A lot of work was completed on TerreSculptor in the past two months.
In addition to all of the work mentioned in the last blog post, the new BigPNG is also now complete.
This allows PNG file formats to support files up to the full 1 million x 1 million datamap size.
The TileEx Creator is also completed, which allows for tiling the full 1 million x 1 million datamap size.
Plus more Device multi-threading and a lot of other smaller updates.
I have been spending a lot of time in the past two weeks updating the original TerreSculptor Reference Manual for Version 3.0 of the software.
This PDF format manual is a 400 page book on everything about TerreSculptor.
This manual will become part of the regular install distribution files.
As new features are added to TerreSculptor, the manual will also be updated.
The latest version of the manual will also always be available on the Google Free Assets Drive (see your software Help menu for the link).
Starting in a few days will be the work on two new major features, the new Biome Menu item for Automated Splatmap creation, and the main viewport Terrain Auto-Material Material.
The new Biome Menu will be used for biome and splatmap extraction features.
I have been thinking about how I will develop the initial Automated Splatmap creator, and it will initially have at least six to eight RGB and RGBA/RGBAK Splatmap auto-creation tools.
The design will be a single dialog with multiple sliders that allow for specifying the settings for most of the more common Splatmap configurations.
Such as Beach Flat/Steep, Grass Flat/Steep, and Mountain Flat/Steep.
And adjusting the sliders will automatically create a full Splatmap based on the settings, that can be saved to disk.
This will automate the task that currently requires using multiple Weightmap Extractors saved to disk, and then assembling it all manually in the Splatmap Creator.
I am still considering how to perform such things as an automated transfer and viewing of the resulting Biome Splatmaps in the current Terrain Colormap Material.
This will also require creating a set of common coloring setups for the current Terrain Colormap Material system.
The new main viewport Terrain Auto-Material Material will allow for a higher quality rendered view of the terrain.
This will improve visualization of the terrain system.
Some of you may have also noticed the Mesh List Function Panel button and panel contents.
This is a future feature that will allow for placing a variety of primitives into the viewport scene, such as rough buildings and location placeholders.
This will also include such things as scattered trees for terrain size perspective.
The initial Mesh List functionality should be available in 2023.
I also still have some new Filter and Geology Devices in the works, which will be showing up randomly over the next few months.
-eof-