A Simple First Terrain
This is the barebones guide towards creating your first simple terrain and adding it to a map. This terrain won't be as detailed or as attractive as a full terrain, but will demonstrate the basics of creating a terrain mesh, assigning a texture, and adding it in-game.
Introduction
For this tutorial you must:
- Have a modelling package that can export as OBJ
- Have basic modelling skills
- Have basic mapping skills
If you can't do any of the above things, this tutorial is not for you!
This tutorial covers:
- How to create a terrain mesh and caulk hull
- How to add a terrain mesh to a map
- How to assign a texture
- How to work with terrain meshes and map geometry
This tutorial does not cover:
- How to use Blender/Maya/Lightwave/ZBrush/Mudbox/3DSMax
- How to create a megatexture
- How to create displacement maps
- Anything complicated
Building the Mesh
Use your preferred modelling package to create a basic terrain mesh that is exactly 32,768 units long and wide.
It is preferable to keep the terrain as basic as possible, so it can be refined later on during the mapping process. For this reason, the terrain mesh here only contains a very very rough formation of bumps (or 'mountains' as they might be known)
The mesh must be triangulated before it is exported as an .OBJ, and saved in the /models/terrain folder
While a 32k*32k isn't necessary - you can use any value - it is strongly advised to stick to 8k*8k, 16*16k or 32k*32k
