Feral Heart
Help & Guidance => Member Made Tutorials => Mapping Tutorials => Topic started by: Hoc45 on January 08, 2011, 07:20:53 pm
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This is a step by step guide on how to generate heightmaps and import them to Feral Heart. I'm sorry if the guide doesn't work for you, this is the first time I've made a guide for anything.
Note: I've found a way to create terrain masks based on altitude. The mask tutorial is listed after the heightmap tutorial.
You will need:
L3DT. Get version 2.9 at this link: http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/downloads/standard.php (http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/downloads/standard.php)
Gimp. Get it at this link: http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ (http://www.gimp.org/downloads/)
Step One: Open up L3DT. If this is your first time using L3DT, a walkthrough will pop up. I advise that you complete the walkthrough to get a hang of L3DT, but once you do, return here.
Step Two: Click File>New Project. A popup will appear, asking what type of project you want. Click Designable map, then click next. Make sure you do not click blank designable map.
Step Three: The window will change. You will see two sliders called width and height. Change both numbers to 512. Leave everything else alone. Click next.
Step Four: The window will change again, and you will see a single option called "HF/DM ratio". Ignore it and click next.
Step Five: You will see a number of sliders and a single drop-down menu. Play with them to make the map you want. Click Next.
Step Six: You will now see a list of options with check boxes by them. Only check Design map and Heightfield, Feral Heart does not use the rest. Click Ok. Let your map generate.
Step Seven: You will now see your heightmap. If you do not like it, return to step two, or press Ctrl+W and return to step six.
Step Eight: Press Ctrl+E. You should now see an export menu. Click the drop down menu and select png.
Step Nine: Type in the name of your heightmap. Then click the button with three periods.
Step Ten: A browser should appear. Go to your Feral Heart folder. Then go to media>terrains, then click save.
Note: If you do not know where your Feral Heart folder is, try checking C:\FeralHeart.
Step Eleven: Instead of saving, you should return to the export menu. That's ok. Uncheck lock aspect ratio and then click ok.
Step Twelve: Now your map is exported to Feral Heart, but your work is not done yet. If you try to load it now in the map maker, your game will crash. Close L3DT, don't save, and open up gimp.
Step Thirteen: Press File>Open. Go to your Feral Heart folder, then go to media>terrains. You should see your heightmap from L3DT. Open it up.
Step Fourteen: We're almost done. Click Image>Scale Image. Change the first two numbers from 512 to 513. Click Scale.
Step Fifteen: Click File>Save. Close gimp.
Step Sixteen: Open up Feral Heart and go to the map maker. Then go to the world tab.
Step Seventeen: See the word defaultTerrain.png at the top? Change it to yourfilename.png. Press enter.
Note: If FH crashes when you try to load your heightmap, something is wrong with your heightmap image. Make sure that it is 513x513 and that it is a png file. Also make sure that it doesn't have a transparency layer. If you still have problems, I advise that you go to the help section.
Step Eighteen: Your heightmap should be loaded into Feral Heart. Congratulations.
Note: Sometimes your heightmaps may seem too flat in Feral Heart. To resolve this, go to the world tab and adjust the height setting.
Cheers to Kayo and Shell Prisoner for helping me import my first L3DT map into Feral Heart. Without them, I couldn't have made this guide.
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The Mask Tutorial. The mask this tutorial generates is based on altitude, which means you could have snowy mountain peaks, grassy valleys, and sandy beaches. I think painting the mask by hand may make a prettier map, though. I assume you have already completed the heightmap tutorial, so I'm going to be less specific with this one.
You will need:
Your heightmap from L3DT.
Gimp.
Step One: Open up gimp.
Step Two: Open up your heightmap from your terrains folder.
Step Three: Click Image>Mode>RGB.
Step Four: Click Colors>Posterize. Set it to three posterize levels. Click ok.
Note: If you're feeling adventurous, try having more than three posterize levels. You can fine tune your altitude based mask better with higher posterize levels. For example, you could have only the very top of your map have snow.
Step Five: You should see your map split into three distinct shades of grey. I hope you've made a terrain mask before, because this part is a little hard to explain.
Step Six: Bucket fill the brightest level with Red 255, Value 100, and Saturation 100.
Step Seven: Bucket fill the middle level with Green 255, Value 100, and Saturation 100.
Step Eight: Bucket fill the darkest level with Blue 255, Value 100, and Saturation 100.
