Properly Creating a BF 1942 Levels Terrain, textures

[Flam1ng Dem0n]

I am rather good at creating models in 3ds max 7 and 10, but i have been wondering how do i create a BF 1942 levels terrain and textures? As well as all other necessary things, such as water and buildings and bunker (if needed). How i do this? And can it be done. I know that i can create a map in 3ds max, but how would i export it and then import it into BF 1942. And do i directly import it into BF 1942....or into the BF 1942 world builder?

Thanks for any help given!

Flam1ng Dem0n

[fo0k]

Battlecraft is the official editor for the game and will do all of this. Have you tried that yet out of interest?

[Flam1ng Dem0n]

Battlecraft is the official editor for the game and will do all of this. Have you tried that yet out of interest?

Yes i have tried it, but.....It does not seem to have the as User Friendliness as 3ds max. But i have recently a program called L3DT and it can generate and export heightmaps. But does it work with Battlecraft 1942? Can it work with the program?

Thanks

[Sgt.Killboy]

Well...whatever program you use to create heightmaps. As long as you save them as .raw file they should work with BC42. You might probably have to convert it to .raw in Photoshop or another program.
So if you generate terrain and export the heightmap, save it in 256x256 px size and convert it to 8bit .raw.
Then put it in you map by replaceing the original heightmap.raw, repack it and start texturing it in Battlecraft.

You can also start texturing it in 3Ds...I use to work with both (Photoshop and 3Ds Max) opened at once, using the same texturefile. Once a change has been saved in Photoshop, it will show up in 3Ds as soon as you move your object (means: if the new texture doesnt show up in 3Ds Max, the reason might be, you just stare at the UI and wait for something to happen...rotating your view in the viewport will make the changes show up).

So create a plane in 3Ds first (square of yourse and enuff segments...like 100 x 100 or so). Then apply a displace modifier and use your heightmap in the bitmap slot of the modifier for the displacement ( I use any format thats working...means you'll need to save the heightmap raw as .jpg or whatever file)

Use a new texturefile in photoshop (square 4096 x 4096 px I guess).
Its a good Idea to add the heightmap to the plane as a second layer (in Photoshop of course) and make it 50% opac when you start, so you'll have a good reference where to paint. Save it (I use to do this in .psd file format for more flexibility) and apply the texture to your plane in 3Ds. Now start painting in PS.

Keep in mind to switch off the heightmap layer in Photoshop, when you want to watch the texture in 3Ds.

Once youre done with that, you just need to split your texture file to 4 x 4 parts (tga splitter is the name of the program i guess) but thats another story.

EDIT: I just figured out how to export a 4096 x 4096 pixel sized image to 4 x 4 1024 x 1024 sized ones. Check this out:

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1011

[Swaffy]

Dude, you're insane. In a positive way.

[Sgt.Killboy]

*lol* Thanks!

I just figured something new...don't miss the tuts corner!

[Senshi]

I still think texturing maps is best done with Ed42. It has absolutely fantastic potential, as it perfectly combines depth information with an infinite amount of texture merge possibilities. The only thing I use photoshop for afterwards is to add details. Like roads, dirt tracks, etc..
Of course it requires a bit of studying to first understand how Ed42 texturing works. But once you grasped the concept, it's just stunning.

[Sgt.Killboy]

ED42 is really cool for painting textures, but Battlecraft isn't that bad too. Using costum texture sets or simply modifying the existing ones can give some nice results too. One mayor problem with Battlefields ground textures is the deatilmap.dds that brightens up the groundtextures sometimes in a realy ugly way, like adding whitish lines to muddy ground e.g.

What I'd really like to know is if it's possible to force BF42 to load a detailmap for every single texture tile for a much more detailed ground. So if you have a sandroad with grass outlines, to have sandy details for the sand, and grassy ones for the grass and so on. That would be a 110% quality up for BF42.

[Senshi]

No, using multiple detail.dds is not possible. It's hardcoded to be used map-wide. Only in BF2 the texture layering has been introduced on a larger scale.

[Sgt.Killboy]

*crap*