This plugin allows users to export a Geoscape3d terrain to a format that may be read by Dark Basic Professional. Larger heightmaps will be broken into individual files and the texture will also be split.
N.B. The best results are achieved on square terrains.
The Dark Basic code accompanying this plugin shows how Dark Basic Pro can read these files into Dark Basic matrices.
Output Folder: specifies the folder that the exported files will be created in.
Output Prefix: specifies the prefix used for the exported files. This will be appended to the beginning of each exported file.
There will be several files that are exported.
The terrain is exported as dbm files. Each dbm file holds all the data to create a Dark Basic Matrix. These are exported as a 2 dimensional grid ( X columns by Z rows ) and then reconnected. The format is:
<prefix>_<X grid position>_<Z grid position>.dbm
So, if the prefix is "desert", the first file will be desert_0_0.dbm, then desert_1_0.dbm and so on.
For each dbm file there is an equivalent texture bitmap file, <prefix>_<X grid position>_<Z grid position>.bmp
Finally there will be a <prefix>.gdb file. This allows the Dark Basic code load the various dbm files into a consistent landscape.
Included with this exporter is a sample Dark Basic Professional project to demonstrate the reading and display of the exported files. You will need to alter the variable filename$ to be the <prefix>.gdb filename you have exported and then compile the project. The project is located in "<Geoscape3D Install Folder>\Dark Basic Pro".