Distant Terrain

(This tutorial is not complete and under construction)

The Distant Terrain is an object, and is the largest object provided by the CAW tool. Its large size makes it difficult to work with, and when using this object, it should be placed first, before doing anything in your new world. Also, you should have determined the way the sun rises and sets, and if your world is surrounded by water, you should have noted the direction in which the water currents move.

The Distant Terrain object is designed to work only with the larger maps -- 2048 x 2048.

The idea is to place the object and build your terrain to fit into its edges. This is much easier said than done. And because of this, my suggestion is that you start with one of the "Lite" version worlds provided with the CAW tool. These worlds are already designed with the Distant Terrain in place, and they can easily be altered or modified to your liking. The roads can be easily deleted. This will save you lots of time and headache.

However, if you want to start completely from scratch, be sure to choose the above mentioned maps, and you may also want to select the largest Maximum Height setting.

Make sure you have created an "Objects" layer and that the Objects layer is set as the active layer.

Once the Distant Terrain object is placed, it will have to be fit to the map. It can be moved by changing the values of the X, Y, Z positions in the Property Browser or by using the "Move world object" and "Rotate world object" utilities.

 In order to use either method, you must first select the Distant Terrain object. Because of its large size, you will have to select it by using the World Layers directory. Using the above image as an example, Right-click on Distant Terrain_0 and choose from the pop-up menu "Find in Render Panel".

The render screen may show nothing buy light gray or light blue. Simply hold down the number 8 key on the keypad until your world rotates into view.

Now you will be able to see the values of the object in the Property Browser, and simply change those values by deleting the current value and typing in the new value.

The recommended values are as follows:

Distant Terrain  (Sunset Valley)             

PositionX = 2047.11707

PositionY = 116.551254

PositionZ = 2047.2146 

RotationX = 0

RotationY = 0

RotationZ = 0 

Distant Terrain - China

PositionX = 1025.91492

PositionY = -100.792183

PositionZ = 1022.01959 

RotationX = 0

RotationY = -89.99999

RotationZ = 0 

Distant Terrain - Egypt

PositionX = 1000.6
PositionY = -2
PostionZ = 1025.6

RotationX = 0
RotationY = 44.1999931
RotationZ = 0

Distant Terrain - France
PositionX = 1000
PositionY = 0
PositionZ = 1012

RotationX = -179.999985
RotationY = 0
RotationZ = -179.99998
 
 

 

Should you choose to move the Distant Terrain object by using the Utilities, you will have to scroll away from the map until the red, blue, and green axis lines appear in the rendering panel.