I've started a new thread here for anyone who might have any suggestions to improve or has any current niggles and issues that need attention.

v5.3.1 fix (Blitz Terrain Smoothing fix)- sent to all purchasers

[update 16Feb20: v5.3-release to buyers. Added OBJ/MTL export and default texture copied directly over to OBJ/MTL area. fixed culling issue with dummy object. Loads in modelling packages Autodesk/UU3D/Fragmotion directly-Autodesk is very fast for LOD0. Doesn't import into Blender correctly for some reason. Coding halted till more interest is shown]

[update 12Feb20: v5.2 released to buyers-thanks again for your support]

[update 11Feb20: price will now drop from £10 to £7 - please note Paypal deducts almost a £1 each time I receive money]

[update 02Feb2020]: today sees some fixes and updates to the app. Hotkeys added for menu links and links to the You Tube video guides added. Hoping to add the code that auto generates heightmaps using Perlin noise either today or tomorrow. More tests being done with OBJ format before adding the export code into this app. Still continuing to add code to allow the user to 'scuplt' the terrain, will see how that works out.

[update 27Jan2020]: release v5.1.1/5.1.2] - 5.1.1 fixed issue with shortcuts being removed from desktop, but still had issue when closing if map_data path folder couldn't be found. This is now fixed in 5.1.2 and sent to buyers. Thanks to Super Clark for reporting.

[update 24Jan2020]: release v5.1. The .ini has now been moved to the app root install folder and has 2 additional install path parameters; GameGuru default steam path and a custom install path if you have Gameguru on another drive or you want to point the app to a compiled github version on your drive. The custom path overrides the default steam path. Due to limited time being able to work on this, some features I've mentioned will be added to the next update e.g. heightmap generator using Perlin noise, more control of the camera, file versioning, more custom path control, terrain LOD control (for exporting of the terrain), more export format e.g. OBJ/.X (looking into vert/poly/reduction and culling at the moment). Plus other misc stuff / fixes etc.

[update 14Dec2019]: working on fix where some users have installed GG to another drive or folder/library name. App currently only looks at default steam install path i.e. steamapps/common/Game Guru. Unfortunately, paths are different if GG moved elsewhere. Temp solution is for the user to move GG back to the original install path via steam settings, but takes a while.

[update 13Dec2019]: Version 5.0 is now available for purchase. Details on how to obtain this version are below.

[update 28Nov2019]: The next version will actually be v5.0 as there a major additions/changes being made.

New features for v5.2:
-> added radio button for terrain export LOD 0-2 levels
-> added YT links to tutorial videos
-> added File->Exit menu option

updates/fixes:
-> FIXED: if convert to greyscale drop list selected and fuse 4 images, old image still gets processed.
-> FIXED: update app version
-> FIXED: fix issue where LOD level not specified correctly/consistently in export code
-> FIXED: change dummy object for export from sphere to a plane which was causing issue with # of verts correctly being stored.
-> FIXED-path not found issue line 1028 , gameguru mapbank heightmap_imports cannot be found error. User may need to check .ini file. I got this error due to me not having GG installed again on my laptop due to a fresh install being required.


New features for v5.0:

-- Terrain Smoothing - 2 options to do this (1) in-built BlitzTerrain smoothing using a factor of 1-100 (2) using custom code, selecting brush size and number of parses.
-- Fusing up to 4 map images representing each terrain quadrant (top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right)
-- Choosing terrain filename
-- Export option to DBO, X, OBJ (DBO implemented for now as it's faster, however, load into Fragmotion/UU3D if you don't mind waiting times) - I am thinking about maybe exporting in chunks, anything is possible. Need to also look into scaling the object (maybe?)
-- Filename versioning - hmmm maybe not this version, need to think more about this
-- Register product system -- Fully operational. I emphasise this does not read/write to your OS registry in any way.
-- additional features will be added here

Fixes in version 5.0:
-- resolved issue with program causing missing motion blur intensity slider and setting the value to 3000. Thanks to oldflak for bringing the issue back to my attention. Grab the fixed template file attached to resolve in current version 4. Unzip the file somewhere appropriate and copy over the existing template under the app media\template folder. Your existing GG visuals.ini file will also need to be reverted back to it's original state. You can either 1) manually edit visuals.MotionIntensity#=0 OR 2) perform a steam files integrity check to replace the affected file. option 1 would be quicker.

