Map Creation using blender.

[enetheru]

I don't really like painting height maps, I would rather model and sculpt, then paint the texture right onto the terrain.

So I started messing around with creating maps in blender. and it works for the smallest maps. given more ram I'm sure I could make some larger maps.

Anyway I thought I might post some progress shots. when I have some ready.

[Wombat]

im newb, but is it possible to do it with sculptris? i thought about it when i started with flat surface for the first time. would be cool, and much better than blender.

[Hobo Joe]

im newb, but is it possible to do it with sculptris? i thought about it when i started with flat surface for the first time. would be cool, and much better than blender.

Only if you're able to export a heightmap, afaik

[Beherith]

In the worst case you can cylindrically map a grayscale gradient on the object and render it in top down isometric with no extra lighting. (Ive used this method before)

[enetheru]

In all cases we are limited by ram.

I'm not just doing the sculpting part in blender but baking out materials too.

I'm still just figuring out the tool chain at the moment.

[enetheru]

So this is my progress after two days.

first day was just learning how to compile a map
second day was learning how to do it with blender.


Spend a lot of time painting what was under the water... now I see that it doesn't matter

could use some environment work, but its excruciatingly small map. don't know whether I should bother.

[knorke]

Spend a lot of time painting what was under the water... now I see that it doesn't matter

you know you can change the waterlevel somehow with those numbers in the smd file?
but yes, most maps use a very simple texture for underwater because it reducdes filesize, i think.

[oksnoop2]

Looks neat, how small is it?

[Beherith]

I like the screenshot very much, Add some nicer trees from the feature resource thread and your good to go!

Theres a good reason why not many of us use blender to make maps. Im partial to World machine and carrara, since those have features specifically for mapping.

Btw, love the avatar, its from my favorite disney movie :D

[enetheru]

Looks neat, how small is it?

smallest afaik, 2048 texture map
257 heightmap
It was a proof of concept mainly, next step is to see how far blender scales, and it entirely dependant of my system specs which are a modest under 2 gig ram, 1.6GHz dual core Opteron

I like the screenshot very much, Add some nicer trees from the feature resource thread and your good to go!

I will have to look into that, if you like it then its probably worth uploading somewhere, even though its almost unplayable, given the size.

Theres a good reason why not many of us use blender to make maps. Im partial to World machine and carrara, since those have features specifically for mapping.

I'm a self confessed blender fanboi
I think that if blender scales well(unlikely) then its possible that after some scripting it could possibly be a really useful tool in the map making kit.

Btw, love the avatar, its from my favorite disney movie :D

also my fav too Ooh-de-la-lay!

[Pxtl]

Trivia: the Hampsterdance song (do-da-dee-dat-doo-dat-doe-doe etc.) is actually a sped up version of a song from that movie.

[Wombat]

I'm a self confessed blender fanboi

high five bro !

[enetheru]

Trivia: the Hampsterdance song (do-da-dee-dat-doo-dat-doe-doe etc.) is actually a sped up version of a song from that movie.

there is on justice in this world.

I'm a self confessed blender fanboi

high five bro !

high five!
Better leave the night with some more information. it might not be a week or so till I post again due to uni exams.

workflow is to sculpt a terrain. then render the result to a hight map. I use this node setup(took me an hour of testing and questions to get the information for this) since I've never used the node editor before


Then I baked this next node to a texture to preview the general walk/build sections.


I used the walk/build preview bake as a base to paint my colour map over the top.

Save all the png's out and use the mapconv program(which is easy to compile for linux and can be gotten from github http://github.com/spring/MapConv) to compile

I want to do a proper writeup. and further develop the idea, but i have alot of other projects on the go, so don't know if I really will.(you all probably know how that is).

I at least want to do some benchmarks to see how large a map I can make.

[KaiserJ]

i've tried doing similar things with 3d max; varying results

and yes, you're quite right about the ram issue, natural terrains of a spring map size contain a LOT of polies; not sure how you're setting everything up but it was defenitely a problem i encountered

currently i'm making the heightmap in the "classical" way (paint prog) and then using it to deform a plane in max... you can always adjust vertices later and subdivide to get the sort of detail resolution required

cylindrical gradient mapping is the way to go

i would say though that 3d modelling programs, in terms of spring maps, are better suited for industrial or city themes than natural ones (see new_lammas_v2)

after that one i've been doing a lot of experimentation and concept work... it all comes back to the ram issue.

[Forboding Angel]

Jus doin' mah dudy Sherrf!

I love that move too. Also, I recommend Carrera for the future

[enetheru]

cylindrical gradient mapping is the way to go

I've been using the compositor to pull the z values from the render image.
I think both methods have their strengths.

For instance, I don't have to mess with mapping the object at all. so I don't have to worry about multiple objects making up my terrain.

i would say though that 3d modelling programs, in terms of spring maps, are better suited for industrial or city themes than natural ones (see new_lammas_v2)

love that map

after that one i've been doing a lot of experimentation and concept work... it all comes back to the ram issue.

I feel your pain

Here's an update.
I also am probably not going to work on this particular map any more because its was just an experiment.

I learned alot about making maps so far, but I also learned that there is a heap more to learn about like detail textures, object placement, lua shaders, and more.

• 2.2MB - Paradise-1.3.sd7
• 17.4MB - project archive containing images and blends etc.

Hiss: Sire! Sire! They may be bandits.
Prince John: Oh, poppycock. Female bandits? What next? Rubbish.

Sigh... I had actually better study for that math exam now

[Wombat]

it could be nice 1v1 map sad bridges doesnt work for spring

[KaiserJ]

yeah, that map is really pretty :D successful experiment i'd say. reminds me a bit of islands they have around the philippines (like the james bond movie where the bad guy has that massive mirror laser thing)

good work man! study hard for that math exam

I've been using the compositor to pull the z values from the render image

hmmm i wonder if i can do this too with max. not familiar with it

[Mr. Bob]

I actually find it's useful to sculpt the model in something like mudbox or blender in your case, then pull it into 3ds max or blender, and render it from a top view while the actually mesh has a gradient ramp texture applied, and is wrapped cylindrically. Seems to end up more precise then simply extracting a height map.

Sorry if someone already said this somewhere. It works quite well usually.

[enetheru]

I actually find it's useful to sculpt the model in something like mudbox or blender in your case, then pull it into 3ds max or blender, and render it from a top view while the actually mesh has a gradient ramp texture applied, and is wrapped cylindrically. Seems to end up more precise then simply extracting a height map.

Sorry if someone already said this somewhere. It works quite well usually.

lol I think it was said. but anyway. I figured out that I could render the image without the compositor. save the exr which blender also saves a z depth layer on. extract the depth layer and use that.

so I am not restricted by the 256x image dimensions. biggest I tried rendering was 2048, but Ive lost interest in mapping for now after seeing Forboding Angel and Beherith's work, it made me realise what I would want to do is a fair bit bigger than what I have so far. and without any clear guides trying to muddle through that isn't appealing.

Perhaps when I have interest in writing a map guide for the wiki I will probe them for answers