Springfield Saskatchewan 20km

[Mobius1]

Well, they told me to start with a small map, but I’m not gonna listen, besides. The larger the map the more work I can do, the better I’ll get at GE, I’ve gotten all the software I need in place. I just need to learn how to use it. After watching a tutorial on how to make DEM files, useing micro DEM, when I go to export it to Google Earth. It just makes it into a KML file instead of pasting it in google earth in the correct spot. Not sure why this it. Also not sure why mines different to everyone else’s. Mildly frustrating. Mr Snake, how do you do your DEM maps? Is there any alternative?

[Snake Man]

DEM stands for Digital Elevation Model, which in itself is called heightmap, its the elevations for terrain. You should not watch waste of time youtube videos and especially repeat the silly things they say there.

My tools include Global Mapper, Terra Incognita and L3DT, basic overview is listed in Real World Data Terrain page.

But I got to admit, earlier tonight it was after 3hrs to change mind about back porting FS22 terrains into FS17 and now you want to create real world data terrain for FS22, it sounds like you don't know what you want to do. My recommendation is to "sit down, take a deep breath" and contemplate slowly, nice and easy, what do you really want to do in farmsim.

I'm willing to help anyway I can, but at least bare minimum there should be some kind of focus and dedication, a sense of direction (more than 3hrs, heh sorry, couldn't resist).

Hell use me as an example if you will, I got metric tons of terrains which lack of object placement, you don't want to drive yourself into similar situation with half a dozen half finished projects laying around your HDD

Anyways.

Springfield Saskatchewan 20km, quick google/maps search finds me this: google/maps Springfield, SK, Canada, is this the location you are thinking about?

If that is the case then you sould talk to Runsliketurtle, he is foremost canadian terrain expert that I know of in this forum at least, he posted FS25 Balgonie Saskatchewan 10km - Terrain Development topic recently. He can tell you that for canada it has been really difficult to find high resolution elevation data (heightmap I mentioned about).

I have absolutely nothing against eh canadians or canadian terrains, its north america after all, but just due the heightmap elevation data availability and even trash looking satellite imagery sources (most of the time), I would stay away from canadian terrains, when if you switch over few hundred miles due south to the american terrains then you can tap into 1m insanely accurate heightmap data and similar satellite imagery with cloud-less and patch-less sources. Just my opinion of course (well its a fact regarding the data but in general, opinion yeah).

But if you must, I can create SRTM 30m resolution heightmap and ArcGIS world imagery satellite data package for you.

Anyways I'll stop talking now, don't want to write another wall of text

[Mobius1]

Happy Thanksgiving Snake, yeah, your right, i should commit to one project. So i choose this one here.

DEM stands for Digital Elevation Model, which in itself is called heightmap, its the elevations for terrain. You should not watch waste of time youtube videos and especially repeat the silly things they say there.

Hm interesting, they were the only "free" ways i could find, I don't have the $500 unfortunately to purchase the DEM software right now....

"sit down, take a deep breath" and contemplate slowly, nice and easy, what do you really want to do in farmsim.

Noted

Springfield Saskatchewan 20km, quick google/maps search finds me this: google/maps Springfield, SK, Canada, is this the location you are thinking about?

Yes that is correct, while id like to run a DEM file, honestly, ill just take anything other than a boring flat map. Your PMC 20KM map with the huge rolling hills were something I really enjoyed. And yes while I know some parts of Canada are fairly flat, it still has some hills and natural rolling surfaces that would make it feel more alive. In my opinion.

If that is the case then you sould talk to Runsliketurtle, he is foremost canadian terrain expert that I know of in this forum at least, he posted FS25 Balgonie Saskatchewan 10km - Terrain Development topic recently. He can tell you that for canada it has been really difficult to find high resolution elevation data (heightmap I mentioned about).

I see, the DEM really doesn't need to be the most accurate thing in the world, just preferably something that makes it, well, unflat.

