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Heightmap Import/Export ~ Heightmap Max Alt vs World Max Alt

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Heightmap Import/Export ~ Heightmap Max Alt vs World Max Alt

Postby Zehryo » Mon Jun 25, 2012 6:30 pm

Hi.

I'm somehow new to L3DT, but I find the Sapphire plug-in very useful for a heightmaps refining purpose.

Now, however, I'm facing a little problem that is probably not a problem for anybody except me: the newbie.

I'm trying to use L3DT to edit and refine a RAW heightmap that I'm going to use for a Skyrim worldspace.
At first I make up the heightmap through World Machine 2 and then I export the heightmap as a RAW and edit it with L3DT.
World Machine let's me set a world max altitude, which works as a divisor to scale the grey tones representing the terrain in the heightmap.

Example:
Max Terrain Height: 600 meters
Max World Height: 3000 meters
Terrain/World ratio: 600/3000 == 1/5
The tallest terrain feature will not be a full 255,255,255 white, but just a 1/5 of it, thus a 51,51,51 grey. (Roughly)

When I import the heightmap in L3DT I'm asked to set a min and a max terrain height so that the overall scale of the terrain features are maintained.
I noticed, however, that in L3DT the highest terrain feature is intended as the highest world height. This, alas, totally ruins the grey tones scaling when I subsequently export the heightmap.

Using my Skyrim worldspace's numbers:
Max Terrain Height: 234 meters + 17 meters (water level + tallest terrain feature)
Max World Height: 7471 meters (Skyrim engine 16bit RAW scaling)

So, when I use L3DT, I import a very dark heightmap that represents a 7471 meters "tall" world and I export a desert composed of 7471 meters tall dunes. Which is not playable. =\

So my question is: is there any way to tell L3DT that the whole world is 7471 meters so that the exported RAW heightmap's grey tones are consequently scaled?


Thank you.
Zehryo
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Re: Heightmap Import/Export ~ Heightmap Max Alt vs World Max

Postby Aaron » Thu Jun 28, 2012 11:46 am

Hi Zehryo,

I apologise for the delay in my reply.In answer to your question, yes, there is a way to handle world scaling in L3DT so that you can export your RAW file with the desired value range.

First things first, though. When importing into L3DT, you should set the min & max alt values to be the terrain height range, not the world height. As you note, this will mean that the highest point will be displayed as white in the 2D map view. That's OK; the height->colour mapping in the display has no effect on the actual height data or how it is exported.

When you're ready to export heightfield from L3DT, use the 'File->Export->Export map' menu option. In the export wizard, select the RAW format from the 'file format' drop-list, then press the 'options' button. In the options window, double-click on the 'mode' option, select the '16-bit unsigned (manual scale)' option in the popup window, and press OK. Then, still in the options window, double-click on the 'manual scale' option, and enter 0.04578 (this is your world height of 3000 divided by the 16-bit unsigned range, 65535.) Press OK to close the options, and proceed with the export as normal.

I appreciate that this is not be easiest or intuitive user interface for this feature, and I'll consider and update of this for a future release.

Please let me know if you find any problems with this method.

Best regards,
Aaron.
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Aaron
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Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: Heightmap Import/Export ~ Heightmap Max Alt vs World Max

Postby Zehryo » Thu Jun 28, 2012 2:07 pm

Pretty simple.

Had already figured that while importing I had to fill in the max terrain height, but, as you said, the export phase wasnt intuitive. ^^

Thank you for your help. =)
Zehryo
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Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2012 5:46 pm


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