Terrain Development Guide

Chapter 2: In Depth - Basic Terrain

Ecology Textures

The only requirement for ecology textures are:

• TGA (targa) files
• No alpha layer
• 32 or 24 bit color
• No compression

Technically there is no restriction on the size of the texture. However, very large textures will quickly deplete graphics card memory, cause a hesitation when loading, and increase download size. Always look for methods to keep texture sizes as small as possible.

Hint: At TargetWare, we have found that ecology textures measuring 256x256 pixels provide a good compromise between visual resolution and memory requirements. Some textures, like railways, require more resolution, so require larger textures.

The assignment of texture files to each index value in the Ecology Map is made in the Terrain Descriptor File:

[Layer 1 Texture 1]
value = 1
texture = _ecology/urban.tga
rotation = 0

In the example above, Texture 1 of Layer 1 is an assignment of the ecology texture "urban.tga" (located in the _ecology directory) to palette number 1 in the ecology map. Therefore, at every point where palette value 1 is used in the ecology map, this texture will be applied.