Terraforming tools - recommendations?

I want to start carving out the water features (moats, creeks, and pools) for my public garden-to-be, and I really need more finesse than the built-in terraforming tools offer.

I have seen a few different terraforming tools on SLX, but it's hard to choose without actually trying them.

Has anyone here used custom-built terraforming tools? Are there any you would recommend? Are there any you would recommend against? And what did you like and dislike about them?

I played around with using this script:

/15/4e/148705/1.html

Which is pretty much exactly what those other tools do. I was underwhelmed with the results. 2m does allow for a little more precision, but at the end of the experiment I still ended up doing the terraforming using the land tools. If these tools worked with a smaller size, like 1m, it would help more with attempting precision work. Terraforming is just like any other skill, it takes time to master. Even with a 2m scripted tool, it is still pounding a nail with sledgehammer. Now, if you want to level a large parcel of land in seconds flat - the scripted tool does a bang up job. Detail work like ponds, rivers, etc...not so much.

Bummer.

Yeah, I'm real good with mass operations, but that's not going to work for the moat and creeks. I was really hoping for the ability to manipulate 1m increments or lower, so it's a good reality check to learn about the 2m limitation. Thanks!

Any thoughts on how they help make regular curvy shapes (ovals, circles, rings, and arcs)?

Private island owners have the ability to actually design their island layout in Photoshop, but on the mainland you're stuck with the editing tools. I go for a multi-tiered approach when doing mainland. Raise/Lower to get approximate terrain- it will look spikey and awful at first. Next I'll use a combination of Smooth and Flatten to get rid of the spikeys. Takes some time but it's the only way I know to end up with nice, rounded contours. Levelers and other terraforming tools I've used (I even made a terraforming hud) are fine for flattening (although you can select a whole parcel and use the Apply to Selection button a few times to flatten out the whole thing if you want to start out from square 1), but really can result in sub-optimal, blocky-looking layouts because of the way scripted terraforming works.

Oooo, this thread lead off to some others that start getting into the nitty gritty of terrain and terraforming. I'm definitely going to try the various scripts, but first I'm going to read all the info and really get my head around this. Yep, I am a massive geek!

The answer is NOT. The scripted tools only work in squares. I think if I were going to do rings, I would use the freebie ring maker tool to get the ring size right, then sink it into the ground. Then terraform down to expose it and use it as a template to guide yourself as you lower the land. I do my pathways that way.... The thing you have to remember with terraforming is to work within the limitations of SL. A sim "grid" is comprised of 16m squares, if you lay your terraforming out with this in mind, you can use the tools somewhat more effectively because you can then use the "Apply to Selection" button, which does give you more control...but in squares.

Thanks Wildefire. I have to admit I've always been a little jealous of that particular private island feature. It would just be so perfect to do all the work in a nice responsive no-lag environment and then just port it into SL.

I think I may have to try a combination of the scripted tool and manual terraforming. And obviously I'm going to have to spend a lot of time practicing this before I start to build.

Good to know. I thought I saw one on SLX that could do rings, so obviously I'm going to have to look into that claim with a skeptical eye.



I like that idea a lot. In fact, since I want a prim pebble-textured bottom, I might as well just do those first and then use them as a guide. Very good suggestion!



My life improved so much when I learned about using "Apply to Selection". But it's those squares that are the problem in this case. My overall theme is based on a natural-style Japanese garden, and for full effect the creeks need a bit of meander to them. In theory I should be able to do that to some level with the manual tools, but (a) my skills are poorly lacking and (b) the lag on my poor slow computer makes me overshoot a lot.

I just have to say, after what you guys have told me, I think some sellers of scripted terraformers are really exaggerating what they can do. Glad I asked you guys!

I'm very slowly getting the hang of terraforming and will definitely check out that other thread for script ideas. My own experience just using the provided interface is that you need to select, apply "whatever" to the selection, check it, overshoot a little apply a smooth between squares, repeat. This way you can fiddle around and fake some diagonals fairly well. I managed a pretty passable meandering stream a couple of homes ago but the 16m units dictated that it was pretty large in scale. The same with my last place. Good luck and let us know if you learn anything helpful and maybe even share in the gallery.

The trick with using the 16m apply to selection setting is to "dig" your trench for the stream, then use the flatten land setting (not with apply to selection) to feather the sides very cautiously back in so make is smaller. It takes time and a gentle hand, use the land tool almost like a brush and go slow.

Well, you have to remember that 99% of SL landowners just want the flattest, greenest land surface they can get, so those tools are perfect for that aplication. For that small group of us who create gardens and natural landscapes, they just don't cut the virtual mustard.

I haven't really found any great tools. I just do everything by hand. But check this tool out, it's cheap, and can be pretty useful:
http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=189145
I use it if I want to significantly raise or lower land level. By hand would take forever; with this, you just set the pieces up right and let them do their job. You can also place these at multiple altitudes and then just smooth the land between the points to create a varied look. They don't come with instructions but are pretty simple to figure out. If you need help, you can IM me in-world.

You know, that observation is just spot on, even in RL. I grew up in an area rich with geographical features -- foothills and mountains, valleys and gorges, ocean and bays -- and I find that flat and featureless just looks like a wasteland to me.

As Bodhisatva mentioned pictures, I'll share a link to pics of my only previous build. It's a volcanic hotspring in a temperate coniferous forest with the overflow cascading down into the cold ocean inlet below. Well, that sounds better than it actually came out, but I did get a couple of nice photos of it. (Sadly the next owner eventually sold to a land baron, who razed it.)

http://ava.wavescrashing.org/2007/03/sequoia-hot-springs/

Carving out the lip of the caldera and the stream bed for the cascade gave me a lot of trouble, which is why I was so eager to try out the scripted terraformers this time. I did eventually get the channel working (even tested it by dropping physical balls down it!) but it wasn't deep or narrow enough and tended to get rendering glitches when viewed from a distance (seen in the night picture).

