Visual problem in terrain types transitions

[TPB 562]

Hello everyone, sorry if this topic has already been covered but I haven't been able to find it!

 

 

Using Columbia Terrain mod(in fact, happens with any non-hd terrain mod I've tried) I have this problem (circled in red in pic) where the beach to grass transition is less than appealing, with jagged edges very apparent, this is true of some spots on the snow to rock transitions too!.

 

 

I'm not sure whether this has to do with the fact I am forced to run in software mode on this machine, but in any case, if any of you know which exemplar property I have to tweak to make the beach blend/blur better into the grasslands I would appreciate it immensely.

 

 

EDIT: I've created a short tutorial on how to fix ugly beaches after finally getting it the way I wanted with Indiana Joe's help.

          Check it out here -> http://goo.gl/r3JOst

[Compdude787 916]

If you download the Diagonal Jagged Edges Mod, this will fix your problem. Some terrain mods include this, but not all of them. 

[TPB 562]

If you download the Diagonal Jagged Edges Mod, this will fix your problem. Some terrain mods include this, but not all of them. 

I tried that, and while it did make a small difference, it did not fix it how I was hoping.. thank you though for your help!

 

If anyone knows which terrain properties handle that in the exemplar please let me know!

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

Info sources: here and here

 

So to change the way the beach blends with the rest of your terrain, you want to open up the Terrain Parameters file in the Reader.  Note that the Diagonal Jagged Edges mod will override the one that came with your terrain mod.  Use whichever you like.  (My opinion is that the DJEM is unnecessary because it overrides dozens of settings that your terrain mod has, all to change one single value, the MaxNormalYForCliff, which you can just do yourself.  Also it is not meant to solve your problem; rather it is supposed to fix what is shown in the illustrations in its description).

 

Anyway, open up the last-loading version of the Terrain Parameters file and go to the Exemplar that has these values for the first three lines:

 

0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000

Terrain

Texture39

 

This exemplar alters the beach texture.  In there you'll see the TextureBlendStrength.  Increasing this value will make the beach texture blend more strongly.  You can also try playing with the five TextureSpreadCurve values, which determine how far the texture extends.  For simplicity's sake, keep the same values for all 5 of these.  You should alter only two of the values; for example:

 

0, 1, 16, 1, 32, 0          change this to:              0, 1, 32, 1, 64, 0                  or try:                0, 1, 8, 1, 16, 0

 

Play around with it until it seems satisfactory in game.

[TPB 562]

Info sources: here and here

 

So to change the way the beach blends with the rest of your terrain, you want to open up the Terrain Parameters file in the Reader.  Note that the Diagonal Jagged Edges mod will override the one that came with your terrain mod.  Use whichever you like.  (My opinion is that the DJEM is unnecessary because it overrides dozens of settings that your terrain mod has, all to change one single value, the MaxNormalYForCliff, which you can just do yourself.  Also it is not meant to solve your problem; rather it is supposed to fix what is shown in the illustrations in its description).

 

Anyway, open up the last-loading version of the Terrain Parameters file and go to the Exemplar that has these values for the first three lines:

 

0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000

Terrain

Texture39

 

This exemplar alters the beach texture.  In there you'll see the TextureBlendStrength.  Increasing this value will make the beach texture blend more strongly.  You can also try playing with the five TextureSpreadCurve values, which determine how far the texture extends.  For simplicity's sake, keep the same values for all 5 of these.  You should alter only two of the values; for example:

 

0, 1, 16, 1, 32, 0          change this to:              0, 1, 32, 1, 64, 0                  or try:                0, 1, 8, 1, 16, 0

 

Play around with it until it seems satisfactory in game.

 

 

Thank you SO much Indiana Joe!! This works! Woo!

 

My shore before your fix:

 

 

 

 

After some initial playing around with the info you gave me I could see the potential but none of the values seemed to work optimally, it still looked weird.

 

Thats when I thought to copy the values from the one terrain mod I had tried that had decent shores. So I copied the values into the terrain exemplar, and was very pleased: 

 

 

And got this:

(I changed water texture obviously)

 

 

 

 

 

Massive improvement,but still not what I wanted. Getting real close though. 

 

After that I tweaked a few properties that i intuitively thought would make it better. In the main terrain part I lowered WaterMinAlpha to 0x01 and WaterDepthToColorGradientFactor to 0.4. to make the water edge smoother, and I changed the MaxBeachWidth to 4 as well. In the Texture39 you showed me I upped the blend strength to 7 to push the grass and water textures even further from the edges.

 

The result is simply awesome! 

 

 

 

I am so happy I could jump and shout, thank you so much!!

 

I think this could still do with a bit more tweaking the curves for extra perfection but this will do nicely!

 

Thank you again sir.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well done, gents.  That is quite a neat trick.

[TPB 562]

Ok now I have a new problem! That fixed the sand part, now I have same issue where WATER meets grass or cliff!

 

Could you tell me which file to mod for those Indiana Joe, please?

[rsc204 21,804]

In the meantime, I'd recommend reading up on terrain mods here, perhaps from the information you can get a sense of how much customisation is possible and how to do it.

[TPB 562]

In the meantime, I'd recommend reading up on terrain mods here, perhaps from the information you can get a sense of how much customisation is possible and how to do it.

 

Thanks rsc204. That should keep me busy for a while