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Author Topic: Importing custom maps?  (Read 5011 times)

Alezil

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Importing custom maps?
« on: October 13, 2015, 12:48:58 am »


  First of all, my mother tongue is not English, then I beforehand, I apologize.

I made this map a fantastic world.

Apparently it is possible to import a map to view in this program, which would be of great value to min's time to make some modifications to it, as it is would be easier to see the map in 3D, to that in 2d.

I can reassemble the map trough image manipulation and so see little pieces of it in focus, not so nescessitando an image with 400,000 x 400,000. Using an approach similar to the map of the Middle-earth ... using small plots of land the size of Europe.

But unfortunately I can not find instructions to import the map in the program.

Could someone explain the basics to start importing these maps, or appoint a local where to find the tutorial for this?

Thank you all.
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cameni

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Re: Importing custom maps?
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2015, 01:07:08 am »

Importing terrain is a bit complex at the moment and the tools for it aren't public yet, but we can import it for you once the format is right. Better start with a smaller area for test though.

Input data should be in tiles in equirectangular projection, width:height 2:1. Apart from elevation data you'll also need color and vegetation index data, but these can be in a lower resolution.
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Alezil

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Re: Importing custom maps?
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2015, 05:37:06 am »

Thank you for your quick reply.

The tools are not released pro public yet? Well, at least I get a little relieved, because now I know why I did not find anything about it on the forum =).

There are plans to someday provide these tools?

A few days ago I managed after much effort to create a map in the Arma 3 editor. So I have an idea how difficult and painful this whole process (with the heightmap, masks, etc.), so I would feel bad if asked to you to do all all this work, but I appreciate the offer to import the map for me.

Anyway. Even though it is impossible for me to import my map in the Outerra, it will still be useful to me, as I manipulated an heightmap in photoshop to be able to shape the world as I wanted: So just remember what is what in this new world , and make adjustments.

so, sorry for again my English, and thanks!
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cameni

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Re: Importing custom maps?
« Reply #3 on: October 13, 2015, 05:58:54 am »

It's not that painful after you have the initial import configurations written. Then it's just matter of running the import, what can take one hour on 100m resolution Earth-sized map.
But then, once you see the world, you'll usually enter an infinite cycle of enhancing the data so they look good in OT :)

There are plans to someday provide these tools?

Yes, one day we'd actually like to make a standalone planet creator that would make the whole process easier and faster.
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JiCe75

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Re: Importing custom maps?
« Reply #4 on: June 05, 2017, 05:16:25 am »

Hello!
Sorry for digging out such an old topic.
I did some research and find this topic about importing a custom world to the engine.
I myself have been working on a fictional planet for quite some time and would like to be able to import it in the engine. Seeing this topic is two years old, has the tools to import the terrain been made public yet?

I have a color map for my world (satellite map) and a heightmap, they both have a resolution of 7499*3750 pixels, is it enough or should it be more detailed to get good results? I am not sure what you mean by color and vegetation index.

Here are my two images resized down and in jpeg (the full size png were too heavy for the internet)

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cameni

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Re: Importing custom maps?
« Reply #5 on: June 05, 2017, 07:03:48 am »

Assuming that one would need at least 100m resolution for detail comparable to what you see of Earth in OT right now (that actually uses resampled 30m data), resolution of 7500 pixels would give you a planet with 7500*100/pi = 239km diameter, 53x smaller than Earth with 12,756km.

100m is needed because procedural algorithms are tuned for generating detail below 100m, and are poor for coarser detail. On an Earth-sized planed your map would have resolution ~5km, which is very coarse and any mountains would have very long slopes.

Vegetation index map tells how much of the surface is covered by vegetation, so the engine can place trees and grass.

Tools weren't released yet, they are hard to use. We would import the data for you, but thus far we haven't found anyone with detailed enough dataset ...
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JiCe75

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Re: Importing custom maps?
« Reply #6 on: June 05, 2017, 07:25:42 am »

Ok, so if I understand well, I would need a height map of approx 400000 * 200000 px to have my 100m resolution to have a planet the size of earth or I should decide to have a smaller planet  (yet 239 km in diameter is very small for a planet). I'll look into having a higher resolution for my height map.

Is the same principle of resolution applicable for the color map and vegetation index map?
For the vegetation index map, it's a gradien map I assume with low value being no vegetation and high value max vegetation density?
« Last Edit: June 05, 2017, 07:31:19 am by JiCe75 »
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cameni

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Re: Importing custom maps?
« Reply #7 on: June 05, 2017, 09:33:50 am »

Color maps can be lower resolution, that's not that sensitive. Current Earth color map has 500m res, but of course higher res would be better there too.

Values in vegetation index basically correspond to % cover of vegetation on given cell, and they should have the same resolution as the color map.
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