Spring RTS Engine

When i import a heightfield into l3dt and try to make it more natural looking by "design map" and then generate the heightfeild again i do get something that looks good and natural - but it has very little to do with my original concept. I can't seem to control what it does no matter what i choose in the "design map". In the map making tutorial by FA (http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=3941) in the first part where he talks about making a heightmap he has a picture of before and after the l3dt manipulation so i tried taking the original picture and running in l3dt and it after that all similarity to FA "after" picture is totally coincidental, i know FA's "after" picture has been smoothed out in photoshop but still the heightmap i'm getting is way too round with high parts trying to connect to each other. I know this is prolly a noob question - How do i get L3DT to listen to me?

PS: As an experiment i took an image and mirrored it into a picture that looks exactly symmetrical in relation to the center of the map. I put in l3dt and ran it - the 2 sides of the map look completely different - why is that and how can i over come that?

all help will be appreciated,
Goolash.

EDIT: using l3dt 2.4a Rev. 2

Hi goolash ;p

I wasn't actually aware that anyone had tried reproducing the canyons heightmap from the original. Kinda neat to know about the results.

Anyway, the size of heightmap you import as a design map will have much affect over how diffferent it is when reproduced.

My general rule is as follows.

If I want it to be dramatically changed by L3DT, Import as design map using an image size of 512 for the heightmap.

If I want l3dt to have only slight effect, I import the heightmap image at 1920 as a design map.


Resize the image ove the heightmap as many times as needed and reimport. You'll get the hang of it, and it is actually a very powerful tool when you have a better understanding of how it works.

PS: As an experiment i took an image and mirrored it into a picture that looks exactly symmetrical in relation to the center of the map. I put in l3dt and ran it - the 2 sides of the map look completely different - why is that and how can i over come that?

This is going to happen. Your best bet is to get a heightfiled you like in l3dt (make sure you tick the box that says "Make image tileable" <or something to that effect), and then reimport as a design map, using a large image size (so that l3dt won't change it very much) and then after generating the heightfield, use the resample function in l3dt to get it the size that you want.


Let me know if you need any more help!

Do you not advertise your new maps any more Forb?

heh, you noticed eh?

Well, it's 30x30 and 77 megs. I didn't feel like hearing the crap that would get thrown at me for it, so I decided to release silently.

Strange things people complain about if they don`t have to pay for fun

I finally got some time to mess around with map making now...

Forboding Angel wrote:
My general rule is as follows.

If I want it to be dramatically changed by L3DT, Import as design map using an image size of 512 for the heightmap.

If I want l3dt to have only slight effect, I import the heightmap image at 1920 as a design map.

Thanks FA, I can't believe the solution was so simple , it's so much better now - i can actually anticipate what it will do.
Maybe if you feel up to it you can write it in your map making tutorial. I think it will save noob mappers like me some time wrestling with l3dt.

all that remains now is to understand climate files good enough so i can create my own climate that wont look like it's been drawn by a 5 year old with crayons...

Thank you very much once again FA,
Goolash.