I created heightmaps of areas near my hometown (San Jose) with the website terrain.party, but I cannot import them as a heightmap into the terrain editor. The error message in the console log is not helpful either; all it says is "Heightmap failed to load". If you need it, here's a zip containing one of the heightmaps I tried: View attachment southlosgatos terrain.zip
Re: Importing heightmaps doesn't work I think we are looking for similar awnsers lol - - - Updated - - - Thank you I want to try this. - - - Updated - - - So i tried this and i also get the flat map kind of,what is it exactly i would have to do in L3DT?to get the terrain to load up right.
Re: Importing heightmaps doesn't work I seem to recall this issue. For whatever reason the heightmap information provided by Terrainparty will not translate to Torque very well. I apologize for spacing that out, it's been awhile since I did it. Anyway, the Terrainparty heightmap will need to be imported into L3TD or similar program and saved. Once saved it can be exported out and into Torque. I generally use a simple folder on my desktop to export and hold heightmaps. I make maps in the steamapps/beamng.drive/contents filepath and place the heightmap directly into the contents folder, right under levels and contents.
Re: Importing heightmaps doesn't work It still won't work after importing into L3DT, exporting it again, then importing it into BeamNG.
I could try this when I get back from school. What if I want larger than a 1024x1024 map though? 1024 is not very big at all for some of my maps.
Change the saved dimensions to an even number, i.e. 1081 to 1080, haven't used L3DT much but with world project it will add 1 pixel to the border unless you deselect that option beam will not load the file.
I've seen terrains in BeamNG that are 8096x8096. And other large desert terrains had perfectly straight roads that stretched for over 15 miles; and that wasn't even the whole terrain.
Those are indeed larger than 2048x2048, but they accomplish this by using a large map at low resolution. So instead of a terrain-defining vertex every meter as is default, they use one every two, four, perhaps eight meters. That means bigger maps, but with coarser roads and terrain features, more obvious terrain material transitions, and more z-fighting issues. Indeed, I'm having the same manner of trouble with creating heightmaps. When I import terrain heightmaps, they come out nearly flat. As in, to make the terrain possess ~100 meters' worth of vertical travel, white to black, I have to increase the vertical range of the heightmap to 16000. By which point, the terrain is too heavily stepped to be travel-able. I'll try the L3DT method soon. I can't help but wonder what Hutch must be doing to get this working right. If ever there were a standard...
Generally, putting stuff in my documents/beamng.drive folder works for importing terrain. Terrain must be 16-bit png (use l3dt), otherwise it will come out too flat (32/24/48-bit) or look waffled/sawtooth-like (if using BMP). Terrain must be square, power of 2 form. 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096. Larger sized files don't generally work reliably and may hang Beam. If you use import fields mapping for automatically filling grass, asphalt, etc, this must be black-and-white with no color in between. Use contrast >max to get rid of colors in between if drawing these out on your own, say, asphalt and grass, and merely invert colors when done with one to get the other. These must be the same size as your terrain. Serious about mapping with 4k terrains? Want to create a real pro-looking map? Well fine, buy L3DT*, I did, it's most definitely worth the cash and you'll get your key by the next business day - and the author will help you with it if you're stuck. *DON'T BE A PIRATE. A guy like you or me has written that software, be supportive. That guy deserves to eat, too. There's a 90-day trial if you sign in to it via email. You can check it out, build up a few terrains, keep yourself busy for a while with those. Worldmachine also works with terrains, but I wasn't too crazy about that as it's a lot more complex (and 3x as expensive) and a lot more limited if you do not choose to purchase the non-shareware version. (Yes, I said shareware, I am getting old, what do you mean it's not the 90's anymore???)... I hope this helps. If anyone want a seriously nice 4k importable terrain, I can create one here if you give me a smaller terrain to work with, but it might take me a day or two until I get to it and get it re-uploaded. I will only do this for serious seasoned mappers that have already published good maps, though. This cuts down on time wasted for folks who don't intend to finish what they start up. If I have to finish your map for you then I just might do it without asking, if you refuse to! --Cheers!
Ah yes, the good ol' terrain.party to BeamNG, something I have experienced and struggled with but I have now perfected. Here's how I get mine to work in game with perfect scale and height: *This tutorial will be for a 4kx4k heightmap -Use terrain.party on a plot of land using the smallest area selector in terrain.party (8kmx8km) (this is to get the highest quality heightmap) -take the image and put it into photoshop (or a similar program that can support 16 bit gray scale heightmaps(if your program can only support 8kx8k the heightmap will appear flat in-game)) -the image will default be 1081x1081 (I think) so change the images resolution to 8000x8000 (thats the kmxkm you got from terrain.party) and remeber to upscale the image bicubic smooth if you have the option -if you're in photoshop, use Gaussian blur at 8.00 to get a perfectly smoothed, or whatever your program has -change the CANVAS SIZE to 4096x4096 and move the image around until it is lined up exactly where you want it (this will keep the scale perfect to the real place) -i usually put the finished image into my steam folder but people here say it works in the documents -put it in-game at 1m/pixel and the terrain height data can be found in the terrain.party readme you downloaded Alright, that was probably very confusing to read, I'll start working on a video on how I do this, give me a little bit of time. -EDIT- Well, the upload reset itself when it was at like 75% and now there's not enough time to upload it. I wont be home again until Friday, but I can still answer questions if needed. Sorry guys, I'll upload it this Friday!
Thanks for your efforts Binkey. I look forward a video! My terrainparty experiences have been fine but I'm only doing things one way so your input and expertise will be welcomed.
Sorry guys, some things came up and I wasn't able to get it up on Friday. Here it is now though, a low-effort/quality tutorial.
Sorry, I must not have seen that on the forums before. Anyways, your way of doing it worked well, but it would work better if you owned the full version of L3DT. That 4 meters/pixel really messes with the map and makes it hard to make the terrain precise. Also, you made me realize that it's not max - min like I did in my video, it's JUST the max. Definitely a good tutorial.