Mirror/copypaste Terrain

[Pegasus]

Edit: there seems to be some issue with the msg.board server's clock being stuck at 00:00, and it's messing with new posts' chronological order. This post is in response to the one Conobraz made, umm, right after it. If this is your first time reading this thread, I suggest you read that post first or this one won't make any sense to you. It's all a bit confusing and it'll hopefully resolve itself soon, but, who knows, it might just make Christopher Nolan proud of us for managing to converse in a reversed time flow, so that's something :s?


While the Unreal Engine 2.x terrain heightmap data is stored in the notoriously finicky and general image editing software-unfriendly format of 16-bit greyscale, someone, Martin Bell to be specific, did develop - and gradually improve on in subsequent versions - a program that allowed some rudimentary operations to be performed to the entire heightmap, outside of UEd's more localized terrain modification tools. The program was called G16ed and was hosted on Bell's own site, which is now defunct, but you can get a copy of its latest version (v1.46) from the ever-lifesaving Internet Archive here, and a few extra helpful notes from the BeyondUnreal Wiki here.

For quick reference, here's the latest version's list of main features, straight from the download's readme file:

Main Features:
=============
- Rotate & flip all/sections of heightmap.
- Easy ramp creation.
- Cut/copy/paste/crop sections of heightmap.
- Import raw data (8/16/24/32 bit big/little-endian), 8-bit greyscale bmp.
- Export raw data (8/16/24/32 bit big/little-endian), 8-bit greyscale bmp.
- Resize heightmap to specified dims.
- Add/Replace/Subtract fractal noise to selection.
- Multilevel zoom with mousewheel.
- One level undo.

Once you're done using G16ed to adjust your heightmap the way you want it, getting its texture (and/or deco) layers altered in a corresponding way should be a lot more straightforward, as, IIRC, those are stored as DXT5 images that can be easily extracted from the map's myLevel'd textures, processed in any image editing program that can import and save in the DXT format family, and re-imported back in the same place via UEd.

Hope that helps. Now, if you'll excuse me, I desperately need to go looking for a turnstile because I absolutely do not want to keep moving backwards and relive the nightmare that's been 2020.

[Conobraz]

Hello!

I'm trying to make the map BR-Canyon symmetric and I got pretty much everything nice and tidy except for the terrain. I wanted to copy the Blue side of the map and flip it so its the same on the Red side without having to re-do everything by hand.

I've watched some tutorials posted on the forums and, though they were very helpful, they didn't cover what I want to do. I already tried a number of things, but I'm not experienced enough to do it right, for example exporting the grayscale heightmap and editing that instead( for some reason whenever I import it back after editing it becomes coloured and doesn't work).

I know there is a tool to mirror terrain as you are painting it, but it's no use to me since the terrain I need to mirror is already sculpted and, the way the map works, even if I started sculpting from scratch it wouldn't be of use because the top part of Blue side = Bottom part of Red side so it's not an easy X or Y mirror.

The reason for this topic is that I'm part of a small community that plays regularly and we are trying to fix/improve some maps so I started researching about the editor and it appears I hit a brick wall with this one... If anyone knows their stuff and is willing to lend a hand I would greatly apreciate it

Edit: This might help visualize what I'm trying to do...


(alt link)
This is the regular BR-Canyon, notice how asymetrical it is.


(alt link)
This is my version.

[Conobraz]

Edit: there seems to be some issue with the msg.board server's clock being stuck at 00:00, and it's messing with new posts' chronological order. This post is in response to the one Conobraz made, umm, right after it. If this is your first time reading this thread, I suggest you read that post first or this one won't make any sense to you. It's all a bit confusing and it'll hopefully resolve itself soon, but, who knows, it might just make Christopher Nolan proud of us for managing to converse in a reversed time flow, so that's something :s?


While the Unreal Engine 2.x terrain heightmap data is stored in the notoriously finicky and general image editing software-unfriendly format of 16-bit greyscale, someone, Martin Bell to be specific, did develop - and gradually improve on in subsequent versions - a program that allowed some rudimentary operations to be performed to the entire heightmap, outside of UEd's more localized terrain modification tools. The program was called G16ed and was hosted on Bell's own site, which is now defunct, but you can get a copy of its latest version (v1.46) from the ever-lifesaving Internet Archive here, and a few extra helpful notes from the BeyondUnreal Wiki here.

For quick reference, here's the latest version's list of main features, straight from the download's readme file:

Main Features:
=============
- Rotate & flip all/sections of heightmap.
- Easy ramp creation.
- Cut/copy/paste/crop sections of heightmap.
- Import raw data (8/16/24/32 bit big/little-endian), 8-bit greyscale bmp.
- Export raw data (8/16/24/32 bit big/little-endian), 8-bit greyscale bmp.
- Resize heightmap to specified dims.
- Add/Replace/Subtract fractal noise to selection.
- Multilevel zoom with mousewheel.
- One level undo.

Once you're done using G16ed to adjust your heightmap the way you want it, getting its texture (and/or deco) layers altered in a corresponding way should be a lot more straightforward, as, IIRC, those are stored as DXT5 images that can be easily extracted from the map's myLevel'd textures, processed in any image editing program that can import and save in the DXT format family, and re-imported back in the same place via UEd.

Hope that helps. Now, if you'll excuse me, I desperately need to go looking for a turnstile because I absolutely do not want to keep moving backwards and relive the nightmare that's been 2020.

THANK YOU!!!!

[EmanReleipS]

What a weird bug. Hopefully resolved now by re-synchronizing a couple of things.

Can't figure out how to move the posts into the right order. Maybe if I make a new topic, but not 100% sure if that would ignore the faulty clock times. Is it okay for you two to keep it like this?

[Pegasus]

Well, thread creation has been attributed to the right user, and the posts' sequential numbering is correct as well (hover over each post's little white/grey page icon to see their individual page anchor links), so I'm inclined to assume what's keeping the first two posts out of order is merely the timestamp of mine during the server time hiccup. To change that would likely require direct access and editing of the relevant stored value in the msg.board's database to something a bit later than Conobraz's original post's time. Frankly, with the edited note right at the top being pretty clear about what's going on, and as long as the thread stays compact enough, it's probably more hassle than it's worth trying to fix it, unless anyone with such direct access had a few other tasks already lined up, in which case, it's up to you .

[Conobraz]

Hey it's me again...

I wanted to properly thank everyone that helped me in the discord and also Pegasus for showing me da wae

This is an old game and it's amazing how there are still active communities like this.

Like I said before, I'm part of a South American community and though the ping might never let us play together we can still share good times... We record a lot of clips and some of us are starting to stream so if anyone wants to come check us out ur more than welcome

https://www.twitch.tv/bleuitup

A couple of clips from our games:






BTW my version of BR-Canyon is pretty much done and we're gonna test it Soon™ if you guys want I could post it here aswell.

[Miauz55555]

Happy you found a solution. Sure post it. Some scenes from the videos are nice. =)