TSE/Atlas

From TDN


	[edit] The Atlas Engine


		Check out these tutorials to learn about how to make those most out of Torque's Atlas Terrain.

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Getting Started

Overview of Atlas

Stronghold, redone in Atlas.

Torque has always been known as an engine with superior support for outdoor scenes. The cornerstone of this support has always been robust terrain engines - from Starsiege to Tribes 2, terrain has been a major component of Torque games.

With this in mind, TSE as of Milestone 2 has two distinct terrain engines. The first, the legacy terrain engine, is simply a port of the TGE fixed function terrain engine, with some optimizations for shader-enabled cards. The second, the Atlas terrain engine is a rewrite from the ground up, designed to support very large visible distances, expansive terrain datasets, and large, unique textures.

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Essential Atlas Articles

Here are some articles which will give you a broad understanding of Atlas.

Essentials

Atlas Engine

Terragen
Follow this guide on creating a map for Atlas using Terragen.

L3DT
Follow this guide on creating a map for Atlas using L3DT.

Freeworld3D
A guide for creating blended or unique textured Atlas terrain using Freeworld3D.

Huge Terrain Creator for TSE
Use HTC to create your Atlas-powered terrains.

Texturing Terrains with Huge Terrain Creator for TSE
Texturing such a huge map requires some guidelines, see this tutorial on how to proceed for terrains built with HTC.

Carving Roads Into Atlas
A method for creating roads or dirt paths by modifying heightmaps in Photoshop.

Overview of Atlas Math
This guide provides an overview of the issus involved in creating an Atlas terrain using the current tools.

Guide to Using Atlas2
A reference manual for the new Atlas codedrop; information on changes and new script commands.

Scene Lighting Support for Atlas2
Documentation about the Atlas scene lighting support added in TGEA 1.0.3