=================
HOW TO PURCHASE
=================
How to get your hands on the next version:
If you are interested in grabbing the next major release, the charge will be £7.00 (approx $8.62 USD). Payment can be made via paypal to fowlerm@hotmail.co.uk.

Great stuff BOR

As soon as I have access to my PC (away at present), I will put some suggestions forward, and let you know of issues with current version.

Looking forward to this tool getting some refinements - just point me to the pay button.

OldFlak....

@Oldflak, I look forward to any suggestions, niggles that need attention etc.

I only ask that people donate at least £5 to my paypal account which is fowlerm@hotmail.co.uk

You will receive future updates and a link to the next version of the program once it's done. I ask you do not send me any money yet until I have confirmed the updated program is ready for distribution. I will also do a tutorial video showing how to use the program. A PDF document will also be compiled if your not a big fan of videos.

many thanks for your continued support.

i will have my money for sure... and many thaks in advance for your great work for GG community

@JC LEON: thanks


I will be adding my smoothing terrain algorithm and also allow the user to enter the number of passes to process the algorithm. Up to about 20 passes should be sufficient. Once I get it up and running I'll post pics.

Smoothing terrain algorithm now works great, the test code allows me to specify whether to apply smoothing or not plus the number of parses plus the actual filtersize e.g. 9. Obviously the higher the parse value, the longer it takes to process the smoothing process. Here are the results using parse 1, and parse 5 with filtersize of 9 (the 1st pic doesn't use smoothing and looks awful):

Feel free to let me know what you think (positive or negative), I can take it

Sweet.

cool cant wait to take my hands on it... and please make even a tut on how to import and use correclty..

thanks Pirate Myke/JC LEON.

Made updates to the GUI, although it subject to change.

1st pic shows terrain with no smoothing applied and the 2nd shows terrain with smoothing algorithm applied using 3 parses and a filtersize (like a brush size) of 9x9.

If anyone would like the update, please send payment of £10 to my paypal account which is fowlerm@hotmail.co.uk.
I will be creating both a PDF guide and a video guide so both preferences are covered.

There will now be 2 ways of applying terrain smoothing, 1. using the in-built Blitzterrain smoothing by using a factor of 1-100 or 2. using the custom algorithm where you can specify the factorsize (brush size) and the number of parses to apply the algorithm. Spoilt for choice.
I am also able to save out terrain as an object that can be imported into 3D editors, most likely in .OBJ format, I can save out a part of the terrain in .DBO format but it's pretty slow loading into fragmotion. I will see what can be done here.
I am also going to implement some test code I did fusing 4 textures into 1 for the split map side, will also see where this leads or if it's terrible.

May have to make this version 5.0 as quite a lot of major updates going on, including the GUI.

i purchase it for sure even now...but i would to know if the gui is really to be added ..

@JC LEON, not sure if I totally understood your question , but yes I have updated the GUI just for the smoothing option(s). GUI needs tidying up a little and maybe the window needs to be enlarged a little.

A lot of things can be done with Blitzterrain, so will have a look and see what else I can add / improve.

temporarily disabled 'Convert to heightmap' in the conversion dropdown box for now as there is a wee bug which I need to locate and squash. This options takes a normal map e.g. _N.dds and attempts to recreate a heightmap if you don't have the original heightmap It's a bit experimental but seems to work ok and you can change the contrast with the up/down gadget (this now only is displayed when 'convert to heightmap' is selected).

Is that like $13.00 in US dollars?

Hi MK83, yes just went on an online converter it's approx $13 (US dollars)

following on from previous post, exporting the terrain seems to be working so far, although at the moment I'm exporting the terrain out as separate sectors (LOD0). This is still all experimental and seeing if it's all worth it.

exported terrain ok, the pic below shows terrain without normals as I forgot to add them in at the time but this has since been corrected.

another pic showing an exported OBJ format terrain (unsmoothed) in Windows 10 3D viewer.

Wow great looking map that would be....

OldFlak....