I have absolutely nothing against eh canadians or canadian terrains, its north america after all, but just due the heightmap elevation data availability and even trash looking satellite imagery sources (most of the time), I would stay away from canadian terrains, when if you switch over few hundred miles due south to the american terrains then you can tap into 1m insanely accurate heightmap data and similar satellite imagery with cloud-less and patch-less sources. Just my opinion of course (well its a fact regarding the data but in general, opinion yeah).

I guess that's fair, but, I've already created the post here, and you said to commit to your projects, so that's what ill do.

But if you must, I can create SRTM 30m resolution heightmap and ArcGIS world imagery satellite data package for you.

That would be great! if you could use the town in the direct center of the DEM and make it around the location id greatly appreciate it.

Looking at the terrain from google maps, there are a LOT of houses, that is fine, I'm upgrading to a very capable pc soon, but i might create two versions of the map, one with just the town of Springfield, roads, and fields, but the alternate version. will have all the surrounding houses etc. to make it as realistic as possible.

Lastly, if I'm correct, When using GIMP to draw on the map, i can have an actual google maps image, in the background, so that i can just trace the fields and roads etc?

Thanks for the response Snake!

[Snake Man]

I'll do full reply tomorrow morning, if around mid-day friday nov 29th you have not seen my full reply yet, then post here to remind me, just in case I'd forget. I'm currently playing in my little girlie men 4km cliche empty terrain, testing out Loki_79's Universal Autoload mod, plus other FS25 v1.3 changes and will spend the remaining evening like this.

[Snake Man]

Happy Thanksgiving Snake

Happy Thanksgiving to all American farmings, enjoy the holiday.

Hm interesting, they were the only "free" ways i could find, I don't have the $500 unfortunately to purchase the DEM software right now....

QGIS is free and open source, last time I used it was back in 2017 when starting with ArmA 3 real world data terrains, there are two tutorial pages for it: PMC Editing Wiki: QGIS real world data and PMC Editing Wiki: QGIS real world data tutorial by Ross.

Your PMC 20KM map with the huge rolling hills were something I really enjoyed.

20km, hmm I assume you mean PMC Undefined Farms 20km terrain for FS22?

I think all fictional terrains from me have a rolling hills type elevations, sometimes its difficult to see from the sheer scare of the terrains. PMC Grande Gardens 16km has quite a lot of elevations in places and the FS22 ones are so huge that its almost difficult to spot big elevation changes due the vast distances.

the DEM really doesn't need to be the most accurate thing in the world, just preferably something that makes it, well, unflat.

When I talk about "bad / low resolution source data", I mean that its finer details are missing on heightmap elevation data, or with satellite imagery it could have clouds to block the view, or patches of different satellite photos from different date/time and angle. Online SRTM 30m resolution heightmap data always has various elevations, its never going to be flat. Well I mean sure some absolutely flat places like there are few of those in america, for example PMC Texas Rowena 8km has heightScale like 32 meters or something, that is the difference between lowest and highest point in the elevation grid, now that is "flat" when you spread it out to 8.1km x 8.1km area, in fact I remember one review guy saying about the terrain release that "author must have forgot to put DEM in place" which was wrong and funny comment.

if you could use the town in the direct center of the DEM and make it around the location id greatly appreciate it.

Okay will do, after this reply is written I'll eat days first meal, then fire up the editing tools and see what kind of data can I get for you.

i might create two versions of the map, one with just the town of Springfield, roads, and fields, but the alternate version. will have all the surrounding houses etc. to make it as realistic as possible.

Not sure I understand, do you mean that you place the buildings for springfield and then no man made objects, buildings, structures, of any kind outside of it?

When using GIMP to draw on the map, i can have an actual google maps image, in the background, so that i can just trace the fields and roads etc?

GIMP Paint cultivator_density Image explains the process, then Cultivator, Fruit Density with Painted Roads and Roads Painting in GIMP tutorials.

In short: yes

[Snake Man]

Source files created/downloaded, ArcGIS world imagery was almost flawless, there appears to be mist-alike haze in central north part but its not too bad, otherwise its perfect satellite imagery, you got lucky.

Torrent created and I'll private message you with the info, once you have downloaded and unpacked the 7-zip, reply back here so I can shut the torrent down.

Here are the settings for these source files:

Code: Select all

unitsPerPixel="5"
heightScale="164.66"

Info: heightScale and unitsPerPixel.

[Mobius1]

okay, the torrent file is being downloaded, thank you! now i just need to make the map, and begin the GIMP work here.

20km, hmm I assume you mean PMC Undefined Farms 20km terrain for FS22?

Correct

Not sure I understand, do you mean that you place the buildings for springfield and then no man made objects, buildings, structures, of any kind outside of it?

So I'm not sure with how game performance impacting houses and decorations are, I was curious if it was probable that, if i added every single house, fence, tree, etc. into the terrain (as best as i could of course). if it would impact game performance much.

GIMP Paint cultivator_density Image explains the process, then Cultivator, Fruit Density with Painted Roads and Roads Painting in GIMP tutorials.

In short: yes

noted

[Snake Man]

Houses are no concern, there are so few, well sure springfield is like a small town so yeah there is few, but if you ever played PMC Iowa Garden City 8km there was quite few buildings in total at the town, no performance issue at all.

Real performance issue comes from excessive trees, like big forest blobs, what I saw from springfield satellite imagery there is no such blobs, there was two river/creeks which are quite lush with green, so dunno if those might accumulate the tree numbers up, but if you distribute trees sparsely it should not be a problem.

Decorations, well that is a whole another topic, I honestly don't have experience with decorations as I don't use them pretty much at all. I'm talking about very small, tiny, objects to make the place look pretty. Not sure what you mean exactly by decorations and how many of them, but small amount of decorations per farm yard should be no problem, unless you go full bore BRITISH MAPZ claustrophobia style spamming every single object in there you can find.

My recommendation is that build one farm yard, then test it in-game to see how it looks and performs. It would be highly unlikely that one (1) single farm yard would kill your performance as it would have to be really crazy big or badly done farm yard if it would populate one scene with so many objects that performance would suffer. Check one farm yard first, once you're happy do second and do the loop all over again to check it for visuals and FPS etc.

From experience I can tell you that don't try to make the whole terrain object placement at once, because what you think works and looks great in GE might be total crap in-game 3d world. Imagine working hard placing objects for several days maybe even a full week, then go to in-game test and realize that "what the hell is this crap!?", that would not be a nice feeling

Overall though I would say that with 20km canadian terrain, what I quickly glimpsed from the satellite imagery, you should not worry about performance, just for the simple fact that farm yards and other populated locations are so sparse.

[Mobius1]

Houses are no concern, there are so few, well sure springfield is like a small town so yeah there is few, but if you ever played PMC Iowa Garden City 8km there was quite few buildings in total at the town, no performance issue at all.

Real performance issue comes from excessive trees, like big forest blobs, what I saw from springfield satellite imagery there is no such blobs, there was two river/creeks which are quite lush with green, so dunno if those might accumulate the tree numbers up, but if you distribute trees sparsely it should not be a problem.

good, i was hoping this would be the case.

Decorations, well that is a whole another topic, I honestly don't have experience with decorations as I don't use them pretty much at all. I'm talking about very small, tiny, objects to make the place look pretty. Not sure what you mean exactly by decorations and how many of them, but small amount of decorations per farm yard should be no problem, unless you go full bore BRITISH MAPZ claustrophobia style spamming every single object in there you can find.

I see, also ew, brittish map, :

My recommendation is that build one farm yard, then test it in-game to see how it looks and performs. It would be highly unlikely that one (1) single farm yard would kill your performance as it would have to be really crazy big or badly done farm yard if it would populate one scene with so many objects that performance would suffer. Check one farm yard first, once you're happy do second and do the loop all over again to check it for visuals and FPS etc.

From experience I can tell you that don't try to make the whole terrain object placement at once, because what you think works and looks great in GE might be total crap in-game 3d world. Imagine working hard placing objects for several days maybe even a full week, then go to in-game test and realize that "what the hell is this crap!?", that would not be a nice feeling

Noted.

Overall though I would say that with 20km canadian terrain, what I quickly glimpsed from the satellite imagery, you should not worry about performance, just for the simple fact that farm yards and other populated locations are so sparse.

good, as i hoped so. in regard's to the lack of farms, i guess it could give the player a chance to build their own to their own preference, i am however, considering making a fictional farm perhaps. but im still undecided. in the file you sent me, is its just the dem file? or a satelite image as well. If its just the DEM ill go and get the sat image myself, either way is fine by me.

[Snake Man]

The source file package includes heightmap PNG image and satellite image. See my earlier reply about the specs that go along with the heightmap (unitsPerPixel and heightScale).

[Mobius1]

Okay the files have been received..... but I'm not sure how to actually implement the DEM file into the map, I've looked at everything you've sent me, but im still a little confused. is it something i need to rename?

sorry

i have correctly edited the unitsPerpixel and heightmap, and that works fine

[ARG_Afb]

Hello mobius! Move the dem file that snake sent you to the data folder and rename it to map_dem
If it tells you that the file is repeated delete the other dem that was in the data folder

[Mobius1]

I see, and leave the remaining files? I know there is the Map_DEM file (now) and then the satellite imagery file. But what about the other two or three files? (I can’t remember their names, I’m out on a trip at the moment. Sorry.


But thank you!

[Snake Man]

In the source package heightmap.asc is your ASCII Grid heightmap text file, it has no use to you as-is but is provided for being thorough and as it packs very tight with 7-zip so it doesn't hurt nobody.

heightmap_L3DT.png is your heightmap PNG image, this is what you could copy-paste to overwrite giants mapUS "dem.png" image in the data/ dir on your terrain project.

Satellite_Texture_ArcGIS_1m-px.png or something like that sorry I cant remember the exact spelling I used but you know what I'm talking about when opening the 7-zip packet, this is your one meter per pixel resolution satellite imagery downloaded from ArcGIS world imagery data source. That is a huge 20,480 x 20,480 pixel image, so make sure you have plenty of free RAM in your computer before opening it in GIMP. Also when you add layers in GIMP on top of that image memory usage keeps growing, be patient, let GIMP work when it goes to (Not Responding) mode while processing something, don't try to ten finger technique type commands while working with images of this magnitude.

Other files are just along for the ride, I believe there was some .prj and .pgw or somesuch, global mapper project files.

[Mobius1]

Progress continues.

Took a week long vacation to Washington DC, now work can continue. I’ve installed the DEM file. Working on field painting in GIMP now.

My question is though. What script do I need to be able to view the entire map in GE without the disappearance bug happening? I had one for a 8km map. But not a 20km map.

[Snake Man]

Try this one for 32 kilometer x 32 kilometer terrains. I personally just lazily use my setup 45km terrain script as it covers everything, but dunno if that has any drawbacks on working on smaller terrains.

Setup_32km_Terrain.lua:

Code: Select all

-- Author:SnakeMan
-- Name:Setup_32km_Terrain
-- Description:Enables editing a 32km x 32km terrain
-- Icon: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
-- Hide: no

setAudioCullingWorldProperties(-16384, -100, -16384, 16384, 500, 16384, 16);
setLightCullingWorldProperties(-16384, -100, -16384, 16384, 500, 16384, 16);
setShapeCullingWorldProperties(-16384, -100, -16384, 16384, 500, 16384, 64);

[Mobius1]

Right on, thank you.



heres what ive gotten so far, its not much, but its honest work. progressing slowly but surely.

[Snake Man]

As you can tell the image is not working. Not sure what google drive link is. Try right mouse button clicking the image and choose "open in a new tab", once its open there then copy-paste that image link (.png or .jpg) into those forum IMG tags.

I assume you're talking about painting cultivator_density fields, did you follow my advice to paint only one field and bring it to GE and perhaps in-game FS22 as well although its pretty much done deal if you can get it to GE project?