[Opensim-users] Terraforming in OpenSim - State of Development

[Lúthien Athariel]

hi Len,

I have been having some problems there too - mostly near the seams where
regions meet. I've understood that the terraforming tools have a bit of a
problem dealing with those - and I discovered that a good way to get flat
land is to first select an area, choose "flatten land", and click the "Apply
to Selection" (or whatever the exact name is) button a couple of times ..
that usually works fine.

For larger and more complex edits, the terraforming tools are not too wel
suited in my opinion. What I do is to export the terrain file(s) as a .R32
file: if you install the terrain-tools there is a very convenient tool that
lets you export either the whole thing, or a subset of regions. You can then
edit them in (the free version of) L3DT: import as height map, and use the
3D terrain editor in there. You have to enter the total X and Y pixels for
your terrain (256 per region) and a value for the height (I use 1.5, which
comes down to approximately the same visual size as it renders in opensim) -
although that height setting is only important for the rendering in L3DT
itself.

Within L3DT there is a number of interesting terraforming tools like
avalanches (which creates a very realistic erosion effect), cliffs, a
bulldozer with which you can create things like rivers, canals or dykes,
several smoothing options etcetera. Export the height map again as a .R32
file, and import again in opensim with the terrain-tools function.
The finer details that L3DT produces, however, seem not to render in OpenSim
- probably because the terrain is not resolved to that level of detail. But
some sculpted prim - built boulders and rocks can take care of that.

It works pretty good, I have used this route a lot.

BTW - L3DT is windows only - but I found that it works like a charm under
Crossover in OSX (and thus, probably in linux as well)

- luthien

2009/5/27 Len Brown <lenwbrown at gmail.com>

> Hello everyone,
>
>      I hope my question is in the right place...  I have been on SL for a
> few years now and am very comfortable with building and terraforming.  I'm
> just wondering what the state of development is with terraforming in
> OpenSim.
>
>      I know that in SL when I use the "flatten" preference, the land
> beneath my mouse flattens perfectly regardless of where I move the mouse
> unless the land is baked along an incline.
>
>      In OpenSim the flatten command is very loose, and there is no way to
> get perfectly flat land aside from entering "terrain fill 21" or such to
> flatten the entire region.
>
>      I've been hoping there would be some improvement in the terraforming
> tools over the last few revisions but they seem to have remained stagnant.
>
>      Otherwise I have been very happily running 25 regions on my home
> server for the last few months and have really been pleased with all the
> other improvements that have come along.
>
> Thanks for input!
>
> - Len W. Brown
>
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