Drawing Rivers?

[nicethugbert]

What tool to use? Draw it on the height map?

[demi]

There is a plugin for rivers but I am not sure of the status of it.

http://www.bundysoft.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=692

[nicethugbert]

I know about the existence of the rivers plugin but I don't know how it works. I don't know what settings make it a waste of time. Does high erosion nullify the need for it? Can you get desert rivers with it? How does map size/scale factor into it? It gives no feedback and acts dead most of the time so I don't know how to explore it.

But, I'm wondering if I can accomplish good enough by just drawing a river on the height map and letting L3DT handle the rest.

[demi]

I would say that best bet is to layout a low altitude trough on the design map and let the program do the rest. You may have to edit it a little but it probably look more natural then working through the 3D editing.

I have not messed with the script at all.

I am though thinking of building a river system in by doing the above.

[Aaron]

Hi nicethugbert,

To create your river channel, I recommend you use the design map and/or heightfield tools.

The 'rivers' plugin (actually 'RainMaker') doesn't modify the terrain or carve river channels; it's purpose is to calculate the water depth field for non-planar water bodies. Given a river channel, it calculates the water surface.

Regards,
Aaron.

[nicethugbert]

If the rivers plugin modifies the terrain to show rivers, i.e. sand, mud, pebbles, etc., then that works out.

Using the design map is not feasbile because my design map squares are set to match NWN2 area squares, typically, 128 HF/DM and 0.3125 horizontal scale. The largest NWN2 area represents 480x480 meters.