Spring RTS Engine

I decided to switch over to blender for doing my diffuse texture work since that's how all the cool kids do it. I've mostly got everything set up on that side for painting, but I'm not entirely sure how to convert a heightmap to a properly sized blender mesh or vice versa, or how to properly import/match/export the UV to ensure that it's compatible and facing the right way, etc.

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

this is an older page i was working on, might be of help
https://springrts.com/wiki/User:Enether ... ng_Terrain

or this

https://springrts.com/wiki/User:Enether ... iffuse_Map

enetheru wrote:this is an older page i was working on, might be of help
https://springrts.com/wiki/User:Enether ... ng_Terrain

or this

https://springrts.com/wiki/User:Enether ... iffuse_Map

Urg. Well that sort of tells me how to make a heightmap in blender then export it, but not really how to import. Also, node editor is not something I've figured out how to use for anything.

ok sure,

Off the top of my head you want to create your mesh object then put a displacement modifier on it:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2 ... m/Displace

I like to create my mesh object as a plane that has the subdivide modifier on it
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2 ... te/Subsurf

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2 ... /Modifiers

Ok I think I more or less have that set up properly. How do I import the diffuse texture so that I can edit it?

aeonios wrote:Ok I think I more or less have that set up properly. How do I import the diffuse texture so that I can edit it?

so you want to paint on the texture to effect the height of the terrain?
why not sculpt the terrain directly?

so you want to paint on the texture to effect the height of the terrain?

I think it's "paint the diffuse but sculpt the heightmap".

I think using texture paint is a legitimate, if somewhat limited, approach.

Fully procedural maps have limits which are different and distinct from painted ones.

(I long for the day when Blender learns to paint texture stacks, e.g. diffuse, specular, emissive, normal ... all in one paint stroke)

enetheru wrote:so you want to paint on the texture to effect the height of the terrain?
why not sculpt the terrain directly?

I'm not actually doing anything with the terrain besides loading it so that I can see what I'm doing while texture painting. Is that a strange thing to do?

anarchid wrote:I think using texture paint is a legitimate, if somewhat limited, approach.

In what way is texture painting limited, anyway? >.>

anarchid wrote:(I long for the day when Blender learns to paint texture stacks, e.g. diffuse, specular, emissive, normal ... all in one paint stroke)

I'm kind of shocked that it can't. The way textures are organized in blender is kind of terrible, too. You effectively have to set them up twice and then you can only find what you're looking for by searching rather than having neatly organized folders.

In what way is texture painting limited, anyway? >.>

Since it's very hard to paint matching multi-texture stacks (again that diffuse/specular/emit/normal thing) with perfect alignment and since you can't use geometry attributes, texture painting will be generally limited in its ability to produce perfectly matching combinations of such textures.

I was confused I thought you wanted to alter the terrain. Now realise it's diffuse painting you want.
you want to learn node materials for sure. It will make things much easier.

Anarchid wrote:Since it's very hard to paint matching multi-texture stacks (again that diffuse/specular/emit/normal thing) with perfect alignment and since you can't use geometry attributes, texture painting will be generally limited in its ability to produce perfectly matching combinations of such textures.

That's not necessarily a huge disadvantage. You don't always have all that stuff, and with the exception of normals the others don't typically need to be lined up all that well. You might be able to do that stuff with texture nodes, but that stuff is still all alien to me.

enetheru wrote:I was confused I thought you wanted to alter the terrain. Now realise it's diffuse painting you want. you want to learn node materials for sure. It will make things much easier.

Maybe. I haven't needed any magic yet. I got it figured out anyway. You can actually save the diffuse texture directly from a UV editor window, and it can be loaded as a material texture.

so how big is your diffuse texture?

enetheru wrote:so how big is your diffuse texture?

4096x4096, or 48MB in bmp depending on how you measure it. Or did you mean something else?

aeonios wrote:

enetheru wrote:so how big is your diffuse texture?

4096x4096, or 48MB in bmp depending on how you measure it. Or did you mean something else?

thanks, thats exactly what I meant.