I'm looking for an easy way to export a ter file of a terrain in order to load it in World Machine. It's funny that many applications export a ter file which can easily be imported in Terragen, but I'm seeing no way to export it out of Terragen.
The last time I needed to get height data into WM, I exported lwo files, merged them and converted to obj in another app, imported that obj in 3ds max and then rendered out a height map. All these steps could have been avoided if I had a way to export the terrain directly.
Alternatively, is there a way to easily render a height map of a terrain with exactly defined coordinates in Terragen and save that out as a 16bit tif?
Thanks for any suggestions!
OK, just found the 'save file as...' option in the right-click menu. Wonder why I haven't seen this yesterday...
The option you found is exactly the way to go about exporting heghtfields. If your terrain is procedural, you need to convert to a heightfield first, then Generate, then right-click and Save As. You can save as TER or EXR. Here's info on converting a procedural to heightfield: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=15238.msg148282#msg148282
- Oshyan
Thanks Oshyan, great.
Is the TER format saving out 16 or 32bpc?
I have obeserved that TER files and corresponding 16bit TIFs almost have the same filesize, is TER just a wrapper format with additional coordinates information?
I believe it's a 16 bit format but it includes an offset or something that can help it represent *relatively* greater accuracy within the bounds of the height ranges described. Here's the full format definition in our documentation Wiki: http://planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Terragen_.TER_Format
- Oshyan
Thanks, more info than I'm able to comprehend ;D