[edit]- anyway, onwards and upwards, I'm updating the GUI to include the user to select the option to export out as a 3D model (.DBO, .X, .OBJ). Other GUI options will include saving out to a file name of choice, fusing 4 images together for split map purposes (test code outside main app already works just needs transferring to the main app code), custom and inbuilt smoothing + any else I can think of e.g. maybe versioning.

When I get back from holiday I will be visiting your PayPal site
Definately interested in this tool...

Technically back already, but have friends staying for few days so not much time for computing...

Personally, I wouldn't worry about export it out, just make it work in GG.

OldFlak....

@Oldflak- I edited my rant, was feeling a bit low d/t viral infection that our darling wee baby boy decided to give us . Anyway, still working on this. more pics/updates in this to come. GUI overhaul time and implement new features code.

No worries, I put a link over on discord channel for it too

OldFlak....

@Oldflak-thanks , much appreciated. Congrats on being user of the month.

first post updated, detailing new features + how to get a copy of the next version which will now be v5.0 and NOT v4.1

@Bored of the Rings. check your messages

This version is looking great so far.

With V4, I noticed an issue with the Motion Blur Intensity Slider
- when you open a HM2GG map
- go to Tab Tab
- Motion Blur Intensity is set to 3000
- - Every thing will work fine until you change one of the other sliders - fog etc
- - Doing that will cause the motion blur setting to be used by GG
- - and you will see the effect of very high motion blur on a map

You can get it back by lots of clicks on the slider bar (takes quite a few clicks)
So don't know if that can be addressed or not.

Looking forward to playing with it

OldFlak....

thanks for your message OldFlak and your order.

I will check out the issue which I think maybe more GG issue related, will see if anything can be done if it's HM2GG issue related. If it's GG issue related, it will need to be reported on Github.

many thanks again for your support and comments.

ok, yes I see , I've had the same issue where you can't adjust the blur intensity slider as (well on mine), the slider is missing and value remains at 3000. Same thing happens when I use a blank map and not imported any HM2GG map. I'll dig around in the GG source code when I get more time. This has been happening for months for me. I don't recall seeing this issue in the current github build, but will check.

Yeah the slider is way off to the right of the screen, so not visible because it is set to 3000.
You can keep clicking the the beginning of the slider bar, and eventually it appears on screen - lots and lots of clicks.

Not noticed it on any other maps - I be using latest beta - but that of course doesn't mean it isn't on GG side.

OldFlak....

yes it's definitely a GG specific issue as I rebooted my PC, fired up GG added a player start marker, blank map and went into test mode and slider is missing and set to 3000. Tis a bug with GG.

ok spoke too soon. I redownloaded fresh github source code from master branch, compiled, run against a blank map and all fine with the sliders, all present. ran HM2GG and imported a map into GG and went into test mode again. Seems like the slider does disappear after importing an HM2GG map. I shall investigate further.

To resolve the issue (as a temporary fix till I find out why it's happening), perform a file integrity check via steam. make a backup of the following files as shown in pic (put in a separate folder somewhere).

Might be a good idea not to use the program until I fix it, but if you do, just copy the backup files over to the root GG folder.
Sorry for inconvenience , hope to resolve as soon as possible.

[update]: ah found the problem, I will fix now and let you know when all ok. This will only be fixed in the new version.

all fixed, thanks to Oldflak for bringing the issue up.

Great news!
@Bored of the Rings; does your app feature that you draw the height-map
with the app, or it just takes a pre-drawn height-map and processes it?
I guess if you have a video or something I would be very interested.

Also, does paypal automatically convert the payment from $ for you...?

@GubbyBlips: Yes , that's right, the app only takes the heightmap image and processes it. Drawing map in real-time is also possible as it uses BlitzTerrain the same as GameGuru , so that is something that can be implemented later if there is more interest. The app originally came about as someone wanted to know if GG could import heightmaps and at the time it was thought that it couldn't be done, so it gave me a challenge to squash that theory and it developed from there.

Paypal automatically converts $ to GBP if I recall and Paypal also take a small fee.

@all - to fix your current version (v4), I have attached a fixed template to the first post. Please download and extract the zip and copy/paste over the existing template under media/template within the app folder wherever you have installed it. Also, you should delete the _BLANKGGMAP.fpm and BLANKGGMAP.fpm from C:\Program Files <(x86)>\Steam\steamapps\common\Game Guru\Files\mapbank\heightmap_imports. When you run the HM2GG program again, it should detect that it needs to copy over the new template again to that area. Let me know if you have any problems.

