Feral Heart

Help & Guidance => Game Help => Topic started by: Blackeme99 on April 17, 2013, 08:34:05 am

Title: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: Blackeme99 on April 17, 2013, 08:34:05 am
I think i made a topic like this but i think it got deleted or something i can't remember but i need to ask a question!

How do people make height maps! Because i have no idea!
Title: Re: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: SteampunkWolfdog on April 17, 2013, 09:07:10 am
There are lots of tutorials on here that show you how to make height maps, including this one. (http://feral-heart.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=11) There are plenty more in this section (http://www.feral-heart.com/index.php?option=com_jfusion&Itemid=2&jfile=index.php&board=85.0) of the forum too in case some of them make you think "Whaaat? o.0".

But in short, you need a program like Gimp or Photoshop. You make a new canvas that is 512x512 in size, and you have to set the mode to greyscale. Then you basically colour it in varying shades of grey. Black areas will be areas where the land is at a low level and will probably be filled with water. Lighter areas and white areas will be at a higher level, white being the highest and will probably make up most of your hills or mountains. Then when you've finished, you save it as "MapNameTerrain.png" in the Terrains folder. If you've done all that correctly, it should work in your map maker.

If you're having problems, check this thread (http://www.feral-heart.com/index.php?option=com_jfusion&Itemid=2&jfile=index.php&topic=1391.0) out. It's a good list of common problems and solutions to them. :)

Happy mapping
Title: Re: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: Blackeme99 on April 18, 2013, 03:48:07 am
There are lots of tutorials on here that show you how to make height maps, including this one. (http://feral-heart.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=11) There are plenty more in this section (http://www.feral-heart.com/index.php?option=com_jfusion&Itemid=2&jfile=index.php&board=85.0) of the forum too in case some of them make you think "Whaaat? o.0".

But in short, you need a program like Gimp or Photoshop. You make a new canvas that is 512x512 in size, and you have to set the mode to greyscale. Then you basically colour it in varying shades of grey. Black areas will be areas where the land is at a low level and will probably be filled with water. Lighter areas and white areas will be at a higher level, white being the highest and will probably make up most of your hills or mountains. Then when you've finished, you save it as "MapNameTerrain.png" in the Terrains folder. If you've done all that correctly, it should work in your map maker.

If you're having problems, check this thread (http://www.feral-heart.com/index.php?option=com_jfusion&Itemid=2&jfile=index.php&topic=1391.0) out. It's a good list of common problems and solutions to them. :)

Happy mapping

Umm how do you greyscale in paint tool sai
Title: Re: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: FlewToTheCity on April 18, 2013, 09:49:37 am
Ah, Greyscale is just the dark colors form White to Black my butterfly.
It's a lot simple if you have Gimp or Photoshop.
Gimp is free and a lot more easy to use ten Photoshop but, Photoshop is a lot more professional.
Title: Re: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: Tokoa on April 18, 2013, 11:39:56 am
Here a a video that shows you how to make them in both Photoshop and Gimp.
(Video credit: redlinelies)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTO8tyhSQPU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTO8tyhSQPU)
Title: Re: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: SteampunkWolfdog on April 18, 2013, 01:08:13 pm
Title: Re: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: Blackeme99 on April 19, 2013, 02:50:00 am
Well i don't want gimp because almost everything i download comes with a virus and malwerebytes won't work anymore so no thanks
Title: Re: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: SteampunkWolfdog on April 19, 2013, 10:28:35 am
Well i don't want gimp because almost everything i download comes with a virus and malwerebytes won't work anymore so no thanks

I promise you Gimp won't give you a virus or anything bad like that. I've downloaded and many other people have too and they haven't reported any viruses.
If you download things from the right place they mostly won't have any viruses, malware etc. http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ (http://www.gimp.org/downloads/)

But if you really don't want to I can understand; I had a virus on my laptop once and...well, let's just say it didn't go down well with the father...

Did you say you were doing this on Paint?
Well, I don't use it very often, but I think you click on the drop down menu, where it gives you options like 'New' and 'Save'. Go to 'Properties', and a new window should come up. Under a heading 'Colors' there should be two options: 'Black and white' and 'Color'. Select the 'Black and white' option. Ta da! your image should be greyscale.
Title: Re: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: Raphilion on April 19, 2013, 02:21:34 pm
Silvaze, I understand how you feel about viruses and stuff.. I used to get em all the time cause I didn't know how to pick em out. But I promise you won't get a virus from Gimp.

