How to; make a map_heights ....

[Red Spot]

.... without having to be a Photoshop expert ...


Hiya all,


Have been messing around for the past few weeks making my own map(s) for RTW but have been unable to master Photoshop (or grow artistic skills) in such way I was able to make a satisfying map_heights (they tended to look unpleasing to the eye in-game)

Now after lots of trial and mostly error I set out to find a method to make a pleasing to the eye map_heights without expert skills, I ended up royaly messing up my system thanks to google and certain unnamed (so called) tools...
BUT .... succes, after I first found EarthSculptor it actually ended up in the bin, nevertheless I now am promoting it ....


EarthSculptor ( www.earthsculptor.com )
is a tool that allows you to ... er .. sculpture .. er .. earth .. er ...
the important thing is that it allows you to import and export height-maps (square grayscale pictures)


Let me just show you by a simple example what I mean and see for yourself how easy and quickly you can build huge maps ...

-get the tool; www.earthsculptor.com

-I suggest you make a general outline of a map_heights in photoshop at it gives you beter "global" control and you need to edit what the sculptor exports anyway, like;



-now you need to do 2 things to get a patch of your map "sculptor-ready"
+you need to edit the sea to be like height 0 (RGB 0 0 0) (you dont need to convert it to greyscale)
+the sculptor converts any size map to a square map and you really want to prevent this as it makes your map ugly when you need to mold it back in shape later, so you want to make a selection of your map wich is square in shape
the editor can start out with a set out of fixed size square empty worlds, for the example I'll go with the one of 2049*2049pixels, now you may be wondering why I jump to telling you this, well because you really want to enlarge your map before you edit it in the sculptor, the sculptor is much more detailed and if used 1 on 1 you wouldnt be able to get high mountains (hard to explain with my poor english, but you'll find out what I mean if you dont enlarge ..;))

What I did for this example is take a patch of my map_heights thats 204*204 pixels, made the actual ground RGB 16 16 16 and the sea RGB 1 1 1, than enlarged the map to 2049*2049pixels setting the "nearest neighbour" option
ending up with just this dark patch of ground (upper right corner);



-I than start the sculptor and start a new map at 2049*2049pixels and just select a small texture setting (you dont need it and has no effect for what we're doing here)
-Than I import the large map I just made as heightmap and use the tools in a "generous fashion" (dont be afraid if your hill ended up like mountain, it looks just a tad bigger in the sculptor than in-game, specially after a bit of a "blend-session" :P)
export when you want to take a look at your map (or just save and look at the [map name].png picture there where you saved)
you can export your map to .tga but it will be 8bit grayscale


-I suggest the first thing you do after opening the grayscale-map in a tool like photoshop is to convert to it RGB-setting than rescale it back to its original size (dont forget the "nearest neigbour" setting)
-Take away all the RGB 0 0 0 bits, in my case thats all ocean so I just make it blue again and patch the new piece of map over where it came from


and just repeat the process for each patch of land you rather mold into shape in the sculptor than by painting pixels ....
(took me 3 weeks to get to this point in mapmaking, I did the above map in like an hour thanks to the sculptor.....)


This actually looks pleasing to the eye in-game and I havent even done map_features/climates/ground_types ...
(I'll post a screeny later today...)


G

[Red Spot]

some in-game screenshots (just plain "low fertillity" all over)



the same zoomed in;


near Rome (on the example in the first post that would be the lower right corner)



(sorry for the double-posting, I just so miss that edit-button ... )


G

[Red Spot]

little update ...

I first of all have been tempering with the "descr_terrain.txt" file in particuler the following;

heights
{
min_sea_height -3122.256
max_land_height 7511.272
}

and roughly doubled the values, perhaps well known but I just figured out these values dictate how big the difference between heights will be on your campaign map (and if I may say so "can" have a major impact on how your map feels and looks!)

anyway it made me want to rethink things over and with it I changed my methods to be mostly easier...

