LAT system

LAT System

LAT affected tiles marked on a region of the final allied mission map

The same tiles after LAT has been applied to it

The IsoMapPack5 section within a map file contains information on location, tile number and sub-tile number for each tile in the map. This information is post-processed by the game by a system know as LAT (the acronym stands for Lookup Adjacent Tile¹). The idea of LAT is to provide a smooth transition when different types of tiles are placed next to each other. The image below illustrates the effects of LAT:

On the left we see what six sand tiles would look like when surrounded by clear tiles, when LAT would be disabled. On the right we see what six sand tiles look like when surrounded by clear tiles, due to LAT We see here that the six sand tiles have been replaced by tiles from the ClearToSandLat set.

How LAT and connecting LAT sets are specified in the Theater Control INI files

Every theater has 4 types of LAT tiles, internally named: GreenTile, PaveTile, RoughTile and SandTile. We can find the TileSet number of these in the Terrain Control INI files under the INI section named 'General'. Also listed in this section are keys indicating the set numbers of TileSets that contain tiles which provide smooth transitions between LAT and non-LAT tiles, under keys ClearTo<LAT_name>Lat. An example, copied from the snow.ini theater control file:

[General]
PaveTile = 68
ClearToPaveLat = 70
...

[TileSet0068]
SetName = LAT Pavement
FileName = Pvclr
...
[TileSet0070]
SetName = Pavement/Clear LAT
FileName = plat
TilesInSet = 16
..

How the LAT system determines which image to use from the connecting TileSet

LAT tests every tile which belongs to a LAT set on a map, and depending on which of this tile's neighbours do not belong to the same tileset, an image from the corresponding connecting LAT set is picked. This image below further illustrates this:

We see here that if we have a tile X, and we assign values 1, 2, 4 and 8 to the top-right, bottom-right, bottom-left and top-left neighbour of X in that order, we can use a bitwise combination of the values of the neighbours which are not of the same set as X to find the used tile number from the set of connecting LAT tiles. Note that "not from the same set" is not entirely accurate. Details on this follow in the following section.

TileSets exempted from LAT

It was mentioned above that if one tile from a LAT set has a tile from a different set next to it, the tile from the LAT set is replaced by one from the connecting LAT set. In most cases this is true, but some TileSets do not seem affected by this. For example, paved roads and pavement tiles do not have a ClearToPave tile to connect each other. The full list of exception is listed in the table below.

TileSets between which no connecting LAT pieces are placed

GreenTile	ShorePieces
GreenTile	WaterBridge
PaveTile	Medians
PaveTile	PavedRoads

Notes on the Final Sun and Final Alert 2 AutoLat feature

While the Final Sun and Final Alert 2 map editors have an option named AutoLat listed in the menu, there's not much use to it beyond previewing of what the game's LAT feature will do to your map. This is because the game will recalculate the tiling layer to apply its own LAT feature. Also, the editors are not aware of the TileSets exempted from LAT as explained in the previous section.

An attempt has been made by zzattack to correctly mimic the game's LAT feature in his maps rendering project. Corresponding code can be found here, more specifically in the RecalculateTileSystem function.

Footnotes

¹ ↑ According to Joe Bostic, the lead programmer of Tiberian Sun.