Step Nine: Save as: yourfilenamemask.png.
Step Ten: Open up Feral Heart. Go to the mapmaker, then go to the world tab.
Step Eleven: Replace defaultTerrain.png with your heightmap.
Step Twelve: Replace defaultMask.png with your mask. Congratulations, you have created and loaded your terrain mask.
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I wonder, should I place this guide in the maps section of the forum instead?
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Hey, thanks for making this tutorial. I will move it to the maps section, and I'll sticky it too :)
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Thanks.
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Thank you so much. it Worked :D.
p.s can you change the map in gimp so there will be higher mountings. or will it make it crash?.
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If you have it into Feral Heart's mapmaker, go to the world tab and adjust the height.
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Updated the guide and implemented a mask tutorial. You can now generate masks based on altitude. Enjoy.
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That's a hard question to answer, since different people install it into different places. But by default, it goes here: C:\FeralHeart
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Which step are you referring to? Also, you shouldn't have to go into the fhmaps folder.
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Do you think you could have a tutorial about what terrain masks are?
I'm completely new to all this and so far your tutorials are stellar! Hope to see a extrapolated version for all things MapMaking at some point. You're good at it.
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A terrain mask is a little tough to explain. Basically, it's a picture that determines which texture goes where. So I can have a snowy texture go here, a grass texture go there, and so on.
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Great tutorial, defintly gonna keep it as a book mark, could u make or know of a tutorial on how to put sky u make from sky maker into map maker, mine never seems to work for me and its most likely something im doing lol.
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I've hardly touched the sky maker yet, since I'm busy with heightmap and mask making, but I could take a look at it.
Edit: Have you successfully loaded the sky file?
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No i havent been able to load it in MapMaker Yet, im not sure what im doing wrong -.- But imma keep trying, it just never loads for me QQ D:
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Have you managed to save your sky and/or weather file?
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yea, but when i try to load it into map maker it doesnt appear or it says cannot be found, so maybe i have to put the file somewhere else? just not rly sure at all
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If you don't get an error while loading it in the map maker, I think that means it works. However, I don't think skys play their cycle in the map maker.
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Possible, but ive seen ppl with screenies of their map with their sky in it, its only reason i beleive im doing something wrong :\ Bu ty anyways ^^ if u do figure it out lemme know <3
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I love you xD Both the map and mask tutorials have been helpful to me trying to learn how to make my own maps. You've made my day!
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Whenever i load the heightmap, FH stops responding. O.o
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Then something must be wrong with the heightmap image. Is it 513x513? Is there no alpha channel?
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Hi again :3 i decided to make my own heightmap, everything worked, only question is how do i make the land smooth? My map always seems to have jagged edges on the ground and is bumpy :| i wont smooth rolling hills and smooth ground :P
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Lol nvm i figured it out *DERP*
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I try that L3DT thing, and my graphics card crash all the time... But finally I get one...
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Can use you use photoshop as well as gimp? Thank you making this, a big help c: Also, I can't seem to save the map as a png file, just dmf comes up from the drop down. Do you know how to change this?
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You should be able to use Photoshop, but I haven't used it much, so I'm not sure. And when you say you can't save the map, are you referring to saving the heightmap in L3DT? If you are, try saving it as a different file type, then open it up in another program and save it as a png.
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I'll have to try this. ^^
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Thanks for the tutorial it helped a lot! but i still have an issue, when ever i type my map file name into Terrain spot on Mapmaker, FH crashes on me. It's fine when i type it into Masks. Can anyone help me out plz?
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YAY! you just aided me in making a non lame first map :DD
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I followed everything but when I go to load the terrian it says it can't be found :(
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Check what folder it is in. It should be in:
"Your FeralHeart directory"\media\terrains\
Also, I apologize for my increasing absence. I have things that need to be taken care of. If anyone wants to help people when I'm not around, feel free to do so.
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-Gives Hoc a cookie- I got it to work! Yay!
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Well done. Did you find out what the problem was?
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Yes I did. I figured out that I wasn't supposed to type terrian unless the file name had the word "terrian" in it XD
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can i use photoshop elements instead of gimp?
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can i use photoshop elements instead of gimp?
also do these programs work on a mac?
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I tried this, and my top color thing is fine, but the rest is black other then my objects o.o; Help? xD
EDIT: Oh derp wait i got it xD Thank you very much for the tutorial!
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You can use very good Photoshop or Gimp. I made my maps only Gimp and it works good! :D