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[Midviki]

I was drawing some concept buildings this morning, and I was thinking about the fact that a few days ago... I had problems making a road on top another, because I needed the terrain modified with one... but I wanted it combined with the other one, so it would seem to be like a granite road next to it.And I said that I should ask.
Are you thinking of making some kind of "lock" for some roads to become one with the terrain ? ( I mean it to be.. like some kind of modification to the terrain but to stay forever or in some way to have a different "lock".If you would want to put as many roads as you want, when you make them and you are sure you want to "lock" it to the ground, you won't be able to modify it because of some lock option that only works when you are in that "mode".And you could just put another one and modify the terrain with that one.

Anyway... that was one question a bit off, but it will help for what I want to say now.
Have you thought about what I just said, but applied to buildings ( objects ) to become one with the ground? Like making a house and bind it to the terrain, and it will not be seen as an object but as any normal procedural terrain, and will be procedural generated. Although... about this thing something else comes in mind and if you can make something about it.For example having an object on top of a mountain ( big enough ), you can test this with a big black giant cube, and look at it from a lower point of view and like 50 kilometers away.You will see the cube as it should be... but you will see it floating!!! because you don't see the terrain from the distance on its real shape.Anyway if you can do something about that issue, and I think you know about it.

But coming back to the "terrain building" I was talking about, and thinking of what I just said.I could say I am afraid about the fact that the same thing might happen to terrain converted buildings. Even if all the constructions might be viewed as less resource consuming than the tones of objects you might have in sight.(And probably I might be wrong about it)

Anyway... those where my 2 questions I think... or 3 maybe if you know what would consume more resources, but I dunno. I will test in the next month a massive hand made lego city made from objects.(I will try to use on them a lot of polys and high res textures, and I will come back with an answer to you if this might be an issue or not, but if you know something about it, tested or you feel this might be something that could help the engine to be improved, feel free to share)

Oh yeah and this kind of thing... it might be interesting to see if you would build some tunnel or cave out of an object and converting it in to terrain and after that...  building road or some material to rise the terrain and make a mountain above it! That could be interesting to see, right? ( Maybe it can be an extension to the already existing Importer ? )

Thank you for taking the time to read this long post.   

[cameni]

The distance at which the buildings disappear and the profile how the terrain precision is relaxed with distance are two parameters that are not completely independent, they both depend on the terrain quality metrics.
There's no way to bake buildings into the terrain mesh, mainly because the mesh is ever changing. All you can do is to set a higher quality so that the perceived error becomes less than 1 pixel, when you stop seeing it. Such a quality is quite demanding on GPU though.

Roads, on the other hand, are a part of the terrain already. Not sure what you mean by locking these ...

Tunnels and caves need explicit support, can't be made with the existing terrain system alone.

[deathevor]

Roads, on the other hand, are a part of the terrain already. Not sure what you mean by locking these ...

So the roads determined by Height maps (*.wad files)?

[cameni]

No. The wad files contain raw terrain elevation data. But when you make a road, it's overlaid on the terrain a modifies both raw and procedural terrain data at run time. Terrain files are never modified, vector data can only shape the loaded/generated terrain in memory.

[Midviki]

Roads, on the other hand, are a part of the terrain already. Not sure what you mean by locking these ...

Tunnels and caves need explicit support, can't be made with the existing terrain system alone.

- The 'Roads'.What I wanted to say was I think was if you try to implement it... it would be like this... : To have another set of modifiers that can be modified.And that set of modifiers will have a separate folder with coordinates ( just maybe for keeping track of them... or not.. same folder is good as well ).The folder part is not a must but it happened to me a few times some bugs when the "road file" from the coordinates was corrupt and I couldn't delete it or modify it.. anyway... back to the subject.The folder part is not a must, but the in game extra window would be required with an extra set of modifiers that can be modified with other materials like "roads".Basically it is something that can be applied and not interfere with another "road" type modifier.Like making a permanent change to the terrain but is a bit more complicated than that.Cause it would work something similar to the road modifier only that the physical data will not remain unmodifiabe.And when I said complicated I made a reference to the "folder" thingy for coordinates, but a special kind of coordinates because you don't want to replace the original terrain. (like the road does*)
Did I made any sense?I can elaborate if you want.

- And the tunnels... it would be nice for the terrain to be able to go around the object.For example like making a hole trough a thin mountain or a larger one.

[Midviki]

Look... about this I was talking.. I want the road to overwrite the other "road".Do you think you can make some kind of "road" that can be manipulated by other roads?I mean like 2x "Road & Runway Editor" 's, only that there is one that can be modified by other terrain modifiers and one not.

[cameni]

Ehm, I still can't make the head & tail out of it. Do you want to set the priority of one road over the other? Normally the road you made first has a higher priority than the ones made later. This priority can be changed, although right now that functionality isn't exposed.

[Midviki]

This priority can be changed, although right now that functionality isn't exposed.

I know about it.. I showed you a screen shot about it a few weeks back.And yes I thought about it, and I said to myself maybe there is a better solution.
Look what happens when you elevate the terrain.It would be nice if the "road" under it if you want it only for the texture to 'lock' it or for just shaping up a big the ground where you want to put a building or something on top of it.And when I say 'lock'... I refer like some check box under the "road type" and "markings" combo boxes or some radio button with an on / off switch, like when opening the "Road & Runway Editor".And that option will prohibit you from selecting the specific road or terrain modifier when it is closed.And yeah.. the terrain under it that you 'lock' can it be a special terrain?Adding another option (another combo box under the other 2) that will allow you if you want the terrain that you create to be modifiable by a certain road / terrain modifier with a higher priority.And I don't know about it.. but would the "road" or terrain under the road that you want visible... when I thought at it the road under it would transform from what vectors it has in to a grid of vectors or something like that so the other road can be elevated, or dunno something like that, I'm not very experienced in "unknown waters" like other peoples work, development progress.Anyway I made another boring screen shot.   

[Midviki]

Yeah... and the picture with the 1, 2, 3 ( 1 is actually the same with 3 ( same road).. nvm) reminded me of the shadows left behind form the trees, but you probably know about that, when you delete trees ( by covering them with road ) their shadow remains even if they are not there.