Well, I purchased this software to do terrain building in Crytek. But using it is a nightmare to say the least. Constant crashes and the build times for even simple layouts is horrible.
After apps like GeoControl2 and even L3Dt this is sure a step backwards.
If I could get my money back I would but will chalk it up as a bad investment. Try doing anything to color your map and I guarantee you that crashing will occur. Put in an erosion with a few advanced perlin’s and wait 30 minutes or more to build it even on a high end machine…
This app needs a lot of versions behind it before it is considered even workable and with the build times I doubt it will be good for anything but small maps…
Hi VinnieMc-
How big a terrain are you working with?
Do you a .tmd file that’s causing you problems that you would be willing to post?
Would you mind listing the info/specs of the system you’re using WM2 on?
I think users here would be happy to try to help you figure out some solutions, but your very first post here seems a bit on the harsh side.
-marmil
Sorry if it came across as harsh but was just voicing my opinion on the app.
I am running; 2 dual core intel extreme 3.62 ghz processors with 2 gigs corsair memory and dual nvidia gtx cards.
The attached tmd is a 4096X4096 map with very little in it and yet takes over 30 minutes to build…Sheeesh!!!
In my experience 2GB and 4096^2 terrains don’t mix. When I’m working on a terrain I never go bigger than 1024^2 since that’s all the preview can show anyway and they build much quicker. Once you have a terrain that you like, change the resolution to 4096 and then turn on Conserve Memory under World Commands>Project World Parameters>Memory Usage. That should allow you to get it built without running out of memory. Hope that helps.
I’m sorry to hear that you’re having problems with WM.
I’m particularly interested in what situations you are having crashes, as on a wide variety of machines WM is extremely stable, with the biggest challenge being only memory conditions.
I generally don’t recommend using the Thermal Erosion device you have in that example network, as it scales poorly with resolution (as you noticed) and produces results inferior to standard erosion. You can usually achieve the “surface detailing” effects of Thermal Erosion with very low iteration counts (<10); higher values do not mix well with high res terrains. To be frank, the TE device is mostly included for legacy reasons, as I was never really a big fan of it in the first place but some users found it very useful.
A 4096 build can by all accounts take a long time (and require large amounts of memory), but as mentioned in the last post, is also generally only necessary at the end of the entire terrain development process.
I’m also using WM2 for CryEngine 2 and my results have been fantastic. It’s true that large heightmaps (4096^2 or even complex 2048^2) do not build well with only 2 gigs of ram. However, we’ve built terrain images up to 16384^2(tiled) that worked perfectly and gave us extreme quality within CryEngine2.
The problem is that these very, very high quality builds do tend to take ages. One of the more complex WM2 projects we’ve done featured a 8192^2 build that took more than 15 hours to complete. The result was fantastic, but it’s definately something you want to do overnight.
My advice would be to be patient. The end result is more than worth it.
Thanx for the encouragement bud. Yes I have since the last post received some very nice maps…with patience,haha
I also heard of a team making a huge 16 map and it must have been you people, Good show indeed!!
I have got the SRTM(Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) system down now and am also generating some very interesting maps from world sites that run through the MicroDem app produces a very good height map for Cryengine2.
We’ve limited ourselves to 8 by 8 km maps for practical purposes, so it’s not our team that’s doing the 16 km magic. We have learnt alot about WM2 and CE2 along the way though. If you’re stuck or don’t get a satisfying result, don’t be afraid to hit me with a PM or open a CE2 topic. Either here, or on the Crysis modding community forums (crymod.com).
CG terrain erosion is an extremely complex field that is propably still at the state of research.
Game builders are stumbling upon tools like these because they “suddenly” realize they want to do massive huge gigantic worlds (and they want to store it in the form of “heightmaps” since the can “tex2Dlod” to it) : I’m talking worlds that most players will actually explore only 5% (think about this).
World-machine is one of the first most amazing softwares which started to provide you this advantage of “creating landscapes” even if you’re a newbie , and if you don’t know anything about geology or even algorythms : so all in all, honestly considered, you should stay humble, learn and read a bit some research papers in order to realize that WM is an incredibly great soft for its price.
ps : I’ve built 25 paleogeographic representations of the earth at the res of 4km/px with WM.
Yes, I guess I can take some time and learn it some more. Using the SRTM dem and the free MicroDem with the national Map Seamless Server service I can just about map any location on earth. And wow congratulations on creating 25 paleogeographic worlds!!!
P.S. Being humble is obviously something you strive against yourself. hahaha
