Hi Zac,
No, L3DT won't fill in any empty areas when merging maps. It only blends heights across the edges of adjacent tiles.
The first thing to try would be to simply import the two heightmap tiles adjoining one another, then try the blending algorithm with a long blend depth to see if this will be adequate. However, before proceeding I'd recommend you download the latest version of the atEdgeBlender plugin, as it fixes a bug that prevented it from blending only in one axis.
http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/downloads/plugins/bin/atEdgeBlender-bin.zipTo use the plugin, extract it from the zip archive and copy it over the existing plugin at:
- Code: Select all
C:\Program Files (x86)\Bundysoft\L3DT [version]\Extensions\
If you set the 'BlendDepth' parameter in the edge blender calculation to half of your tile size (i.e. 256) or larger, then the blending might work OK.
If that doesn't work out, another approach might be to manually create a 3rd heightmap to fit between the first two, that roughly matches the heights on either tile edge. It wouldn't have to exactly match, since the merge/blend operation will smoothly blend the edges. If you did this, I'd recommend making a 512x512 pixel heightmap using the blank design/inflate algorithm, then manually edit the height layer of the design map to match the heights of the other two maps. You should also edit the roughness, erosion and cliffs/terraces layers so that these gradually blend from one side to the other to match each neighbour. After creating this heightmap, you would then import the other two existing heightmaps using the merge importer to the left and right, respectively, and finally apply the edge blending calculation to smooth the tile seams.
I hope this helps. Please let me know if it does/doesn't work, or if you would like more detail on any of these steps.
Best regards,
Aaron.