Hi guys, just thought I'd start a new project and list it here for some input.

I have at my disposal,
A8 Commercial Edition
L3DT Pro
Deciding on Milkshape or Blender
Rocks and Flora package RocksHD - from Pure3D.

Simply at this early stage, I want to create a terrain with the added rocks and trees from pure3D.

I want to add the trees randomly, but the density of the trees should be specified. Density of the trees eventually will be dependent on altitude and longitude (if we're to assume that the poles are traditionally cold and also to assume that the trees are best grown away from the poles.

At a later stage, variables like temperature, altitude, longitude can be applied to the terrain and also variables like favoured temperature added to objects.

I would add multiple levels of waterbodies to the eventual terrain. Essentially, freshwater (definition) for anything above sea-level.

I would prefer to divide up the terrain, either by joining multiple terrains together or defining the area of a circle with a specified centre. In this way, I can add multiple values to a certain area, like temperature, forest, swamp, etc. These values can then be used when we randomly place the trees and can affect the types of flora and fauna placed there. The terrain might be just divided into small cube sections with its own values.

Eventually, for the first part of this project, I would like to specify each section of a terrain what type of values it should have such as forest, swamp, desert, etc

to be continued.

So starting off,

1/ I'm going to be generating a terrain from L3DT and transfer it into 3DGS.
2/ Convert .dds models of rocks and trees to .mdl. As posted elsewhere, transparencies are a problem in MED.
3/ Write a function to return surface at x, y in the terrain.
4/ Write a function to return a requested number of points for trees. I'll randomise x, y values and return x, y, z, values, where z (height/ground) would be the surface of the terrain.

This function will require a few parameters.

num_trees, number of trees
Radius of each tree (Rmin, Rmax) - each tree will be in its own square box. 2 parameters will be need so that the size of each box will be randomised between a min radius to max radius value. This will make the trees less uniformed when viewed from above.

I think a density function should return the number of trees for an area and also the higher the density, the smaller the diff between Rmin and Rmax.

Hopefully the terrain will be automatically vegetated with a few trees and not look too uniform from afar.

Globals such as FOREST_DENSITY, JUNGLE_DENSITY, DESERT_DENSITY can be pre-determined.

There probably are a few current projects that automatically vegetate terrain, but I thought this will be a good learning project for myself and gets me straight into contact with handling models. Always loved 3D graphics.

Wrong forum !

The purpose of listing everything I intend to do is to ask people who can see problems with the workflow - or other inherent difficulties that might arise to what I intend. Since I am completely new with 3dgs, I thought that this forum would be the perfect place for it. When I can manoeuvre around the platform, then I'll move to the more advanced forum.