Terraforming troubleshooting - flatten tool

[LadyEllenT]

Hi guys,

I'm fairly new to terraforming but I've been doing it on my land (private sim) for several months now. I've built hills and valleys and cliffs etc. Recently it seems the flatten tool isn't flattening like it once did. In areas where I've built and flattened multiple times, the flatten tool is now creating a bumpy surface instead of a flat one. I haven't changed the way I do it and it always worked before. I can't revert the parcel because I've spent a lot of time building on it and don't want to start over. Any suggestions as to why this is happening? And please note; I don't understand most of the technical jargon, which makes this even more difficult for me to figure out. Thank you in advance!

[Rolig Loon]

Experimenting with the terraforming tools can be fun, frustrating, and frightening.  I had a tenant a few years ago who decided to make a "tiny him" on her parcel and ended up with a 500m  tall spike that needed serious flattening.

The Flatten tool adjusts the terrain within the sampled area to the height detected at it center.  When I use it, therefore, my first act is to use the Raise or Lower tool to set some point at roughly the height that I want everything else to reach eventually.  Then, I start with a moderately large Flatten tool and a very gentle strength, centered on my starting point. I move it smoothly in a sort of swirling fashion so that the flattening effect is gradual at the edges of the area.  If I am confident that it's doing what I want, I can then increase the size or the strength of the tool to work over a larger area, always remembering to keep the center of the tool inside an area that I have already adjusted to my desired final height.

I think everyone who has used the terraform tools has developed her own methods, so there's no magic in the way that I do it.  I've just found that for me the important points are (1) start with a target elevation (2) be gentle at first, and (3) keep the tool moving.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Rolig Loon

[LadyEllenT]

Thank you for your help and suggestions! I flatten the same way you do, but now, whenever I use that tool, it makes even areas outside the area I'm working on bumpy. I've had the sim owner restart the sim and it's still doing it. Do you have any idea why the methods I've been using no longer work? 

[Rolig Loon]

Whenever you use any of the terraforming tools, the land mesh has to adjust not only the points directly under the tool but also ones at a distance.  They are all affected, after all.  (Imagine what happens if your 6-year old starts jumping on the bed. The mattress goes down immediately under her but also quite a distance away.)  How far away?  That depends on the strength of the tool.  That's why I start with a fairly gentle tool until I have flattened a goodly sized starting area.  A weak tool works slower but also tries to mess with a smaller area. 

If you have already created a fairly lumpy landscape, I suspect that your Flattening tool is trying hard to flatten places well outside the tool area and is making some of them worse.  So begin with a smaller tool and keep it weak to reduce its effect on the distant stuff.  Once you have a small flat area to work from, get bolder if you wish.

[Christhiana]

For flattening a rough piece of land I like to use Skidz Dozer System. It has prims in 2x2, 4x4, and 8x8. You put them at the height you want to have your land flattened and click it to start. It will then raise the land underneath the prim to the height of the center of the prim. You can link multiple of the prims together and drag them in edit mode to flatten larger pieces of land. They will continue to flatten while you drag them.

[ChinRey]

The one great thing about Second Life's and opensim's terraforming feature compared to other virtual realities' is that it exists.

 

15 hours ago, LadyEllenT said:

...

it makes even areas outside the area I'm working on bumpy.

Terraforming will affect the area outside the one you are working on, sometimes only slightly, sometimes profoundly. The more uneven the terrain is, the messier terraforimgn gets. In extreme cases a change in one small parcel can signficantly alter the terrain of the whole region.

I think the reason is that it's a leftover from the old Linden World. They only used it to emulate explosives there. Drop a bomb and make a huge crater and mess up the landscape around. It was a bit of fun and not really intended as a serous terraforming tool.

 

11 hours ago, Christhiana said:

For flattening a rough piece of land I like to use Skidz Dozer System. It has prims in 2x2, 4x4, and 8x8. You put them at the height you want to have your land flattened and click it to start. It will then raise the land underneath the prim to the height of the center of the prim.

I hope they don't charge anything for it. It's a prim with an old open source script that really only uses a single lsl function and is available for free lots of places. If anybody want one and can't find it, drop me an IM in-world.

A land flattener is usually a far better option than the viewer's edit tools if you want perfectly flat ground. It allows you to precisely control the elevation of the land and it makes the ground perfectly flat with no bumps if at all possible (it may not always be possible, depending on the surrounding landscape).

