When will we get back the option to create a "new random" terrain?
Why it was removed?

it was removed???

Erm, it's there for me right above new flat level in the menu

I tried it and it seams that it generates always the same terrain. or i can't see any difference.

That's what I mean, it only generates 1 type of terrain.

Ah I see. I've never used it to be honest, I prefer to make my own terrain from a flat surface.

Yes it now seems to generate only 1 type of random terrain at least - all of which are raised (hilly/mountainous) with no flat areas at all.

You have a choice now of Flat or Hills. Which is perhaps purposeful?

The random terrain is also now quite smoothed out which perhaps is again purposeful as it may not generate so many poly's, I don't know? not really counting!

I use Random terrains from previous version I generated a long time back as a basis to work with as I kept/saved a lot of those I particularly liked the look of.....

However I am not sure if they are now problematical as some of the levels I have created a long time back now suffer again from cracks/splits/tears in the terrain polygons showing up in levels which is an issue that was fixed and not previously perhaps numerous times before? May be just differences between terrains and internal methodologies generated in different versions which is not helpful if you want to spend a lot of time manually creating/adjusting terrains to suit your game if they may later have issues or conflicts in later versions which mess up what might be a lot of effort and long hard work.....

See attached Screen shot taken now of longstanding level/terrain.

Yes, I also had some cracks/splits in some maps.
But the random terrain was sometimes a good start.
I still have an old backup version of GG, so I've to create the map now in the old version and import it into v1.11 .

I have saved some of old maps before the last GG update. Try it from attachement
Just change hes names and enjoy

thanks larry.
I hope tgc will add the feature again.

We changed the algorithm which calculates the random hills. We thought it was an improvement, but we have since been getting the 'patchwork quilt' feedback so perhaps it needs a little more work..

Terrains for certain need more work. The fact that a random terrain is no longer random being the case in point. It doesn't seem to generate a random map, just loads in one that is pre-calculated.

As far as patchwork quilt goes, I agree, I think of it more as a carpet myself though If we had more textures to paint with it would be far easier to hide the effect (you only tend to see it with one texture over a fair distance, mix it up with other textures and you will hardly ever see an issue). Oddly, baking makes the far distance look more glitchy, with little lines that are very noticeable on the horizon. I also get the tearing in places, I have found that increasing the LOD higher tends to help, but obviously that also tends to slow things more (really we want to be lowering the options, as you can get a good boost here without making a huge difference to the game visuals).

Having random terrains back would be nice and I am hoping the DX11 stuff will finally give us more terrain textures to use. Different brush types may help avoid the circles that can sometimes look odd as well, although it is hardly urgent. Updating the grass system to be able to use several possible grass types as well, would certainly help our worlds look more realistic and varied.

Things seem to be going well at the moment though, so hopefully we may see improvements in this area fairly soon.

I think being able to change texture "at fly" via lua command, would be nice.
Even for the entities too.

3com

DVader I think has it about sussed.

The best way currently to avoid obvious repetition of texture pattern on the terrain is to avoid being over adventurous with the main default base texture. It should be seamless of course and the 4 sides should be of comparable tonal value, but importantly the smaller the detail pattern on the texture itself and the lower the variation of highly contrasting areas the better. i.e. like a single colour bedroom carpet rather than a large patterned contrasting carpet is best. Somewhat bland to look at the detail like sand grains or snow grains with little pattern contrast but contrast on the individual small grains is OK except it could glimmer/shimmer

If you keep the base texture simple like that the detail can be added using all of the other available textures, but you have to use them and paint everything - a lot of work to do well and additional veg, trees and other entities add to the detail and can blend the whole together. You cant really just rely on the one default terrain texture alone and try and cram lots of detail onto that to get a one texture quick solution and yes more textures would be helpful as even with what we have, more would give a better result and allow more terrain items to be painted, paths, roads and so on perhaps.

I agree more than one veg type (optional) would be beneficial if possible and should be a better bet than trying say to place a lot of additional ground cover veg type entities manually. e.g, plants and bushes.

I think veg is important as it can be very close up to the player and is seen in great detail. Personally I would rather have veg shadows than animated veg but that would be a personal preference and can live without either. I can always "Paint" veg shadows but cant do anything about the animated veg as far as I know. Both would be good but performance for me would not allow.

I'd definitely like to see more options for the "grass", something more like a system to choose as many grass entitits as you want (from a list) and then how often each should appear, so you can get a nice mixture.

It would also be great to get more control on the spray tool so it can also be done by hand if desired.

As for the texture needing to be bland... Not so much if you use grass / entities to cover the area nicely and you're using seamless texture, you can certainly get a much nicer texture... but yh if its a big open world with nothing in it then plain is best... But a nice fast " grass" system would be better still.