[ Ссылка ] --- The Sentus Mountains are a very rough, steep, and jagged mountain chain. From seeing how well the mountains came out for Maglev Train (and Musan Taiga), from individualizing them, I knew I needed to do it for Sentus Mountains (also Mount Sentusia and Carnivalesta), but I also want to make it so that the ground between the mountains does not show up so I can avoid having to have separate image files load for the ground, freeing up resources and also making the landscape much more varied. To do this, I first need to set a plan.

This involves answering 3 questions. First, where is each mountain going to go? Second, how tall is each mountain going to be? Third, how wide and steep is each mountain going to be? The best way to do this is to map it out. Mapping it only provides 2 data points - the X and the Z position, answering the first question. The second and third questions require using a special adjustment. The width can just be set by setting the length of each line, effectively answering the second question.

The problem is, the mountain's height and its average intended slopes also affect the width. Make the slopes steeper and the width decreases. Make the mountain taller and the width increases. To work around this, I calibrated the line so that the height is set on the left side of it using a color-coded system and the slope is set on the right side. The slope ranges from a 2.1:1 width:height ratio (43.6° at the very steepest (rarely used) to 2.7:1 (36.5°) on the right. Most slopes are set so that the width:height ratio is somewhere from about 2.3:1 to 2.6:1, with a few outliers. This, thus, answers the 3 questions.

However, it isn't just about placing and marking these lines. I also need to set it up so that the ground cannot be seen between the peaks except in the 3 dedicated areas. The primary area is that of the foreground area, starting at 96 SU for the closest visible point. This goes out to around 320 SU where, beyond that, the only other areas are in the few odd gaps in the mountains. One spans from 368 to 768 SU and is best visible from the top of the supersize level. The other is farther left spanning from 1024 to 1536 and requires getting jumping upgraded or careful utilization of high running speed and high jumps to be able to see it.

On top of this, at least for the part closer than 384 SU, I also need to plan based on the ground decals and foreground landscape where the action itself is. To best blend all this together, all of this must be considered. When you're in the valley between peaks in the foreground landscape, if things were all 3D and you could go into the background, you'd have a fairly short distance to go to get to the nearest peak into the background, so, the mountains must be placed very close. I even have a plan for a mountain at 96 SU which will be a massive 3520x1440 pixels for its size, using about 12 MB of VRAM (or 1/8 of the target allotment). There's also Lake Ryan and Ryanara that need to be considered, situated where the first jumbo level is at.

In the event one of the existing mountains exceeds the 2.7:1 width:height ratio, I mark it as "ERR" and I set a new width that's within the range but keep the same height.

All in all, at the very heart of this is that one formula that makes Platform Masters look and behave so 3D (and it's a formula that I can confirm works exactly in real 3D games as well): Pixels×Scaling = CU. It's the most powerful formula with anything 3D as far as drawing goes. Determining the scaling is trickier as it involves an arctangent function relating to the field of view. In PM's case, it's atan(3÷4)×2, for the exact field of view (about 73.74°). The only difference is that I have to offset for the scale of the map, which is exactly 3:4096. For every 3 pixels on the map, it's 4096 CU (which converts to exactly 6 SU or 4 screen widths of the main action).

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