For my current project I am trying to recreate a real area - not a park, by the way.
I hit on a technique that I'm finding helpful. I'm using a satellite map of the area and the PC terrain painter to trace the real map onto a PC map.
Here's how:
First, orient the game map. Locate east and west based on the sun's position during sunrise and sunset. Next, determine the scale you want to use. If your map is a small area, 1:1 is ideal. In my current project I am reducing a large area to fit in the game's map so I am using 16:1. This causes issues with detail items, but works for my purpose.
Then create a grid building that provides scale and orientation. The building puts a graph paper style grid on the map - a series of North-South and East-West walls at fixed intervals. The building may be deleted once the map features have been traced into the game.
When tracing it's important that the PC map is perfectly aligned north and south, and the game camera is tilted to a 90-degree vertical view (maximum tilt). The grid building is very helpful for maintaining that.
Now comes the slick part.
Open a satellite map of the area in a browser while the game is open. A Google satellite map will have its scale in the lower right corner. By toggling (alt-tab) back and forth between the game and the real map adjust both so they display the same scale, and the satellite map shows the area you want to trace.
Then open the terrain painter tool in PC, set it to 100% and a small size, say 3 or 4m. You can use different brushes to indicate different map features.
Alt tab to the real map. Position the cursor on a prominent feature. Alt tab to the game. The cursor remains in the same place. Click to paint the terrain at that point. By repeating this process you can trace out all the prominent features of the real map onto the game map. It's straightforward to make an accurate representation of a real area with this technique.
I hit on a technique that I'm finding helpful. I'm using a satellite map of the area and the PC terrain painter to trace the real map onto a PC map.
Here's how:
First, orient the game map. Locate east and west based on the sun's position during sunrise and sunset. Next, determine the scale you want to use. If your map is a small area, 1:1 is ideal. In my current project I am reducing a large area to fit in the game's map so I am using 16:1. This causes issues with detail items, but works for my purpose.
Then create a grid building that provides scale and orientation. The building puts a graph paper style grid on the map - a series of North-South and East-West walls at fixed intervals. The building may be deleted once the map features have been traced into the game.
When tracing it's important that the PC map is perfectly aligned north and south, and the game camera is tilted to a 90-degree vertical view (maximum tilt). The grid building is very helpful for maintaining that.
Now comes the slick part.
Open a satellite map of the area in a browser while the game is open. A Google satellite map will have its scale in the lower right corner. By toggling (alt-tab) back and forth between the game and the real map adjust both so they display the same scale, and the satellite map shows the area you want to trace.
Then open the terrain painter tool in PC, set it to 100% and a small size, say 3 or 4m. You can use different brushes to indicate different map features.
Alt tab to the real map. Position the cursor on a prominent feature. Alt tab to the game. The cursor remains in the same place. Click to paint the terrain at that point. By repeating this process you can trace out all the prominent features of the real map onto the game map. It's straightforward to make an accurate representation of a real area with this technique.