TerraForm

Terrain Tab

Elevations

• Max Height - This sets the maximum height for the map. The elevations will be automaticly scaled so that the tallest peak in your landscape will be at this height.


• Bank Height - This is the height of the "riverbanks" and ocean shore in your landscape. This affects two things:

  1. The steepness of the ocean shore. Points of the landscape that are this distance from sea level are pushed down to sea level. Making this number very small (or zero) will give your map flat beaches, while high numbers will give your coastline tall or even clifflike beaches.

  2. The depth of rivers. Rivers that you add to your terrain (using the edit terrain window) will be pushed down by this amount, making sure that the rivers are lower than the surrounding ground. If Bank Height is a very low number then your rivers will be very flat, and it may look as though the water is simply sitting on top of the surrounding land. A high Bank Height can make your riverbanks deep, or even canyon-like.

  
  
• Cliff Height - Polygons that are taller than this number are painted with the cliff texture. Setting this number too low can result in your map being covered with the cliff texture. If you do not want the map to ever use the cliff texture, simply set this number higher than Max Height.


• Sea Level - This is the amount of your map that will be "underwater". Landscape that is underwater is flattened out and painted with the water texture. It should be noted that the "sea" is always placed at a height of zero, and that this number simply affects the amount of the terrain that will be underwater. For example,if your sea level is 2.0 then all the terrain less than 2.0 would be water. Making this number close to Max Height will put most of your terrain underwater, and a very low value will mean there is very little water on your map.


• Snow Line - Elevations above the snow line will be painted with the snow texture. If you do not want to use the snow texture on your map simply set this number higher than Max Height.

Object Density

This controls the size of your objects. Objects that are much smaller will give your map more detail, at the expense of making your map smaller, increasing the number of objects and the number of polygons visible at one time. Changing this option does not affect the number of objects generated, but simply their size. It should be noted that the program does not scale the map vertically, so making the objects smaller will make your terrain much, much steeper.

• Normal - 20 Meter Objects - This is the recomended setting. All objects will be 20x20 meters. This offers the best possible ratio of objects to total land coverage.


• High - 10 Meter Objects - All objects will be 10x10 meters. This will put 1 object in each cell. For example, 1 object at 0n 0e, another object at 1n 0e, etc.


• Very High - 5 Meter Objects - All objects will be 5x5 meters. This will put 4 objects in each cell.

Object Detail

This controls how many points each object uses. This is an important setting and can greatly affect the look and number of objects needed to create your map.

Setting this higher gives your map far more detail, at the expense of making it smaller.

TerraForm attempts to re-use objects, elevating and rotating them as needed. This system works well with low-polygon objects, since there is a greater chance of having a match. For two objects to match in low-res mode, they must have all 9 points at the same height. For normal objects, they must have 25 identical points and hi-res objects require a total of 49 identical points.

As a general rule, small maps will need less objects if you use high-res, and huge maps will benefit more if you use low-res. However, this can vary depending on the type of terrain. Experiment with different settings for your particular map and see what works best.

• Low - This provides the best object re-use potential. Each object is 4 polygons.
• Normal - Each object has 16 polygons. Objects are far less likely to be re-used.
• High - Each object is 36 polygons. It is very unlikely that any object would be re-used, unless you have a lot of identical scenery in your map.

Vertical Resolution

This controls the number of possible elevations on your map. For example, if your overall height was 10 meters and your Vertical Resolution is set to 20, then all elevation points will be rounded to the nearest 1/2 meter. Setting this number higher will give you more possible elevations and make the terrain smoother, at the expense of making the objects harder to re-use, which may increase the number of objects created. Lower values make objects more re-usuable, but values that are too low can make the hills look like "steps".

In general, the higher the map, the more Vertical Resolution you need. Low, rolling hills need much less resolution than a towering mountain.