Feral Heart

(I wasn't quite sure where to put this. Map requests would be my second guess, but I'm not asking for a map to be made. Anyway...)

Does anyone here remember the old map pack? The one that got taken down because people had issues with it? That's the one I'm looking for, and I was wondering if someone could give me a couple of leads to investigate. I already found and downloaded Silent Lake, but the other maps are very elusive. I was hoping someone still had the torrent file, or still had the maps installed on their game. Or by some great stroke of luck, the map maker would give me them. Really, they were great maps, and that's why I'm looking for them.

Perhaps a request like this is forbidden, as it defeats the purpose of taking down the maps. But I looked in the news archive, and found this: https://www.feral-heart.com/index.php?option=com_jfusion&Itemid=2&jfile=index.php&topic=8356.0

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

Gimp. Get it at this link: 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.