Heya all! First of all I want to say I am in my first days of exploring Houdini Apprentice, so please excuse my noobishness.
I am having a small but big problem right now as I am trying to follow a tutorial about using Mapbox with Houdini to create and texture terrain from satellite data and to bring that into UE4. Everything is working fine until I am loading in the selected location (this is a particular location I need for a personal project and can't pick another) and then when it have loaded, part of it is completely flattened out. I tried zooming out and zooming in when selecting the same location but the same area is still partly flattened. I then tested going to the same locale as in the tutorial and then everything is working just as in the video. I am really at a loss for how to continue, this is a locale I really need and I hope it is something that can be fixed somehow.
Andromonoid I would greatly appreciate any kind of help on this subject, thank you.
I think it's simply missing data. If you can do with lower resolution, try zooming out a little or lower the heightfield res and you might find another data set.
BabaJ Did you try ramping up your height scale parameter?
It also looks like the method you are using in the tut does not have the same x/y scaling of the plane you are using to bring the data onto.
And for that I would hazard a guess just by looking at your pic that you've mixed up the x with y, or simply rotate 90 deg.
Oh! I hope my lack of houdini-skill causing this! Although I hadn't touched this at all, this is what I got when I loaded in the data, and other regions of the world are all working fine compared to this particular one I need.
asm
Andromonoid I would greatly appreciate any kind of help on this subject, thank you.
I think it's simply missing data. If you can do with lower resolution, try zooming out a little or lower the heightfield res and you might find another data set.
Thank you for your reply! I am also starting to think it might be some form of missing data. I tried out what you wrote and managed to get the area to load completely from a lower resolution at 1k texture and heightmap data:
But then as soon as I zoomed in a bit more or got above 1k texture and heightmap data I got the same missing parts, and it is ALWAYS the same areas that are mising:
Do I need to get the high res Data if I am going to just use the height map? What I am planning to do is to not use the satellite texture but to make my own in Houdini, following this tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq971v4SqNo&list=PLQZVK72l3Ggzr8JBe7YLecL03C79vvanq&index=13&t=0s), slice it up in LOD friendly slices and then bring it into Unreal. WIll this be possible?
I believe this tut has you getting your maps from mapbox. I haven't gone through them to get a map but have used open topography.
Does that low resolution map you want to use have a fixed already ‘cropped’ desired area as a file; Or can you select your own specific x y co-ords.
You might want to try downloading the same general area but maybe with slightly different border sizes to see if just maybe it's the file and/or that part of the map database might be corrupt.
Then if no luck you can try maybe open topography - they might have a different format and you might have to adjust do things a bit different compared to tutorial but if you get stuck you can ask here.
You can look at just the initial part of this tut to get a good open togoraphy into Houdini, then you can switch back over to your other tut to learn what you wanted from that one:
Andromonoid Do I need to get the high res Data if I am going to just use the height map? What I am planning to do is to not use the satellite texture but to make my own in Houdini, following this tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq971v4SqNo&list=PLQZVK72l3Ggzr8JBe7YLecL03C79vvanq&index=13&t=0s), slice it up in LOD friendly slices and then bring it into Unreal. WIll this be possible?
Everything is possible Depends on if you find the height map resolution in your last post, first screenshot acceptable or not. Or you could do as BabaJ suggests and look for better height data elsewhere. Or maybe contact Mapbox and ask what's up with that area.
BabaJ I believe this tut has you getting your maps from mapbox. I haven't gone through them to get a map but have used open topography.
Does that low resolution map you want to use have a fixed already ‘cropped’ desired area as a file; Or can you select your own specific x y co-ords.
You might want to try downloading the same general area but maybe with slightly different border sizes to see if just maybe it's the file and/or that part of the map database might be corrupt.
Then if no luck you can try maybe open topography - they might have a different format and you might have to adjust do things a bit different compared to tutorial but if you get stuck you can ask here.
BabaJ You can look at just the initial part of this tut to get a good open togoraphy into Houdini, then you can switch back over to your other tut to learn what you wanted from that one:
Thank you a ton for this BabaJ! I went with this tutorial you linked as I realized it was superior for my needs as I wanted the area to be rectangular and the bounding box was customizable on opentopology.org. The results are even better looking then I expected! I also love the erosion node. I am going to continue with the other tutorial now when I got the environment working, it looks JUST like the photos of said area. This is fantastic hehe!
asm
Andromonoid Do I need to get the high res Data if I am going to just use the height map? What I am planning to do is to not use the satellite texture but to make my own in Houdini, following this tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq971v4SqNo&list=PLQZVK72l3Ggzr8JBe7YLecL03C79vvanq&index=13&t=0s), slice it up in LOD friendly slices and then bring it into Unreal. WIll this be possible?
Everything is possible Depends on if you find the height map resolution in your last post, first screenshot acceptable or not. Or you could do as BabaJ suggests and look for better height data elsewhere. Or maybe contact Mapbox and ask what's up with that area.
Thanks asm! I am starting to realize more and more the vast possibilities of Houdini the more I use it. I went with BabaJ's suggestion and I am loving the result so far!
Only thing is I need now find a way to fix the lake. It will be an open area, but most of the time viewable from a distance and not really traversable when I put it into Unreal as the player will only be in a somewhatlimited area, but with a great view of the mountains and forest areas (low res trees). The lake might only need a water-like texture maybe so it being flat might not be a huge problem I hope, but it would be interesting to put in-game water in it.
Big thanks to both of you BabaJ and mas for your help!