Come to think of it, I might as well post a basic script here. The open soruce script I mentioned has a few extra bells and whistles - a menu that allows you to change between the three land sizes and also use the other brushes (not recommended!!!) but these will do the job just as well. Rez a prim, make it aproximately the size of the area the script covers (just as a reference, the prim size doesn't affect the actual function of the script) and put one of these into it:

2x2 m area:

default{
   state_entry(){
      llSetTimerEvent(0.1);
   }

   timer(){
      llModifyLand(LAND_LEVEL,0); 
   }
}

4x4 m area:

default{
   state_entry(){
      llSetTimerEvent(0.1);
   }

   timer(){
      llModifyLand(LAND_LEVEL,1); 
   }
}

8x8 m area:

default{
   state_entry(){
      llSetTimerEvent(0.1);
   }

   timer(){
      llModifyLand(LAND_LEVEL,2); 
   }
}

The script can only cover these three preset areas but as Christiana said, you can use several of them together or you can drag one around to cover more ground.

Edited March 28, 2019 by ChinRey

[Shudo]

16 hours ago, LadyEllenT said:

 In areas where I've built and flattened multiple times, the flatten tool is now creating a bumpy surface instead of a flat one. 

Sounds like you need to do a very light smooth on your parcel.

Open the landscape tool, via Ctrl-B and selecting the landscape too, not by rightclicking on the ground. This ensures the entire parcel is selected.

move the strength all the way to the left so it's the weakest.

Select smooth and click the apply button.

Then you should be back to unjaggy. If not, repeat it.

16 hours ago, LadyEllenT said:

can't revert the parcel because I've spent a lot of time building on it and don't want to start over.

Ask your estate agent if they can "bake the region". Some might not, but some will.

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by Shudo

[Kyrah Abattoir]

When you do sharp changes in the terrain terraforming, it does tend to pick up what I can only assume is "compression artefacts". Terrain elevation is stored as two greyscale textures: a base and a multiplier and it's the result of the two that leads to the final elevation.

[Alvina Nova]

On 3/28/2019 at 9:17 AM, ChinRey said:

The one great thing about Second Life's and opensim's terraforming feature compared to other virtual realities' is that it exists.

 

Terraforming will affect the area outside the one you are working on, sometimes only slightly, sometimes profoundly. The more uneven the terrain is, the messier terraforimgn gets. In extreme cases a change in one small parcel can signficantly alter the terrain of the whole region.

I think the reason is that it's a leftover from the old Linden World. They only used it to emulate explosives there. Drop a bomb and make a huge crater and mess up the landscape around. It was a bit of fun and not really intended as a serous terraforming tool.

 

I hope they don't charge anything for it. It's a prim with an old open source script that really only uses a single lsl function and is available for free lots of places. If anybody want one and can't find it, drop me an IM in-world.

A land flattener is usually a far better option than the viewer's edit tools if you want perfectly flat ground. It allows you to precisely control the elevation of the land and it makes the ground perfectly flat with no bumps if at all possible (it may not always be possible, depending on the surrounding landscape).

Come to think of it, I might as well post a basic script here. The open soruce script I mentioned has a few extra bells and whistles - a menu that allows you to change between the three land sizes and also use the other brushes (not recommended!!!) but these will do the job just as well. Rez a prim, make it aproximately the size of the area the script covers (just as a reference, the prim size doesn't affect the actual function of the script) and put one of these into it:

2x2 m area:

default{
   state_entry(){
      llSetTimerEvent(0.1);
   }

   timer(){
      llModifyLand(LAND_LEVEL,0); 
   }
}

4x4 m area:

default{
   state_entry(){
      llSetTimerEvent(0.1);
   }

   timer(){
      llModifyLand(LAND_LEVEL,1); 
   }
}

8x8 m area:

default{
   state_entry(){
      llSetTimerEvent(0.1);
   }

   timer(){
      llModifyLand(LAND_LEVEL,2); 
   }
}

The script can only cover these three preset areas but as Christiana said, you can use several of them together or you can drag one around to cover more ground.

 

On 3/28/2019 at 11:04 AM, Shudo said:

Sounds like you need to do a very light smooth on your parcel.

Open the landscape tool, via Ctrl-B and selecting the landscape too, not by rightclicking on the ground. This ensures the entire parcel is selected.

move the strength all the way to the left so it's the weakest.

Select smooth and click the apply button.

Then you should be back to unjaggy. If not, repeat it.

Ask your estate agent if they can "bake the region". Some might not, but some will.

 

 

On 3/28/2019 at 9:17 AM, ChinRey said:

 I hope they don't charge anything for it.
 

Smiles: they charge 249L$
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Skidz-Partz-Skidz-Dozer-System/142827