Here’s the list of suggestions you asked for. It is quite long, but fortunately I’m not like Dudley Dursley -- I don’t expect to get everything.
Take note that some of these requests overlap a bit, or might not even be needed once another feature on the list is added. Also, I’m aware that a lot of these difficulties stem from the fact that I’m trying to get the 3D map to match what I’ve already created in the 2D version, not a common situation for your software.
Sapphire height field editor
- Have an option to feather the effects of the Perlin tool. When using the tool at a large size, it creates windfall effects around the outer edge that need to be corrected. (This is seen along the edges of the map, too.)
- An option to keep the Perlin tool algorithms the same no matter what size the tool is changed to. This would save tons of time when manually adding Perlin noise to large geographic areas, and also minimize the windfall effect mentioned in the above request.
- A “raise by” or “lower by” tool. Often the terrain is close to what I want, but too low or high (usually from error or oversight).
- I see you’ve already added a “Perlin up” and “Perlin down” on your to-do list, as well as the ability to adjust the smooth tool. Looking forward to those!
- Add a vertical “plumb line” inside the spherical wire frame of the tool. It’s often difficult in rough terrain to know exactly where the tool is centered.
- Several of the tools have modal option windows that popup every time you change from another tool. This gets annoying pretty fast if you’re keeping the same parameters. A better method would be to dock the option window to the right or left of the screen. Even better yet -- the ability to save presets for each tool, like the teleport.
- Head-up display: It often gets washed out by the terrain. It either needs to have a semi-transparent background to make it stand out, or be moved to the status bar like the 2D windows have (which I think is better). Also, a directional vector of the current “camera” view is badly needed to keep me oriented on the map.
- Shorelines when displaying water. Unlike normal terrain, the position and appearance of a shore is greatly affected by even minor variations in the triangle count, making it hard to evaluate. (This is more of a visual interpretation problem than a mathematical one.) Also, there seems to be a slight problem with the renderer in shallow water. Brush-like streaks appear, making me think there’s an island when there really isn’t.
- An erode tool. I know creating a realistic erosion engine requires a ton of work. But I think you could get a "poor man's" version if you added a fractal tool, and a "smoothness" option to the avalanche tool. Might be an interesting experiment to see how this combination works out.
- This is minor, but when using the Teleport tool, it’s a bit too easy to click on the wrong button (update) and overwrite one of the presets. A lot of this could be avoided if I could just double-click on a preset to use it. Also, the presets get lost with each version install. It’s easy enough to hunt down the file, but this would be better stored as either part of the map or in the user’s resource directory at the root level.
- An “exclude lake” or “exclude land” option for any of the tools. It would save time if I could alter the terrain without altering the shoreline or the adjacent landscape. (Terrain below water is usually smoother, for example.)
Main application
- Screen refresh. Outside of Sapphire, this is by far the most time-consuming aspect of L3DT. If this could be sped up somehow, that would be the best option, as I do want to see the altered results. For now, I keep clicking on the “Cancel” button, unless making major changes. (This may be due to a wrong setting on my computer. Hopefully the log file I sent you will offer some insights.)
- A minimal ability to edit the height field in 2D. This doesn’t need to be anything near what Sapphire offers -- just simple things like smooth, or raise to, etc.
- Here’s one that I know will create hours and hours of programming, but I’ll ask it anyway: a lasso select tool like in Photoshop. The ability to specifically control the area of any map -- height, water, attributes, texture, etc -- would be a huge productivity gain.
- Of course, there's always that recurring request for an ability to create rivers in the water map. Major undertaking, I know.
As always, keep in mind I could have missed some hidden feature that addresses something here. For example, I remember complaining about not being able to save the height field from inside Sapphire. Well, duh!--I discovered the option was already there just last week. Anyway, hope some of this helps, and thanks again for some great software.
Ed
EDIT: Saw a few similar requests in the "unscheduled features" section, such as "flowing water".