I used gimp to create my first awesome map Canyon (http://www.feral-heart.com/index.php?option=com_jfusion&Itemid=2&jfile=index.php&topic=24062.0)
Basically you gotta imagine how you want your map to look like and you gotta think in 3D. Then you just lay it down in 2D using a program like GIMP. Greyscale is just different shades of black.

For your height map; Pure black is the deepest part of your map and pure white is the highest part of your map. You should always start on the max, either color your entire 512 by 512 canvas in black then start going up by shading out your landscape with lighter and lighter shades of black until you reach the "Top", Or the other way round if you doing a deep canyon map.. but depends where you also want you sea-level to be, start from sea level if its somewhere in the middle then carve out the deep canyons/rivers and shape out the high mountains etc.

But also have a look at tutorials which should give a lot more info than I just did.. It would also explain anything you didn't understand.

PM if you want any help with height maps or map making XD
Good luck
Title: Re: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: Blackeme99 on April 20, 2013, 02:35:29 am
Well i don't want gimp because almost everything i download comes with a virus and malwerebytes won't work anymore so no thanks

I promise you Gimp won't give you a virus or anything bad like that. I've downloaded and many other people have too and they haven't reported any viruses.
If you download things from the right place they mostly won't have any viruses, malware etc. http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ (http://www.gimp.org/downloads/)

But if you really don't want to I can understand; I had a virus on my laptop once and...well, let's just say it didn't go down well with the father...

Did you say you were doing this on Paint?
Well, I don't use it very often, but I think you click on the drop down menu, where it gives you options like 'New' and 'Save'. Go to 'Properties', and a new window should come up. Under a heading 'Colors' there should be two options: 'Black and white' and 'Color'. Select the 'Black and white' option. Ta da! your image should be greyscale.
I knew about greyscale in paint but i'm talking about Paint tool SAI
Title: Re: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: SteampunkWolfdog on April 20, 2013, 02:28:48 pm
Well i don't want gimp because almost everything i download comes with a virus and malwerebytes won't work anymore so no thanks

I promise you Gimp won't give you a virus or anything bad like that. I've downloaded and many other people have too and they haven't reported any viruses.
If you download things from the right place they mostly won't have any viruses, malware etc. http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ (http://www.gimp.org/downloads/)

But if you really don't want to I can understand; I had a virus on my laptop once and...well, let's just say it didn't go down well with the father...

Did you say you were doing this on Paint?
Well, I don't use it very often, but I think you click on the drop down menu, where it gives you options like 'New' and 'Save'. Go to 'Properties', and a new window should come up. Under a heading 'Colors' there should be two options: 'Black and white' and 'Color'. Select the 'Black and white' option. Ta da! your image should be greyscale.
I knew about greyscale in paint but i'm talking about Paint tool SAI

Ah...Well I don't know what that is, so I'm afraid I can't help you there. Sorry, chick :(
Title: Re: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: Tokoa on April 21, 2013, 05:25:48 am
Gimp is a 100% safe program and can be trusted as Flob said but its just fine to work with another program you know well.
I myself have no idea how to work Paint Tool Sai but maybe you can look up videos on how to work with it?
Title: Re: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: Blackeme99 on April 21, 2013, 11:19:21 pm
Well i tried doing it in paint... It didn't work

I followed all the steps but it won't work when i try to put it in fh
Title: Re: Heights maps! How do you make them?!
Post by: WhiteLightHeart on April 21, 2013, 11:49:48 pm
Well i tried doing it in paint... It didn't work

I followed all the steps but it won't work when i try to put it in fh
Well, Silv, it's because FH heightmaps only work when you design them using GIMP or Photoshop. As it's been said before, GIMP is your best bet (since Photoshop isn't free). While it's perfectly understandable for you to be concerned about downloading programs from the internet, I recommend that you speak with your parents, run a scan on the GIMP download (on their site), and it will show you that thousands of people download this program every day. It's very reliable, trustworthy, and the fact that so many people have downloaded it previously shows that it's unlikely that it's a dangerous source.
So, if you do get viruses, it certainly won't be from GIMP.
And, of course, it will allow you to make heightmaps that FH will render for you.

However, if you are absolutely unable to download GIMP, then, if you're comfortable with it, you can PM me your heightmap, and I can save it in GIMP, myself. Then, once it's saved that way, I can PM it back to you, and you can use it that way.

Still, though. You'd be much better off considering GIMP, floofer~