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Vollständige Version anzeigen : GC2 Projects: What they are useful for? NOTHING


dballesg
16.April2009, 16:47
Hi,

I must say that if I sound harsh on this post, I couldn't avoid it. After lost more than three days trying to understand what are projects useful for. And trying to use them to generate a terrain for a client's project.

I attached an image of a test I was doing, I need to quite a big terrain, more than 4096 so I thought that creating a 4096, with 4 1024x1024 terrains and moving the layers side to size will do it, and later export each section and scale them up on a paint program.

It is craving on my nerves this facts:


My idea went completely wrong, GeoControl doesn't take in account the seams between layers, if they do not overlap.

Everything is recalculated EVERY single time, every time you click somewhere. Changing from on layer to another, or changing between isolines. On big projects / terrains you lose a precious time waiting to GC2 to react, and that when it doesn't hang up completely. And this is on a QUAD CORE 6600 with 8 Gb RAM, basicall GC2 has 3GB for itself due it is a 32 bit application.

I said it before and hasn't been corrected, isolines change completly and lost their shape if you change from a bigger resolution terrain to a smaller one, and back to a bigger one. Posted on JULY 2008: Almost 10 months ago.
Isolines lost of quality (http://www.cajomi.de/Forum/showthread.php?t=701)


I though I could cope with the fact that GC2 it is relatively cheap and "one man band" program. But not any more. This time I was losing my time and my clients money.

I have several plugins for LightWave that are hundreds of times more complex to programming than GC, and I get updates almost every week, and much earlier if I report a bug. And they are on the same price area of GC2.

The forums are dead, people doesn't post, and I think it is everyone has come to the conclusion that GC2 it is really badly maintained.

I can say as well that there are very good ideas on GC2, like the erosion filters, or the rivers and roads tools. But others are really, really bad implemented.

I do not care really what Johannes it's going to say about this, and I do not accept any apologies again. I am ditching GC2 for this and any future projects.

If Johannes was doing this as an open source project I would reacted on a different way, but as a commercial product really it lacks of the minimum quality I expect for something I paid.

David

Patrick210
16.April2009, 22:05
I created a terrain that consisted of 16 individual GC terrains combined in PhotoShop. Using 16 bit tifs, you can combine them, clone parts, layer, whatever and create a seamless really large detailed terrain. Worked pefectly for me. I was able to bring the finished terrain back into GC and use selections for creating the materials. Perhaps the project setup doesn't work correctly or as you expect, but I still think GC is a great program for generating terrains.

dballesg
16.April2009, 22:51
I created a terrain that consisted of 16 individual GC terrains combined in PhotoShop. Using 16 bit tifs, you can combine them, clone parts, layer, whatever and create a seamless really large detailed terrain. Worked pefectly for me. I was able to bring the finished terrain back into GC and use selections for creating the materials. Perhaps the project setup doesn't work correctly or as you expect, but I still think GC is a great program for generating terrains.

Individual terrains I do not doubt it. I said that has very good things, other ones are not.

Do you mind to elaborate how you avoided seams between different terrains? Using the Clone Tool in Photoshop?

And I suppose you bring back the terrain as a smaller resolution, because if you combine four 2048x2048 maps, that will give you a 8192x8192 terrain thet GC2 can not handle.

David

Patrick210
17.April2009, 01:01
Correct, some fuzzy cloning, some contrast adjustment, etc. If you don't mind some rotated repetition, you can create a seamless GC terrain and use a rotated copy to get rid of the seam and then clone in some changes to the center part.

Yes, I reduced it to a 4096 x 4096. Do you have a program that can render an 8192 x 8192 terrain? The ones I know of can't handle it.

Here's a low res version of the one I created. It represents 300 x 300 km in the game.

http://www.cajomi.de/Forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=463&d=1236692602

dballesg
17.April2009, 10:11
Correct, some fuzzy cloning, some contrast adjustment, etc. If you don't mind some rotated repetition, you can create a seamless GC terrain and use a rotated copy to get rid of the seam and then clone in some changes to the center part.

Yes, I reduced it to a 4096 x 4096. Do you have a program that can render an 8192 x 8192 terrain? The ones I know of can't handle it.

Here's a low res version of the one I created. It represents 300 x 300 km in the game.

http://www.cajomi.de/Forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=463&d=1236692602


Thanks Patrick for those pointers, i will try to give it a go.

About a program that render 8192x8192 maps, I suppose Vue will do it on the 64 bits on my machine, but I didn't tried.

But I am sure LightWave can do it, using a plugin called InfiniMap, basically Infinimap load the part of the texture that it is used on the render of the frame and view by the Camera on the fly.

The author is a friend of mine, and I know they have rendered massive maps with a small memory footprint, using it with Lightwave.

David

cajomi
18.April2009, 09:41
Hi dballesg,

why you change the meassurement and what scale you use for changing?

Johannes

dballesg
18.April2009, 10:21
Hi dballesg,

Why you change the measurement and what scale you use for changing?

Johannes

You mean the Point At value to 290?

I needed to change it because with the usual value of 3760 the terrain on the center was squashed vertically. Was the only way I found to compensate the deformation.

The central terrain was imported from another GC2 terrain I made by itself.

David

cajomi
23.April2009, 17:47
Hi, I mean changing a bigger resolution terrain to a smaller one.

Johannes

dballesg
23.April2009, 19:55
Hi, I mean changing a bigger resolution terrain to a smaller one.

Johannes

Hi Johannes,

Still I do not understand your question.

The project it is 4096x4096 and the two terrains on the screenshot 1024x1024. It is that what you mean?

If it is so I was trying to create two tiled terrains, and you can't do that if the terrains are the same size as the project? right?

David

cajomi
27.April2009, 09:05
Hi dballesg,

what happens, if you change the resultion to a smaller one?
May you loose your shape?

Johannes

dballesg
27.April2009, 09:59
Hi dballesg,

what happens, if you change the resultion to a smaller one?
May you loose your shape?

Johannes

Hi,

I tried changing the resolutions of the layers in the project to 512x512, I could do it on the first layer, the top one on the image I attached. And visually looked fine.

When I tried to change it on the other one GC crashed on me.

Basically when you are dealing with a project and start playing with the size of layer and the size of the project, GC crashes a LOT.

David

cajomi
27.April2009, 10:20
I will have a look.

dballesg
27.April2009, 11:13
I will have a look.

Thanks Johannes,

I emailed a GC2 with the same problem on Friday. I saw that you answered me and asked if I am using build 41, that is the build I am using.


David