some questions about elevation

[Mustaine]

since i got the approval for ma MA map i have begun work on the elevation BMP.

it's more time consuming than anything, partly because of what i am making, and also because i am a perfectionist.

does anyone have any brush tips (paintshop or photoshop i can transpose) for making hill ranges that look "real" ?


also, when using the TE's built in elevation setter, i am terrible at that kind of math. does anyone have any starting points for the sine wave numbers to put in to make some decent looking hills? i'm looking to make some hills that are not SHARP as in very polygon looking. the limitation with making a map with high altitudes is each color = 100 feet. so i am getting sharp jut outs for hills right now.

lastly, this is kind of a weird question, and diffucult to explain....

is there a way to overlay an elevation file over another? meaning, if i were to make the grayscale BMP for 1 part of the map with white = 5000 then another area where white = 20,000 ? maybe intergrating the 2 .ELV files or something?

[NHawk]

Here's a link to a thread where Kanttori posted a message on the use of sin wave

http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64126


So far as using Photoshop or Paint Shop to do the entire elevation file, you're biting off a bit to much to chew. You'll be setting over a million pixels by hand.

I don't know about anyone else, but I use real terrains and/or Terragen for the mountains and paste them together the way I want them. Then I sculpt the areas around them to my liking.

You are in the most time consuming part of the project, getting the terrain the way you want it. The second most time consuming is placing the bases and strat objects.

The only thing I can suggest is don't try to micro-manage the terrain. In other words, get the big picture right and worry about the details as you place the bases. If that results in a base being at 4300 feet instead of 5000 feet nobody will care, or know that it wasn't suppose to be that way.

Edit: Hint if 20000 feet is your maximum altitude, each grayscale value will equal a little over 78 feet.

[Mustaine]

hey, thanks

actually i was going for max alt of 25,000 so each pixel is about 100 feet.

i understand about the micromanage thing... but can't help it

i spent all last night getting the low alt areas, and i think i got it. i know i am going to add some hills manually later in the TE, but for the general stuff it is decent. i even placed a field for fun and flew it to see what it looked like.

thanks alot for the link. will play with those numbers.


i can't figure out how to get the "real" mountians to convert to they way they need to be. you know they come with white on one side, black or gray on the other... where it needs to be white on the high parts, black low. i have the utility program soemone made, but cant figure out jack **** in it, and i have no internet at home to DL maps anyway.


i almost got a way to make things natural, with some brushes i made last night, and playing with guassian noise and blur.


thanks again.

[gatso]

Mustaine, send me an email (addy in sig).  I made Equinox with a little help from Bullethead and might be able to help.

Gatso

[Mustaine]

email sent