============

-first of all I used a "made me feel good" portion of my previous map to decide what values in the descr_terrain file I liked best so I have the abiliy to check out my map from time to time and have a good representation of how it will really look in the end

-I made a new map_heights (you can just as well import existing maps but you'll need to tweak them after changing them to grayscale map) and made a copy of it into a square shaped map by enlarging the canvas, made the sea black, than I resized the map to use size used by the sculptor, in this case 2049*2049pixels.
picture of before resizing the map;


-using a smaller enlargment-factor I have less molding to do and am able to import/export my entire map in 1 go, though I need an small enlargment in order to be able to achieve certain heights in the sculptor

-I than mold my map bit by bit, constantly having peaks seeing if I like what I made, currently this is what I have after 1/2 a day of molding;



this is how this looks in game;




it will take a nice amount of time to make a big map, but imo its pretty easy utulizing the sculptor as you get a good impression of what your doing in the sculptor while you do it.
anyway hope this is hope use to others like me (people with no artistic skill whatsoever ... :P)


G

[Red Spot]

last update ...

I'd like to give you an impression of what I've been able to whoop up just to give you a bit of an impression what a possible product might look like ..

this is my small map heights (I flipped this map over 3 more times to create a 4 times as big a map)
this is basicly the end result of roughly 3 full days of molding;


an in-game look at the first groundtype-mountains I included;


and a snowy highland Iland;



G

[Makanyane]

I've been trying this as it looks really interesting ( and I have a fantasy map to do ) , I'm finding I'm a bit lost though. Do you have any tips on knowing where you are on map when in the sculptor? It seems to have a sort of Fog of War effect so you only see isolated bit of map. I'm also not sure how you preserve your water (0,0,0) areas I've tried fiddling with the enable water settings / height but can't find setting that makes coastline look like the one I started with!

Thanks, Mak.

[WImPyTjeH]

Looks interesting :)

I've been trying this as it looks really interesting ( and I have a fantasy map to do ) , I'm finding I'm a bit lost though. Do you have any tips on knowing where you are on map when in the sculptor? It seems to have a sort of Fog of War effect so you only see isolated bit of map. I'm also not sure how you preserve your water (0,0,0) areas I've tried fiddling with the enable water settings / height but can't find setting that makes coastline look like the one I started with!

Thanks, Mak.

Yeah, I don't get it either. The fog can be disabled by clicking on the 'fog' button, but as soon as I zoom out a bit, my screen becomes with. + I also can't difer between heights (water and land)

W

[Red Spot]

yeah its a bit tricky to get going ...

fog you can disable (and you really would want to), than I suggest using the "grid" option, you'll also need to stay zoomed in pretty much so to get a "global impression" you'll have to look a saved picture or load it in-game ..

as a help with water you can always activate water in the sculpter (klick the water button and than on the menu check the "enable" option) now you freely set the hight of your water wich makes it a lot easier to edit beaches/etc
(you could even paint your map and again use that as a guide in making a map_groundtypes)

anyway the thing thats pretty critical is to make sure you set your water at height 0 and your ground at roughly 12 or above, this allows you to see the edges of land good enough to work with them, later on you can just select anything "color 0 0 0" and make it sea again in photoshop


I suggest just playing with the sculptor and its preview-map and learn to use its relativly small selection of tools as they can help you a lot (yet all you "need" are the terraform-tools)


one more note about water;
the way I did water is I kept an eye on the outline I made when in the sculptor but freely used "erode" and "blend" where I wanted nice low level beaches
later on when I exported the map these regions (as well as my entire desert area) became height 0, as did all my bits of sea
now in photoshop I cut the entire height 0 and height 1 from this exported map, than put it as a second layer on top of the original map_heights (the general outline, wich does have blue water) and that general outline will than make my desert and beaches at height 1 (why I also removed height 1 from the exported map)
this way I made nice smooth ramps to a beach and than have the beach as a smooth relativly flat piece of land, like;

from the oposite site;



Let me know and I could post a bit more detailed, perhaps picture-based, tutorial about the sculptor...
a screeny from within the sculptor after enabling water and quickly assigning a texture for the ground;



ps;dont save your map with textures and water (dont know how to disable textures yet) as without textures you get a "1" printed on each square wich if you view it properly makes you face North, get a point of refrence first than go where you want ..

