S2ENGINE HD 2023
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  (c) Profenix Studio SRLS, 2021

Creating Terrain

A terrain can be created only one time per scene.


Once created, a terrain cannot be deleted, although you create a new scene

 
To create a terrain you have to first create a new scene, if it wasn't already created.
After created the scene, you can create the terrain by clicking on the icon on the main toolbar.
 
If you try to create a new terrain without creating a scene first, the following warning message appears:
 
After clicking on the terrain creation icon a setup dialog appears:
3.4.10.1. Creating Terrain
1

Terrain name

1. Terrain name
Input box that must contains the name of the terrain material you want to create.
When terrain is created a new material, with the same name as terrain, is also created into the Materials/Terrains/ folder.
2

Terrain size

2. Terrain size
This combo box allows you to set the world dimensions (expressed in Kilometers) of the terrain.
Available dimensions are 8x8,4x4,2x2,1x1,0.5x0.5 Kilometers.
3

Heightmap resolution

3. Heightmap resolution
The resolution of the heightmap.
Bigger the resolution more terrain details you obtain. Note that this implies also more used system and graphics memory.
When you choose the dimensions of the terrain this is set automatically for getting 1:1 factor witth terrain size (1 heightmap pixel = 1 meter).
4

Terrain tiles resolution

4. Terrain tiles resolution
Starting from S2ENGINE HD 1.4.6 B8 version the terrain is divided into tiles.
Each tile represents a small patch of the whole terrain and has more than one level of detail (LOD), used basing on the distance from the camera.
Tiles of the same LOD are drawed in groups of 512 pieces, each tile group is drawed in one shot.
Tiles resolution matches 1:1 the resolution of the heightmap, and it is important to determine the number of total tiles composing the terrain, then the number of draw calls.
 
For example a 1024x1024 heightmap divided in tiles of 32x32 resolution generates (1024/32 * 1024/32) = 1024 tiles.
Too much tiles means too many draw calls, but too few tiles make the culling system hard to hide no visible tiles, so be carefull when choosing this parameter.
 
Luckily Tiles resolution is computed automatically when choosing the dimensions of the terrain for optimal performances.
5

Vegetation map resolution

5. Vegetation map resolution
Vegetation Map resolution.
Vegetation map is a map containing information about where are placed the objects of a given vegetation layer.
More high is this resolution more precisely you can place vegetation on the terrain.
When you choose the dimensions of the terrain this is set automatically for best quality/performance ratio.


The vegetation map uses exclusively system memory so it must be set carefully for preventing out of memory problems.

6

Layers mask resolution

6. Layers mask resolution
This is the resolution of the Terrain textures layer mask and of the terrain colour map.
It consumes more memory (especially graphics memory) than all the other maps and it is responsible of the terrain texture splatting. Bigger the resolution more details you can paint on the terrain.
 
When you click on Create button a new plain terrain is created together with an heightmap, a colormap and a layer mask.
Colormap and Layer mask will be used into the terrain material (see paint).
IMPORTING HEIGHTMAP
From S2Engine HD 1.3.1 version heightmaps can be imported as external images.
 
Supported formats are:
 
The image must be greyscale and it must have the same resolution as the Heightmap Resolution, set when created the terrain.
To Import an heightmap you can follow 2 ways: