I've gone brain dead! Please help!

[piratelord]

I managed many moons ago to get L3DT to create decent looking mountains out of any heightmap I supplied it.
When you looked at the adjusted heightmap up close, the mountains were in a fractal design.

For some reason now, I can't duplicate this effect. I just get, err, blobs.

What settings should I be using? It seems to be there has been a change to the design map options screen, Noise Shape has replaced or become the new name off Peak Overlays. Has there been a change in the code?

I'm currently using Pro 2.5 build 9.

[Aaron]

Hi Piratelord,

This thread might give some useful background on the change in the design map parameters wizard.

The 'new' (and also 'old-old') way is to set the strength of the roughness with one slider, and set the peak/fractal balance with the other. The 'old' way was to set the strengths of the fractal roughness and peak roughness independently. It was decided that the strength/shape was easier to understand than peak/fractal. However, this is just an UI change, and the underlying algorithms are the same as before.

Anyway, to reduce the blobs, slide the roughness shape to the right (I can't remember the label names, sorry). Basically, left is rolling hills, right is jagged (fractal) hills. The strength of the roughness applied is then controlled by the roughness strength slider.

Best of luck,
Aaron.

[piratelord]

Thanks Aaron,

I'm still having trouble getting a nice fractal looking mountain system.

It's better, but not brilliant compared with another region I improve many months ago.

I used the max steepness and also max roughness. I tried then no erosion, and max erosion.

Any suggestions?

[Aaron]

Hi Piratelord,

You may also want to play with the 'noise shape' slider. To the left it is rolling hills, and to the right it is fractal hills. The strength of this noise is set by the roughness slider.

If this doesn't work, can you send me the '.def.xml' file from a previous map that worked? From that file I'll be able to calculate the 'new' settings.

Cheers,
Aaron.

[piratelord]

All sorted. It did in fact appear fractal when I export the heightmap. I forgot that the heightmap shown in L3DT shows contour lines and not all the detail.

Told you I went braindead