Edit;
you might find it usefull to know that each square is 12*12pixels so in order to quickly find a specific area you could always get a position in photoshop and count the squares to get there in the sculpter
/edit


G

[WImPyTjeH]

yeah its a bit tricky to get going ...

fog you can disable (and you really would want to), than I suggest using the "grid" option, you'll also need to stay zoomed in pretty much so to get a "global impression" you'll have to look a saved picture or load it in-game ..

as a help with water you can always activate water in the sculpter (klick the water button and than on the menu check the "enable" option) now you freely set the hight of your water wich makes it a lot easier to edit beaches/etc
(you could even paint your map and again use that as a guide in making a map_groundtypes)

anyway the thing thats pretty critical is to make sure you set your water at height 0 and your ground at roughly 12 or above, this allows you to see the edges of land good enough to work with them, later on you can just select anything "color 0 0 0" and make it sea again in photoshop


I suggest just playing with the sculptor and its preview-map and learn to use its relativly small selection of tools as they can help you a lot (yet all you "need" are the terraform-tools)


one more note about water;
the way I did water is I kept an eye on the outline I made when in the sculptor but freely used "erode" and "blend" where I wanted nice low level beaches
later on when I exported the map these regions (as well as my entire desert area) became height 0, as did all my bits of sea
now in photoshop I cut the entire height 0 and height 1 from this exported map, than put it as a second layer on top of the original map_heights (the general outline, wich does have blue water) and that general outline will than make my desert and beaches at height 1 (why I also removed height 1 from the exported map)
this way I made nice smooth ramps to a beach and than have the beach as a smooth relativly flat piece of land, like;

from the oposite site;



Let me know and I could post a bit more detailed, perhaps picture-based, tutorial about the sculptor...
a screeny from within the sculptor after enabling water and quickly assigning a texture for the ground;



ps;dont save your map with textures and water (dont know how to disable textures yet) as without textures you get a "1" printed on each square wich if you view it properly makes you face North, get a point of refrence first than go where you want ..

Edit;
you might find it usefull to know that each square is 12*12pixels so in order to quickly find a specific area you could always get a position in photoshop and count the squares to get there in the sculpter
/edit


G

Thanks

With this excellent program, I was able to draw the first (unofficial) Tamriel height map (as far as I know - and I've spent houres looking for one)

I owe you

W

[Red Spot]

graag gedaan ..;)


G

[WImPyTjeH]

graag gedaan ..;)


G

LoL Ook Nederlands

I don't think that my team members will complain if I post this quick screeny while building it in EaSc.


(The island you see below is the Imperial Isle)

Some peaks still need to be added but it's finally paying off

W

[Red Spot]

yep ..;)

anyway thanks for that screeny as it tells me it not the beta-status but probably a bad installation, as the sculptor doesnt show textures on the buttons/icons on my system(was kinda hard to get going)

probably thanks to all the scrap I installed on my path to this tool, they royally messed up my install (good thing I use images/clones ...)


ps; dont forget to try and change the "height" settings in the descr_terrain file, it may just give you a much better feeling about what you made (the vanilla settings give you a relativly flat map ...)


G

[WImPyTjeH]

yep ..;)

anyway thanks for that screeny as it tells me it not the beta-status but probably a bad installation, as the sculptor doesnt show textures on the buttons/icons on my system(was kinda hard to get going)

probably thanks to all the scrap I installed on my path to this tool, they royally messed up my install (good thing I use images/clones ...)


ps; dont forget to try and change the "height" settings in the descr_terrain file, it may just give you a much better feeling about what you made (the vanilla settings give you a relativly flat map ...)


G

Will do

Do you know a way to see the entire map, because like you can see on the screen, you can only see about 100-200 pixels away (which sucks)

I hate the fact that those ugly "things" are not just grass textures or something like that.

W

[Red Spot]

afaik you have to stay zoomed in pretty, but imo you can zoom out just enough to get an impression of an area, to edit a bit I find myself zooming in quite a bit anyway to be able to achieve certain detail ...

(I constantly kept exporting my map and used XnView on the side for a say radar-view ..)


G

[Red Spot]

did a bit of trial and error to see if there is a way to zoom out further ..

well you can, under fog increase the value "far" (but be carefull as the sculptor becomes much slower as zoomdistance increases ...)

hope its of use ;)


G

[WImPyTjeH]

did a bit of trial and error to see if there is a way to zoom out further ..

well you can, under fog increase the value "far" (but be carefull as the sculptor becomes much slower as zoomdistance increases ...)

hope its of use ;)


G

Excellent, works like a charm

But do you have any idea how to maintain good coastlines ? Because everytime I increase the max height (in the decr_terrain), my coastlines get screwed up and making all values around the coastlines 1,1,1 doesn't affect it anymore.

