Ive been hard at work with a complete world machine (version 3016 and up) build, that does literally everything for you, you just need to create (or load an existing) heightmap, and magic happens. The documentation will be available in extended form in a google docs, but here are some of the features it currently supports:
- Features (not a complete list)
- Fully 1:1:1:1:1 pixel matched heightmap, diffuse texture, normal map, specular map, and splat distribution map
- Generation of metal map
- Generation of type map
- Generation of grass map
- Generation of feature and geo placement map! (minor external tooling required from pymapconv repo)
- A set of 8 terrain layers; bedrock, cliffs, grass, sand, mud, snow, metal, and actual boulder scatter on heightmap
- Full splat distribution map generation and mixing
- Complete control over hue-saturation-brightness of each channel
- Recurrent splats under features
- In-editor passability map
- Complete specular control
- Tools to convert output of normal maps and specular maps into spring-compatible DDS in a single click
- Advantages:
- You never have to enter photoshop or any other external image editing tool
- Live preview of your map (and it will look very close to it ingame)
- Total creative control over all aspects
- Maximallily utilizes the engine's capabilities
- Disadvantages:
- Needs World Machine
- Is rather cpu hungry on final render (an hour for a complete 16x16 map)
- Gobbles RAM (16GB minimum)
- looks daunting (but is quite logically layed out and labeled)
WIP documentation, feel free to add to it or comment in it.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PL8 ... Ddd-w/edit#