Best Method for adding distant terrain

[Pete Mull]

I've tried searching the BTB sections on this site but there are so many dead links that I cannot find the information I'm looking for.

I'm just starting my first rally stage for RBR. The stage is over very hilly ground so from most points on the stage there are good distant views. I'm trying to figure out which is the best way to add the distant terrain. I read so many things on the web, I'm not sure which is the best option to choose.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[ebrich]

I nearly always go for a BTB "wall" with an image taken from google earth street view.

 

[Pete Mull]

Sorry to sound dumb, but does this mean that I have a wall with one face that has a picture on it.

 

[banger]

in short YES

 

[Emery]

Sometimes, in games with horizon skyboxes, you might put walls between you and the horizon where there are specific objects/mountains closer than the horizon. The skybox is always rendered behind everything else, thus you get a nice depth effect.

If Google street view is not an option for your location, you can also open Google Earth and point the camera to the horizon. You'll probably have to adjust the color.

 

[Pete Mull]

I suppose I'm at a bit of an advantage here as the stages that I am actually doing are in the area where I live and being that the terrain is so hilly, I can always take photographs of the distant terrain.

Can somebody confirm whether or not terrain taken from Google Earth will work in BTB for RBR stages - think I read somewhere that it wouldn't. Being able to use GE for the terrain would speed up the development process for the roadside objects.

Thanks,

 

[ebrich]

Its not that the images are taken from GEarth. It's more the file extension of the image. Find out if it is better to have jpeg (doubt it) png or dds. I don't have RBR installed but I would think you will need to convert your photo's to dds file.

 

[Pete Mull]

Thank you very much for that - will experiement and post back.

 

[martinez]

I used to make some terrains from Sketchup 8 PRO - modified in 3dsMax (new textures and tweaks), then sent to BTB via xpack as regular objects. First of all It's very hard to manage such big objects in BTB. And second - these textures are very poor quality and small - it looks not good.
Maybe you try Zaxxon Method - his terrains were much better. I never used the method, but there were some people who had success with that.
However, what Ebrich suggested, still seems resonable - you don't really need a real landscape, do you? There are tons of nice pictures on Internet which can fit to your needs, I believe.

 

[Emery]

I suppose I'm at a bit of an advantage here as the stages that I am actually doing are in the area where I live and being that the terrain is so hilly, I can always take photographs of the distant terrain.,

Yes, that works quite well

Can somebody confirm whether or not terrain taken from Google Earth will work in BTB for RBR stages - think I read somewhere that it wouldn't. Being able to use GE for the terrain would speed up the development process for the roadside objects.

You can make objects from Google Earth terrain via Sketchup which can be inserted into the BTB project. Success is variable, mostly depending on image quality and number of polygons. Smaller chunks are better than one large object.

Or, for intermediate terrain, you might try making a grid of KML paths, adding altitude, and importing them as a track. Since BTB imports them to the center of your project, just be sure you know where you have to shift them to, like with a background image for reference. If I use this method, I pull terrain to match the grid (and any reference images) and then delete those tracks.

Don't know if RBR allows texture blending (I'm an rFactor guy), but if so, you can disguise lower-res Google Earth images by blending with a proper ground texture.