W

[Red Spot]

make the map at at least a hight of 2 (RGB 2 2 2), than making your coastline hight 1 will "smooth" it out ...

if you make the area surrounding the coastline hight 1 as well you will most likelly get ugly edges (took me some time to figure that one out ...:P)



G

[WImPyTjeH]

make the map at at least a hight of 2 (RGB 2 2 2), than making your coastline hight 1 will "smooth" it out ...

if you make the area surrounding the coastline hight 1 as well you will most likelly get ugly edges (took me some time to figure that one out ...:P)



G

I found a better way.

As you know, this is how vanilla the descr_terrain looks:

heights
{
	min_sea_height  -3122.256
	max_land_height  7511.272
}

With some math. you get this: 7511.272 - 3122.256 = 4389.016

You have to make sure, when you make your land higher, you have to make the sea deeper.

So when you want 19999.256 as land height you have to make sure that:

land - sea = 4389.016 -> sea = land - 4389.016

So: 19999.256 - 4389.016 = 15610.24 (so your sea is -15610.24)

When I used vanilla sea but modded land height, I got ugly triangles sticking out everywhere, that's solved this way. You still get some inside water triangles, but that's still 100% better then the traingles sticking out.

W

[Moros]

That's a nice tutorial you have there!

(Nu nog in het nederlands , er is vraag naar zo blijkt!)

[Red Spot]

I found a better way.

As you know, this is how vanilla the descr_terrain looks:
.............

Sorry but than I'd have to disagree with you on having found a better way, easier would imo be a better word.

As it is I dont have the problem of sticking out triangles anymore since I did the "minimum height of 2 and coast height 1" thing, this allowed me to ~double the values found in the descr_terrain file without in the end any .. er .. triangles ;)

Anyway I'm thinking about collecting the Rome and M2 mapmaking tuts. and together with this one make a sort of complete guide to M2 mapmaking (and redo this one as its not much of a tut. imo) and I'll be sure to point out both .. er .. roads leading to Rome ...


Moros,

I'll (re)do the tut. if you do the translating ..:P
Glad to hear you like it.


G

[Red Spot]

just a "fyi" ..

Earth-Sculptor is going commercial, the new Beta has seemingly been stripped (with the added text that these features will be in the "commercial version")
An older version of Earth-Sculptor with all features is still available tough ... for now .... (I suggest if you like it you get it and make a back-up of it)
http://www.earthsculptor.com/download.htm


G

[Apostle Zodd]

Nice program really easy to use!,but can you tell me what is the highest point/level that uits can travel on? cause im making a map where i need mountain ranges where armies may travel apon!

[Makanyane]

Unfortunately they can travel on any height and slope of mountain, I say unfortunately as army in formation on 60 degree slope looks really stupid, and it gives whoever has got the high ground an incredible advantage on archer range and makes whichever faction has to run up hill ready to rout before they reach opposition. If map is big enough scale, I'd recommend blocking off the very steeply sloped areas with the impassible mountain ground_types and trying to achieve relatively smooth passes through or along mountain ranges.

[Myrddraal]

As mak said; impassability is only down to terrain type, not gradient or elevation.

[Roman_Man#3]

I think this technique is a little flawed now because it seems Earthsculptor costs money now. Or am I doing something wrong.

[Red Spot]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...1&postcount=20

it was announced quite some time ago ... afaik you can still get an unregistered version with less capabilities, but most of those can be overcome by using it in combi with Photoshop. I at least dont think this has become flawed cause it now isnt "free" ...

imo $60,- is a bit much, though surelly not a waste of money .. that is if you want/need the additional capabilities

(just make small height-maps with the 257*257 map and put them together in Photoshop ...)


G

[Red Spot]

was checking the vanilla map in EarthSculptor;


the map isnt too detailed, but the .. er .. square-ness comes from it not being scaled properly here ...

Anyway just too let you see that this isnt just for "fantasy-maps", but can be a great tool to check your map for unrealistic slopes etc, and ofcourse right away be able to alter them ..


G