Hmmm, that definitely appears to use the open source script Isablan linked to. I do like the tip it gives, though... I'm so silly, I didn't even think of using multiple copies at the same time!

Ava-->"even tested it by dropping physical balls down it!"

Ava, you're my kind of geek! That's an excellent landscape. Aren't you glad you took pics of it? I wish I'd done that with my first stream. When I did that one I put cube prims at the places I wanted it to flow, where the waterfalls were, etc. took "aerial photos", messed around with it for a loooooong time. I found burying a big, flat prim where I wanted the stream to be and digging and shaping down to and around it really helped visualize. The ground texture by itself really gives no depth perception.

I spent a l-o-n-g time creating a meandering path down a long (70 meters) slope. I did it with a series of textured prim "planks" linked together in the meandering shape I wanted. I laid them down and attempted to build up the land around the edges, all the way down the slope.

Not easy ... not easy at all. Is there any technical reason why a 1 sq. meter tool can't be introduced? Even that much more precision would have made the task much simpler.

I just found out from the new sl wiki that there is an error in the llModifyLand brush size constants. They are specified to run from 1 to 3 for 2x2, 4x4 and 8x8 brushes. Instead they should be 0 to 2. That is the only way to get a 2 x 2 brush. The other advantage of a land tool is that it does not need to be aligned to 16 sq m ground block.

I do need to fix my own bobcat bulldozers and give my clients new versions.

I know next to nothing about scripting, Ed, but are you saying with that information you just discovered you'll be able to modify the tools you have to do finer grading? And where are these tools of yours available? (If it's not cool to promote your business here, just drop me an IM or a landmark)

Those are great pictures Ava, that looked like a cool project. Land barons commit all sorts of crimes of terraforming thinking that it will sell quicker, kind of like RL real estate agents that want people to paint all their walls white and create a blank canvas for uncreative people to imagine their boring stuff in. Pfft. /rant

Here are pics on snapzilla of The Botanical Gardens:
http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/Default.aspx?Sim=The%20Botanical%20Gardens

When I have access to the .raw file for a sim, I can use Photoshop and an app named "Backhoe' on the Mac to edit whole-sim or multi-sim terrain heightmaps. It is also possible to use the other layers of information in a .raw file to select a specific parcel in a sim, so you can limit the terraforming to just that parcel.

But those advanced tricks will only help you if the sim owner is willing to bake a current terrain status file for you, download and e-mail that to ou, and then upload the modified file back into the sim. The main risk in using tools of that level to terraform just one parcel is that you're working 'blind', unable to see any prims and other objects in the parcel. Mass-terraforming is also not an option on the Mainland, as LL will never give you upload/download assistance for the .raw file of a Mainland sim, even if you own the whole region.

For anything short of a whole-sim terraforming, I just use the in-world tools that LL provides, It takes practice and effort to use them well, but I can scuplt almost anything with them, given enough time, and working within the limitations of terraform limits and the coarse resolution of the SL terrain grid.

Wow, that's gorgeous! I can definitely tell you where I'll be going tonight.



Yummy!

Definitely not an option for me who is 100% mainland, but it does look like a very cool tool.



This is the piece of now obvious information that I had somehow managed to completely overlook. Before starting this discussion I had been thinking that I could do some really fine-scale scultping if I just had the right tool or better skills. I see now, though, that I was assuming a much finer terrain mesh than actually exists.

I think I might play around terraforming in wireframe for a bit, just to get a really good feel for the true limitations and how to work with them and around them.

P.S. Thanks to everyone for the info. This has been very educational for me.

The basic in-World tools are all you Really Need, See me in world, and i will Give you a few lessons in precision terraforming.

Angel.

From the Knowledgebase:

For this reason, if you dig a hole with "vertical sides", you still end up with a 1 M slope on the sides. If the heightmap was a perfect square of jet black surrounded by a border of pure white, and if the multiplier layer is set to 50% gray (Multiplier of 1.0), the white area would be at 255 Meters, the black at 0 Meters, and the sloped area interpolated between the two levels would be a band 1 meter wide.

Thanks Angel, I may give you a call in a few weeks after I've had a chance to experiment extensively.



Interesting. It makes me wish we had the ability to directly edit individual points, but I'm starting to see how I can get close with the 2x2 scripted terraformers followed by careful smoothing. Well, in theory at least. Obviously thorough experimentation will be required.

Bodhi is right, I really AM a geek!

One other point to remember, Ava, is that you can only move a point on the terrain height map up or down on the Z-axis. Their X and Y coordinates are firmly locked and can not be altered by any means.

If you *do* have access to uploading and downloading the .raw file for a sim, then yes, by editing the individual pixel values in the heightmap plane, you can move any individual point on the grid up or down in 1 meter increments. With the multiplier layer set to a factor of 50%, you could control the vertical axis in 1/2 meter increments, but your highest possible point on the land drops from 256 Meters to 128 Meters. Since SL terrain looks very badly streached if the heightfields go all the way from 0 to over 100 M, using a 50% value for the heightfield multiplier would give better control over the terrain mesh.

A grayscale value of 64 on channel 2 in the .raw file sets the heightfield multiplier to exactly 50%. That makes any pixels in channel 1 have their greyscale value match the desired elevation times 2. So to get a 22 M surface you'd plug in a greyscale value of 44.