[Info] Geocontrol 2

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Ive mentioned Geocontrol on the forum in the past, as I used it for my map.
I just though Id post some info on Geocontrol 2. The first version was damn fine, but its just got a whole lot better. You can now produce your detail maps and colour maps in it. Its extremely easy to use, its fast and the results are awesome Several commercial developers now use this program.

Another thing I find it useful for is format conversion.

Heres the link - it has a free 30 day trial

Home

Heres some examples of what it can do (yes - these are in the bf2editor and have been produced in minutes )





These pics were not created by me - theyre from this thread, which also has more info on using the program.

Geocontrol Version 2 - Official BF Editor Forums

A word of warning. You will get an amazing terrain very quickly, but to make it suitable for using in game will take alot more work (for 4km maps anyway) Overall it wont save a massive amount of time, over using photoshop or the editor, but the results imo will be far better.

[ice_killer]

thats some epic stuff

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Ive only just found out that the Geocontrol version 2 is out ( I created my map months ago and Im about to redo the colourmaps ) Im going to have a play with the new features today, and hopefully Ill be able to post some pics. Ill possibly modify some existing PR maps to show what it can do

[Priby]

[motherdear]

FapFapFap

[General Dragosh]

Holy macaroni.................i think ill get an heart attack O.O



I love the icy mountains

[Rhino]

I love the icy mountains

too bad the terrain LOD would rip them to shreds hu?

[General Dragosh]

too bad the terrain LOD would rip them to shreds hu?

Please, nooooooooooo, im gona cry

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Ive had a good play around with it and tbh Im slightly disappointed. Its still fantastic for terrain generation and it has lots of new features to help with this, including placeable spring start points, lakes and several more.

The main thing I was excited about was the terrain painting features, and it does have some good sides ie adding colours to erosion filters, plus its extremely fast - but overall I still think that terragen is best for creating the colourmap and detailmap map. Terragen is much easier to set up for this, and you can assign more colours to any chosen variable, as Geocontrol is limited to 2 colours per variable :/ There may be some workarounds for this that Ive thought of, but its easier for me to just use Terragen for the time being.

Having said that, Geocontrol is a beta and is having more features added each week, so I wouldnt be surprised if a future version allowed more colours to be selected.

[marcoelnk]

Holy **** !!!

[Polka]

too bad the terrain LOD would rip them to shreds hu?

No Rhino, dont ruin it.

[fubar++]

Maybe I didn't get it right but Geocontrol seems to make awfull mess to imported heightmaps. Anyone got better success with it?

[Hartmanngr]

WOW that maps are amazing !! That it means that maybe in future the devs make PR maps with this program?? Its close to dx10 graphics. Imaging playing PR in this maps.... JUST WOW!!!

[foxxravin]

HOLY SH*T! is this true? mothaah fuckaakdkad! this is so damn epic and nice and so wonderful epicness in the flying epic mega power optimus prime

[McBumLuv]

HOLY SH*T! is this true? mothaah fuckaakdkad! this is so damn epic and nice and so wonderful epicness in the flying epic mega power optimus prime

And yet, not a single mention of 1337sauce.

What has the world come to ?

[Igloo35]

And yet, not a single mention of 1337sauce.

What has the world come to ?

damnit mc luv you finally beat me to it

but i will post anyways cause i am old and i cant change direction once i am moving .....

"so wonderful epicness in the flying epic mega power optimus prime "

wtf...??!?! LOL

this will change the way i view these forums forever

now that is epic

[Mora]

too bad it will never and never looks like that ingame...

[space]

too bad it will never and never looks like that ingame...

The pictures I posted were from inside the bfeditor - if anything ingame graphics usually look better. The problem is the terrain morphing, which you get whenever theres sharp angle changes between terrain grids. In the snow topped mountain picture I posted, you wouldn't actually be able to get close to the peaks, so that height map may work quite well (If you have no aircraft). Another trick Ive been experimenting with, is to create the colourmap on the "raw" geocontol map, then modify the terrain to remove the sharp angles, and then repaste the colourmap onto this, so that you keep the look of the map, but the morphing is reduced. If you put your heightmap in photoshop and apply a slight gaussian blur on the raw image, it will have the effect of removing any sharp angles on the whole map, all in one go.

Maybe I didn't get it right but Geocontrol seems to make awfull mess to imported heightmaps. Anyone got better success with it?

Make sure you import your heightmapPrimary as a "Raw (16Bit) from carrera" - its the second tab at the top of the screen.

[AnRK]

Wow, if only with that second pic, what exactly are the limitations with mountains and stuff like that? Is it a case of not being able to have have very large differences in altitude near each other?

[space]

Wow, if only with that second pic, what exactly are the limitations with mountains and stuff like that? Is it a case of not being able to have have very large differences in altitude near each other?

An easy explanation, is to say that the bf2 engine halves the terrain resolution at a distance. So if you had three points in a triangle shape, to represent terrain vertices, then at a distance the top vertice of the triangle would not be shown and it would just be a flat line at a distance.
Also if you stretch a single terrain grid over a large height, then it also stretches the single terrain texture over the same distance, which tends to look like ****.