How can I make large heightmaps (16k or above)?

ZenDavis

Hello,

I'm interested to know the approach to make really large terrains. Take Skyrim as an example, I think the terrain was something like 41k. How did they do that?

Because it cannot be simply done with world machine and a PC with 8GB of RAM and a 4790k CPU. I already get an error message in world machine telling me I don't have enough resources upon trying to build a 16k terrain.

I don't know the direction they take for large terrains. Think the first response to the thread would shed some light, and also bring more questions.

Eric Chadwick

You can output World Machine terrains as tiles. Have you tried this? Been awhile since I've done it, but it worked great back when I did.

Visceral

Yeah i highly doubt they would use a single 41k texture like that. Break it up into smaller tiles. And you dont need that much info in the heighmap to begin with, use the textures and models to your advantage instead of relying on a super highres heightmap.

Eric Chadwick

We have some good tutorials here

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Landscape