and place them side-by-side in WM, wihtout loss of detail, mainly because it is not possible to adequately pan the files into position (so far, can only be done with the displacement device).
I think v1.0 might change that… However, for now, the only way I can think of doing that, is doing something simillar to what you mention: inporting 4 files, scaling them down in size, and displace them to their corners… This is how my “Seamless Map v3” macro works.
You may also be interested in Rhalph’s own blending macro. I think it works somewhat simiarly. Anyway these macros, and the post that originated this :arrow: can be found over here.

For the case of my “Stitcher” / “Seamless Map v3” macro, you could try to use a transition width as small as possible, without any noise added… Read the macro’s description to find out more about the parameters…

#3

I don’t now if this would help but maybe you could use the glue two macro. I’ve found this in the World Machine library folder.
I’m not sure if this is a standard macro.

Here is an abstract of the macros description:

Glues two terrains together, this is useful as a pre-made terrain combiner.

Use two file input devices and simply plug them into this macro. Use the direction slider to control the ‘glue’ angle where the terrains are to be joined.

#4

The glue two is nice too! I had forgotten about that…
I think it comes with WM, yes… However, it works by blending both terrains… So you will loose half of your terrain in this…

Now that I thing of this, I need to say something more about my macros… They I said previously:

inporting 4 files, scaling them down in size, and displace them to their corners
This is Wrong!.. I don't scale the files down.. Sorry for this. Because of it, my macros make sense if you will combine the files in "post production" in photoshop or so.. My macros only do some stitching, and displace files by half their size, People still need to combine the small outputs of my macros, to make the huge terrain they want.

Maybe Rhalph’s Macro behaves better?

#5