Using L3DT
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About L3DT
L3DT can be used to generate terrains. The program runs natively under Windows, and can be run under Linux using the Wine compatibility layer(Only the [1] development version!). This is now L3DT Standard Edition - v13.01 dev build 0
Quick intro on creating a terrain with L3DT
- UPDATE February 2013. Here are the instructions for the latest version of L3DT
New Terrain system requires L3DT export files to have a file extension of .r32 *IMPORTANT*
In the example below i use the Create Fractal heightmap. The important parametrs like Horizontal Scale or the size of 256x256 of a map for a single region must be used with all other type of maps you can create in L3DT
To create a terrain for a single region:
1. Start L3DT
2. Create a NEW MAP by clicking on that + icon in the menu bar.
3. Select Fractal Heightmap and click the next button
4. Set the size to 256x256
5. Choose your terrains minimum and maximum altitude (20 is the waterline in opensim; Higher values for the maximum results in high mountains). So for a start use 50 as the maximum altitude.
6. Set the horizontal scale to 1 (important)
7. Check the Edge wrapping option and click Next
8. In the calculation queue (step 3 of 3) only select the Heightfield. (Selecting the other options like Water map gives you a nicer view in L3DT build in Preview but will not be used for opensim.)
Now the calculation starts and you will be presented a grayscale picture of your heightmap. If oyu want to see how the terrain looks click the 3-D Button in the menu. You can look/move around in the 3D preview. To get out of the 3D preview just hit the ESC key.
Now for the export
9. Make the size X=4, y=4. This will give you a 256x256 terrain, the same size as a region. Click Next.
4. Play with the sliders in the parameters window. You can just leave the defaults to start with. Click Next.
5. Check Design Map, and click OK.
6. Now click the CALC icon in the menu bar, then click OK.
7. You now have your terrain. If you don't like it, start over and play with the settings.
8. To save it: File=>Export=>Export Map.
9. Highlight Heightfield, and then click OK.
10. Choose File Format RAW, then click the Options button.
11. Double click "Mode", and select "float (meters)", then click OK, and OK again.
12. Name the file whatever you want, and click OK to save it.
To load the terrain into opensim:
Assume your file is called "terrain.r32".At the region console, type:
terrain load terrain.r32
You now have your new terrain! You can at this point use the terrain add, terrain scale, or terrain multiply to rescale it to your liking.
Version 2.7
Using version 2.7, (development as at 2009-02-14) the export process is simpler, in that you only need to choose a file type of "R32" and enter a filename.
Using your new terrain files
You can now also create terrains in some multiple of 256x256 to load to multiple regions at one time with the terrain load-tile command.
For example, if you create a 768x768 terrain.r32 file, you can load it to a set of 9 regions centred on 1000,1000 as follows:
terrain load-tile terrain.r32 3 3 999 999
The terrain generated by L3DT seems to use 0 as sea level (perhaps not surprising :-) but OpenSimulator uses 20 for the sea level, so after you have loaded your terrain you will probably want to adjust it's elevation:
terrain elevate 20
See: http://opensimulator.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/new-terrain-commands/ for some more information.
