Upcoming release of Terrain Editor

I have to announce plans to release old 1997-era terrain editor for Unreal. I basically got a go ahead from the author, only I need to sort things out for a release.
This is a height-map based editor that was used primarily with a cancelled game on the original unreal engine, done early 1997.
I'll reveal more information slowly.
The editor, plus other tools such as an "extension" for james schmalz' polygon texture editor (to work under windows this time) were done by Jason Emery.
At least one version of the editor/tools seem to be able to output the terrain in .t3d so it should be compatible with release version of Unreal despite originally using a special format.

Hellkeeper said:

Seems interesting. An early precursor of TerraEdit then?

Click to expand...

This is very different from TerraEdit.
Description from an old page:
Created for use in the 'Circle' with the Unreal engine, this was intended for use as a map editor for doing terrain sheets, more specifically to allow for quick and useful 2-D tile editing on top of the heightmap. It has no 3-D capability aside from the assigment of height levels to tiles. First Large-scale Windows95 application written using Visual C++ 5.0. Interface utilizes multiple frames, modeless dialog boxes, simple custom graphic routines, etc..

While this might be true, I suspect the ViewEx from the "later version" is able to view the stuff properly in 3D.
I cannot really predict it however as I didn't get to run it and can't for the moment.
Perhaps I shouldn't have announced it as such yet...but lack of any workable desktop computer and me having to do this is not helping. But as soon as I get things more in order, I'll properly sort it out and package it for release. If anything, even if it turns out to be not as useful for final Unreal or other Unreal engine games, it would be interesting from the history perspective.
During very late 96 and early 97 the unreal warfare terrain was implemented for the Unreal Engine, but actual game builds with this implemented is lacking however I can see how that would have worked well in combination with this TerraEd. I can show screenshots which were included with the documentation/materials though if anyone is interested. DMA was meant to have a different editor for the terrain too. But it seems the teams could have benefited from each other if more resources were shared across. For example the animation program for windows could have benefited the Emissary team instead of relying on the DOS version only. But the two teams had no contact with each other and Emissary devs had contact only with Epic directly.
"As a result of Circle's needs, the 2-D Tile Editor was developed, targeted as a heightmap tile editor for the Unreal engine which may or may not be utilized."

I'll see about uploading them later.

[Screenshot]http://unrealtexture.com/Hosted/Leo_T_C_K/rare/TerraEd01.jpg[/Screenshot]
[Screenshot]http://unrealtexture.com/Hosted/Leo_T_C_K/rare/TerraEd10.jpg[/Screenshot]
[Screenshot]http://unrealtexture.com/Hosted/Leo_T_C_K/rare/TERRA3.JPG[/Screenshot]
[Screenshot]http://unrealtexture.com/Hosted/Leo_T_C_K/rare/TERRAED1.JPG[/Screenshot]
[Screenshot]http://unrealtexture.com/Hosted/Leo_T_C_K/rare/TERRAED2.JPG[/Screenshot]
[Screenshot]http://unrealtexture.com/Hosted/Leo_T_C_K/rare/TERRAED3.JPG[/Screenshot]

I just hope that it's not practically useless without having the early 1997 builds of Unreal like 0.84c through 0.85 versions. But I am hopeful as the directories have the exported terrain in t3d format too suggesting it can output that.
Most of the "Circle" game material has been found, except for the Unreal/UnrealEd builds, at least not yet. But models, textures, brushes, and documentation is there. Plus the tools like this.

TerrainEditor.zip - this is a version without textures/tiles present, the dates of this are off though, but I'm not sure how different it is from the other one or how it exactly works. It has the VIEWEX.EXE plus some t3ds/etc.
TERREDIT.ZIP - this is the oldest version which has multiple exes...I don't now how this works and havent had chance to try it so I am just putting it here as is. Too tired to do anything else right now.

When I spoke to the author he suggested link for further info or about author: https://www.facebook.com/TyrianForever
Once I release it he said I could do that. Even though I dunno what is there and I'm not into Facebook, but I suppose it can be a nice reference info.

Acording to someone who tried it out, you need to make textures dir and convert pics to bmp. I also uploaded a version with textures already included but wasn't sure if it's fine to post here. If tried on 0.84 the terrain reportedly loses its tiling and its flipped, however the old terraed worked with versions above 0.84* which had own terrain support with custom format so it worked with the non t3d one. The later viewex is for later versions and the textures should be imported in ued too, the ones you need to use. Plus it needs to be perhaps flipped or imported with different options. I mean there's the whole t3d import by brushes and other things.

* But below 0.86*x.