Terrain RAW File in Blender or Maya LT ?

[Erwin Solo]

Well, its not clear which forum this should go in.  Is there a plug-in for editing Terrain RAW files in Blender or Maya (I use Maya LT)? 

By "Terrain RAW file" I mean the term in the sense of http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Tips_for_Creating_Heightfields_and_Details_on_Terrain_RAW_Files .  

By Blender or Maya plug-in, I mean something like the 2011 solution for Blender that you get if you search YouTube for Video number Nl2QdNyOsME . 

I'm just looking to get some guidance before I go off searching.  

[Monti Messmer]

Hi, terrain files are just black and white textures turned into heights with a complicated render process.

Even if you could import a picture into blender it wouldn´t use the same math to render it and so would look different.

There are some terrain generation tools out there to use. They show a preview and generate the terrain RAW file and a fitted texture.

Monti

[Erwin Solo]

On 5/11/2018 at 3:42 AM, Monti Messmer said:

Hi, terrain files are just black and white textures turned into heights with a complicated render process.

Even if you could import a picture into blender it wouldn´t use the same math to render it and so would look different.

There are some terrain generation tools out there to use. They show a preview and generate the terrain RAW file and a fitted texture.

Monti

Search YouTube for Video number Nl2QdNyOsME . 

Search YouTube for Video number TyR1XOF3qoA . 

External links tend to disappear from these forums, but those numbers will take you right to older YouTube tutorials on Blender and terraform maps.

[Callum Meriman]

Just be very aware there is a bug in this whole blender workflow that potentially corrupts the regions navmesh and you end up with a 4 meter overflow in all directions into the void.

When the navmesh has been corrupted like this it can't be repaired by the Lab. You will lose the ability to smooth along the region boundary and you will be able to walk off the edges, and fall into the void. It's a horrible disaster.

I've had a long time ticket in place with the Lab, and there is a Jira dating back many years describing it as well.

Personally I'd advise against using blender for terrain, as you will likely experience this corruption as I did on 2 of my brand new regions, just by uploading such a blender generated raw.

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-242

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-5979

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-7100

and many others. Mostly closed, I doubt the Lab will ever fix this. 

Edited May 17, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Erwin Solo]

On 5/16/2018 at 8:34 PM, Callum Meriman said:

Just be very aware there is a bug in this whole blender workflow that potentially corrupts the regions navmesh and you end up with a 4 meter overflow in all directions into the void.

When the navmesh has been corrupted like this it can't be repaired by the Lab. You will lose the ability to smooth along the region boundary and you will be able to walk off the edges, and fall into the void. It's a horrible disaster.

I've had a long time ticket in place with the Lab, and there is a Jira dating back many years describing it as well.

Personally I'd advise against using blender for terrain, as you will likely experience this corruption as I did on 2 of my brand new regions, just by uploading such a blender generated raw.

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-242

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-5979

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-7100

and many others. Mostly closed, I doubt the Lab will ever fix this. 

 

I was able to get the Blender approach to function.  I did not experience the problem you report.  Maybe I just got lucky, however I am no longer using the technique.  However, I found another way to do what I wanted that seems easier.  

I hope technical support managed to fix your region. 

[Callum Meriman]

4 minutes ago, Erwin Solo said:

I hope technical support managed to fix your region. 

No, they are still broken, and I see a lot of them I don't own this way too. Turning on the navmesh display can be an eyeopener.

[OptimoMaximo]

You might want to try The World Machine for your terrain generation. The free version allows the export in exactly the same format, encoding and texture size required by SL's terrain =)