Is there still hope of getting map conversion fixed for ATI?

is this still alive?
Anyway I made some prefabs things (just b/w gradients really):



Sadly it crashes when you try to place/rotate a prefab xxx_hm.png without xxx_tm.png
(The 3d window stays but the menu disappears)
prefabs that are just heightmap without changing the texture would be quite usefull. atm I create lots of dummy files. (annoying ofc)

NEW RELEASE: r321
(Moved and separated repositories - this is why number is smaller again)
-prefabs should work without texturemap file again (was just a bug)
-tried a fix for ATI sm2 export (likely will not help, please test)
(still working on supporting external dds tools)

cool
Not sure if you saw this
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=27383&start=114
but will be much better to use now.

some suggestions:
1) each file related menu should store its own "last used" directory.
Super annoying when you click "export spring map" and it goes to the folder where you last loaded a texturescript.
2) cursor should show rotation. (very usefull for prefabs)
if of the red rectangle one side has a different color that would be sufficient.
3) hotkeys for brushstrength (to lower height of prefabs) and rotation
4) grid overlay and coordinates. Atm I make a grid texture and load that but it is a bit meh.
When clicking "Align 1x1 Prefab" the grid should use that resolution.
5) Something to show distances in spring elmos http://springrts.com/wiki/Units-UnitsOfMeasurement
can be kind of calculated from the cursor & texture size but is confusing.
6) center-view button. (when the map floated away again due to sticky keys bug, see some previous post)

auto texture:
autotexture thing is pretty neat.
But can not figure out how to make ramps/slopes a different color.
picture explains it better, sideview of terrain:

(some blending between the textures would be fine)
Atm I try like this but do not understand the [STEEPTRANSITIONS] part
http://pastebin.com/PV9WeuxB
(despite the commentated example)

minor blabla:
Atm one extra step I do is export the heightmap, load it in irfanview and apply blur (and some "explosion" filter to fuzzy out the pixels, but basically blur) and then reload the heightmap in SME. Idea is to make the edges of cliffs a bit rounded (looks better ingame with lod and texture stretching)
Would be cool to have an erosion script for that but I have no idea how to make them do what I want.

attached some heightmap prefabs.
I will eventually do more and maybe some guide how to use them but I noticed whenever I say that it takes a year, so lala.

Looks really nice knorke. :)
And small enough to be distributed within default package too.
So, if you do not mind, I will include those as the default prefab tilepack together with SME.

I can see it would be very nice to have some kind of rendered preview, when using prefabs at a scale this small. (Still prefabs have the nice feature of just trying it out. If it was wrong, just paste it over again.)

@1: Currently it is just windows' current directory. But you are right, makes sense
@2: Instead if this I will try to create some kind of prefab-preview rendered on top of the cursor.
@3: Easy enough.
@4: Showing coordinates aligned with prefab: easy. Overlay could be possible the same way as other overlays. Needs experimenting.
@5: How to show/select this? (I included the commander unit as a feature to get an idea...)
@6: Easy enough.

@TexGen:
There are only 2 textures supported for steepness now. (Flat and Steep, for each heightlevel.)
Example:
Flat1=0.005;
Steep1=0.03;
Until steepness reaches 0.005, only Flat texture is used.
Between 0.005 and 0.03 Flat and Steep are blended inbetween.
After 0.03 only Steep is used.
So if you want to always blend between both textures, Flat1 should be very small, and Steep1 very high. (Exact values need to be tested.)

@Smoothing map: I think there is a hotkey "S" for smoothing out the whole map.
It uses the brush-strength of smooth brush. (heightmode smooth).
The brushstrength determines which is the maximum height difference which gets smoothed. If you plainly want to smooth everything, just move the strength to 1000, and in 3D window press S. (lower values are for preserving steep cliffs)
Another idea would be to smooth the prefabs beforehand, so you do not need this smooth-step at all

Hope it helps :)
Frostregen

PS: It seems the prefabs do to fit exactly together on different heightlevels (sceenshot from your map, at floor of ramp to the right.)
Is this an artifact from using filters afterwards? Or could the prefabs use some improvement? (LevelOverlap setting?)
Also the ramps themselve look dithered. Maybe use 16bit heightmaps instead of 8bit? (I will investigate this further)

Feel free to include the prefabs. Maybe I can figure out to make them 16bit.

Some way to show circular ranges would be good, to adjust terrain for weapon and buildranges. Some tool that is simply an adjustable circle around the cursor might work?
Rest sounds good.

The "excact" values were what I was wondering about but will give a try again.

smoothing:
s-key seems to work but have not yet found a good value.
I thought about smoothing the prefabs but it would require too many versions of each prefab.
Depending on where it is placed (corner, edge, middle of other tiles) you would also have to select the correct tile and rotate it which is the kind of stuff I wanted to avoid.

At least heightwise they should always fit, highest part is always full white, lowest is full black. A few times somehow the height alignment broke. New placed prefabs would not line up with prefabs that were previously placed, even of the same type:

It was happening in the editor but might have been due to accidently changing some settings or by saving & loading map. (possible editing too)