Use of TrntoTr3.exe

[Capricorne]

IN LandscapeEditor guide , I have only find this :
"1. Terrain needs to be converted to the resolution used in V2.
a. If you intend to keep the old 90 m terrain, then all you need to do is to convert it using
the TrnToTr3 tool. This will save the old terrain in the new format but keeping the
original low resolution. The terrain will remain calibrated and all you need to do is to
check the flattened areas....."

Seam easy, ! but some more explanations are needed...
When I use the tool all I get is this :
and if I create manually a "Heightmaps" folder I get as many .tr3 files as dds


but the .trn is still the same and don't see in the guide what to do with the 2016 .tr3 files...
May be it's obvious..? but not for me..

[JBr]

TR3 files are patch based 30m heightmap data. V2 landscape won't work without TR3 files. It also needs the TRN file which holds the calibration data and 90m version of the terrain and is used for some other in game calculations. All those files need to be there.

If you use the TrnToTr3 app, your TRN file remains the same as the tool basically just takes the 90m content of it, and produces resampled 30m heightmap patches out of the 90m data. This doesn't in any way increase the resolution of the terrain mesh. Although the heightmaps values will now be saved in the 30m grid, they will still come from the imprecise 90m data. As a result of the resampling, you will most likely need to flatten airport areas again too.

There is basically no gain from this approach other than having the files needed for running the old landscape in V2.

Complete rebuild of the terrain in QGIS or manual rebuild using the QGIS and the Paint.NET/Photoshop/Gimp way is the recommended approach, which will result in the much nicer and really 30m grid terrain.

[Capricorne]

OK I understand the goal better, but the sentence "this will save the old terrain in the new format" was not so clear, we just get the .tr3 patchs if we first create the "Heightmaps" folder...that have to be move from old to new scenery ??

sorry I like to play the complete newbie following the guide...

IF the Scenery "grid" is still the same ( old Terragen grid) can we still use the old "CalibrationPoints.cvs" file ?
IN the RawtoTRN process it say the calibration is donne with the HDR value , but this is only the NE point , would the old CalibrationPoints.cvs be useful or not at all...?

You see I have still a lot of basics questions....

[JBr]

Basically, you should be working in the new folder Like, create "Landscape V2" folder, create "HeightMaps" folder inside it. Copy .trn, .apt, .obj, .tdm, .bmp and .cup from the old landscape root to this new landscape folder, The rest is done pretty much like in V1, Landscape Editor will make you the remaining folders.

Lots of things regarding folders, files etc. will be clearer once you see the Slovenia2 landscape that is part of the V2.

You don't need to calibrate the terrain again, if you use the TrnToTr3 way, since the terrain has already been calibrated before and calibration data is stored inside .trn. You may later update the .trn from the resampled tr3s using Landscape Editor, still keeping the old calibration (this should be done if you do some flattening, etc.).


Regarding calibration. This is actually more complex issue...

Many V1 sceneries (especially the older ones) were imprecisely calibrated, introducing quite big calibration errors. Such sceneries of course need to use the same calibration points as when they were created, otherwise there will be mismatch between the terrain/textures and lat/lon coordinates (airports and turnpoints at wrong positions, and such).

As the landscape creation workflow changed for V2, calibration was made easier. If you use the method for creating terrain using GIS described in the guide, your landscape can be calibrated using one UTM coordinate pair only (as you know it's size, UTM zone, corner coordinates) and this calibration is precise. Of course, this could be achieved in V1 too, but not that easily, you had to create the CalibrationPoints.csv manually. Now you can calibrate the terrain during its creation and you don't need to do it again in LE.