How to Create a Terrain. [Height Map] (GIMP)

[Alaskan]

What's a terrain?

A terrain is the land in your custom Feral Heart maps, mountains, rivers, cliffs, slopes, etc.

What you need:

GIMP

Feral Heart

An Imagination.

Do I need a terrain in my custom map?

No, you do not. But if you want your map to look unique instead of flat land I'd recommend you to make a terrain.

Any other questions you may ask. But lets get down to learning.



Step One: Have a saved map on Feral Heart. Like-- WaterMill. You can use that or create a map. Don't add anything like objects in your map though.

Step Two: Open up GIMP. [If you don't have GIMP, you can download it, don't worry it's free. Here's the link -->
http://the-gimp.en.softonic.com/ Or you can download the latest version, which is also free, GIMP 2.6 --> http://gofree.com/download/Windows-Software/Graphic-Design/gimp.php] And then click, File, New.

Step Three: Type in 513 in the Width Box, and 513 in the Height. It should always be 513 by 513.

Step Four: There should be an Advanced Options selection. Click that and it'll give you more options. In the Color Space box, chose Grayscale. It needs to be Grayscale. Then click OK.

Step Five: Now that you have that all set and ready, time to make your map!

White: High areas. [Example: Moutains, hills, etc.]

Black: Low areas. [Example: Rivers, lakes, canyons, etc.]

And you can also do in between colors. Say you don't want one area to be too high, so you make a light gray instead of total white. And say you don't want an area to be too low, so you make a dark gray instead of total black. But they must be shades of gray. From white to black only.

You must start out with one color though, for the whole area. I'd usually do an in between gray. But you can do whatever you'd like. And then you can start making your mountains, hills, rivers, etc.

So go ahead and design your map! Anyway you want it.

Step Six: When you finish your map, go to File, then Save. Save your terrain to [Say your map is WaterMill] Feral Heart>Media>Terrains>WaterMill. But before you save, name your terrain. Example: WaterMillTerrain. Then go down to Select File Type (By Extension) and click it. You should get a list. Scroll down until you find PNG image. Select that, then click save. Your file should look like this: WaterMillTerrain.png. [Or whatever you named it).

Step Seven: Open up your Feral Heart game. And then go to Tools, Map Maker.

Step Eight: Open your map that you saved your terrain into. [WaterMill]

Step Nine: Click on World, then go to the box where it says: Terrain Height Map. Erase the writing in the box, and type in what you saved. [I saved WaterMillTerrain.png, so I type that in the box].

If you did everything correctly, your ground will change into the terrain that you created.

Good job! You learned how to make a height map! If you have any questions, post them.

Thank you.

~~Alaskan~~

[Chimaera]

WOW! That was so easy, Thanks! You helped me a lot.

[Zaroque]

Very good tutorial, Alaskan!

[Alaskan]

You're very welcome. I'm happy to help.

~~Alaskan~~

[starkwolf]

Question, if the ends are not sufficiently smudged, can this cause the map to crash?

EDIT: Wait, if there is a mismatch between the heightmap and the terrainmask, could this cause FH to crash? Can you temporarily remove the terrainmask for this to work?

EDIT: Anyway, here are the things I know are fine:
It is a PNG image, of the appropriate dimensions
I have smudged the edges
No map is selected when I attempt to upload it.
Under properties, it says that it is only 1 layer

My terrainmask is working perfectly (though the colors seem different than what I used, is that supposed to happen?)


Also, one thing that I noticed that could be the problem: The file size for the heightmap that I intended to use was particularly large.

Watermill: 40.8kB
My map: 527.8kB

If this is the problem, how do I solve it?






I got it! For some reason, the program seems to believe that it is only 1 layer. It probably isn't. Someone else on another forum said something about converting it to PNG and back. It worked. Just because properties says "1 layer" does not mean it actually is.

[Alaskan]

Well I'm glad you figured that out because the whole time I just looked at the post like: o-o'

xD

~~Alaskan~~