Help Index
T2 is a program for generating terrain textures from heightmaps and inputs (texture, colour or noise). Parameters can be set per input to define how much they influence the output. The man parameters control height and slope ranges but there are many more options available for fine tuning the output. In addition T2 allows you to view a 3D representation of the world and export the mesh. A full list of T2 features can be found at the bottom of this page.
Navigating Help
You can navigate this help system via the buttons to the left. Hover your mouse over a button to get a fly out list of child pages. The Main Screen page has a useful graphic showing the T2 interface that can be clicked on to go to the required page.
The Getting Started page is a good place to visit if you are new to T2.
The main support site for T2 is: www.toymaker.info. Here you can find the latest version of T2 along with add on packs and extras.
Page Index
T2 Features
- Lighting
- Any number of lights can be defined
- Lighting information includes colour (diffuse), range, attenuation and ambient light level
- Lighting works together with materials to generate the output texture
- Shadows can be created from multiple lights using correct ray casting
- Shadow edges can be softened for a more realistic affect
- Materials
- Materials can be assigned to inputs individually
- Bump maps can be assigned to materials and hence affect the lighting calculations
- Materials can emit light themselves (emissive)
- Mesh Creation
- A mesh can be created from the height map data and the user can move a camera around the world
- The mesh can be exported in .x or .3ds file format
- The number of vertices that make up the mesh can be selected
- The mesh can be generated to any world size and the scaling altered prior to export
- The user can ‘walk’ on the mesh
- Skyboxes can be added
- The mesh can be divided up for export
- Multiple Height Maps
- Normally just one height map is used to generate the terrain texture, however this has the disadvantage of not allowing specific features to be added at certain locations. For example to add a road and to get it textured in a road colour is virtually impossible with one height map. T2 allows any number of height maps to be used.
- Each height map has different settings for texture and mesh creation. A height map can affect the texture creation by replacing previous values, averaging with previous values etc.
- Each input can be assigned to one or more height maps. So a road texture could just be assigned to a height map defining roads.
- By using multiple height maps its possible to add additional features to a world
- Height maps of most image formats can be used, plus .bt (Binary Terrain) files are supported.
- Inputs
- Inputs can be textures, colour or via a noise generator
- Many function curves are included to handle the distribution of an input across its area of influence
- The influence of an input can be controlled by height, slope and facing direction.
- File Formats
- Load Graphic formats: bmp, tga, tif, gif, jpg, png, wmf,ico, bt,dds and dib
- Save Graphic formats: bmp, tga, tif, jpg or png
- Mesh export formats: x and 3ds
Technical
- T2 is written in C++ using Microsoft Visual Studio 2003
- The GUI is written using the latest version of the DirectX SDK
- T2 does not use the registry. Configuration data is held in the t2.ini file.
|