More Terrain and Elevation problems - few few tips

[ChrisO]

The more I work with terrains and elevations, the more hiccups I find.  But here are few tips that might help if you are having problems:

 

1. Don't copy anything from one elevation to another. Many objects seem to to carry the same elevation properties with them and you may end up with walls deep underground, flying stairs, terrain holes under floors etc.  If you have those problems, try diving underground with a camera to see what is there, then try deleting any walls and redrawing them.

2. If you break an isolated room that has positive elevation (e.g. +2m above 0m sea level), then you may find that all objects in the room drop down to 0m. Once you have reconstructed your room, they will be missing. Go underground with a camera and take a look. Then select and open each subterranean object, re-save it, and it will magically teleport back to the correct floor elevation. (Does not work for walls etc). Also go up one floor and see if there are any automatically generated objects that should have been removed when the ground floor item was changed.

3. Never ever never leave your tool selection on a terrain tool if you are not using it. Tiny elevated areas and holes cannot be found.

4. Go back to the old days, and save the file every few minutes. If you get a sudden change to extreme mountainous terrain with 50,000 contours, give up and go back to the last saved version. If the app tells you that you are about to create thousands of contours and asks if you want to adjust the contour height, just cancel and dump the file. You cannot recover by clicking "undo".  

5. Put retaining walls in the higher elevated terrain. If you still get weird contours and slopes, add a terrain kerb over the tightly packed contours. If you have grass growing vertically on a side wall, drop a terrain kerb on it.

 

Going underground can help you find innumerable problems that you did not know existed.

 

     

[ChrisO]

Actually, my advice to anyone tempted to use the terrain feature is to stop now. Go find another application, because this one stinks.  

I've wasted hours, days, and now weeks on what I can only describe using four letter words. 

Today I thought I was making progress, but then the app did its thing and wrecked what was starting to look like a usable plan. Trashed!

And now I am unable to rebuild it and I cannot work out why it does not do what it did before.

Here's an example: Added a "flat terrain area" at 1m under a simple structure that was already set for floor height 1m. Now I have terrain going into the hut. 

It is a total **** up.

 

 

[DavidJPotter]

All your post indicates is that you are learning how to effectively use the terrain tools. Everyone mounts that same curve from inability to ability. You are not "special" or "unusual" at all what so ever.

 

DJP

[ChrisO]

Several hours later, with zero progress (no, I mean negative progress) I am sick of this total mess of an application.  It is a waste of time and money.

If someone wants to design a kitchen, OK.  But the terrain functions deserve a few heads rolling in the dev department.  It is TOTAL SHITE.