[added here as posted in the old thread-oops].

Here is a pic showing progress so far with updated GUI. You can now select 1 of 2 ways to apply terrain smoothing plus choose to export the terrain as an object file (dbo,.x,.obj) , plus save the .fpm to whatever you want to name it. DBO is faster out of the 3 options and loading
dbo into Fragmotion/UU3D takes a bit of time, so I would only use if you have the patience to wait. added the ability to load in "sub images" that represent "Top Left" "Top Right" "Bottom Left" "Bottom Right". This is if you want to "fuse" different images into 1 final image so you have 4 maps in the terrain. Good if you want to split your terrain.
Most of the code is done, just need to get the image fusing code in, which shouldn't take too long.
Versioning of map files code yet to do. Deciding best way to handle that. Plus GUI needs tidying, just getting in place and up and running so won't look perfect yet ; alignments etc.

thanks to those that already paid for the new version. very much appreciated. I will try and get this out to you as soon as possible. If you have any other ideas, niggles, issues with previous version(s) etc, please let me know and I will correct in V5.

Ooohh yeah, looking forward to this...

Great work BOR

OldFlak....

Progressing with this a bit more each day, time allowing as usual. Here are a couple of pics showing terrain split into 4 sections and using the map splitter which is quite basic at the moment. Smoothing seems to work pretty well and there are other options that I want to explore later. Hope to have this out soon. For those that have paid, I'm hoping to get some sort of product key code in that is associated with maybe an email address or something, but will see. In addition, I really need to get an installer put in place.

Great to hear BOR.
Just wondering though, what the idea is behind the quad feature.

Looking forward to using this....

OldFlak....

Alright! Maybe 4 "mini" levels, on one map? Also I can see how if
it let's you turn the map into a 3d object, you can essentially expand
your map size! (barring some of the lighting issues) but maybe this
would be a good, easy way to create instant night and day!!

With copy and paste of the map, you double your map, so you have
a lighted side, and a dark (night) side. ehhh... sounds like we need
to watch that memory boundary. But still....

yes, so quad (4), images to represent the possibility of 4 different levels if you so wish, of course you can still split just 1 single image into 4 sections. the app also auto assigns a blank image if the user doesn't select an image for each section.

Now added code to allow user to register the product. User enters the product key after sending a register key to me. This key gets evaluated and produces the key code. Once entered , the product is activated. You will not be able to use the app until the key is activated. No data is read from or written to your OS registry. The only file that gets written is the .txt file containing the registration key.
Still testing the system, then will send app to those already purchased.

Awesome

OldFlak....

brilliant work payment sent thanks for this Mike

@GraPhix: hope you are well. Many thanks for your order and support.

product activation system now working. just some small tweaks then will send out to all that placed pre-order.
Many thanks again to all that have purchased and supported this app.

download link now sent to purchasers of HM2GG version 5.0. Thanks again for your order/support.
PDF/Video to come.

sent payment I've also pm you I've been waiting for this

many thanks, PM/email sent back to you.

To all, I am working on a fix due to some users having moved GG to custom drive/other library folder name etc.
Currently the program looks at your registry to find the default install path of GG but is unable to detect if you haved moved to another drive/folder, it will only work at the moment if in default drive/steam install folder.

A fix will be on it's way as soon as possible.

thanks for your patience.

Yeah, nice - great job BOTR

Thanks for this - great tool to have in the kit - having fun messing with it atm

Bit of feedback for you:
In my limited tests so far, smoothing seams to work just fine.

Motion Blur Intensity is set to 3000
This issue is still present - Do we need to apply the fix mentioned earlier?

Terrain Scale
Suggestion:
When you set the Terrain Scale to say 0.5, the resulting mesh is in one corner of the map.
Would it be possible to have it in the center of the map?
That would make it possible to have an island in the middle of the map surrounded by water.
Just a thought

Files
Remember all custom paths - not important but nice to have:
- Would be good if the program stored the folder set for custom save, and use a textbox to change the name.
- Remember the folder of choice when selecting an image\height-map.

Great tool tho - thanks

OldFlak....