See the whole Map

[Ratpack1]

I'm sure this has been asked before but I couldn't seem to find it anywhere. Is there anyway to see the entire map in the main window. I know you can see it on your clipboard map.

Would be nice to add the terrain out lines or something like that rather quickly and work from there. Maybe you can but I don't know.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

[Dux]

Sorry, but the answer is "no"... you can't see the whole terrain in the main window. Best you can get is about 10 squares wide by 10 squares high.

[Ratpack1]

That sould be changed

[Dux]

Ya, it would be nice.

[wantok]

Really, any broad-scale landform design is best done in an external editor, in my opinion... Photoshop's my tool of choice, GIMP is free and excellent, or any other reasonably powerful editor that can use layers will do the job.

Start with a 1024x1024px square image (for a 512x512 mile map).  Get your broad concept worked out, then sketch your map in the editor.  Once you're happy with it and you're ready to go, make another layer - you'll use this to do the greyscale version.  You have two broad options:

* You can draw the coastlines freehand (or modify the ones you did in the sketch), and generate the altitudes yourself (zero-brightness black for water, all the way up the scale to 255-brightness white for your max altitude).  There are various tools in Photoshop/GIMP which can help with this.  Or:

* Use nature.  Find topographic elevation data (there's plenty of good free satellite data around) and import it, then manipulate the brightness range and move landforms around within your map area to suit your purpose.  More fiddly, but nothing beats the real world for natural-looking landscapes.

Then import the 256-colour greyscale image into the TE, and you have a terrain with the altitudes complete.  You can also output your (colour) sketch to use as the clipboard map for reference.

Then use MachNix's Tile Setter to generate your tiles, then hand tweak to taste. 

[Denholm]

^                                ^                                      ^
Definitely the way to go if you're planning a large terrain.

[Ratpack1]

excellent suggestion Thanks!

Where do i find MachNix's Tile Setter?

[wantok]

Where do i find MachNix's Tile Setter?

Here are, as far as I can see, the latest version (v2.4 from mid 2005) of MachNix's tilesetter .exe and help.

I didn't realise this before, but NHawk has also done a tilesetter app which has attracted lots of good comment as well.  However after some searching of the forums I can't find a link to it.  Perhaps if NHawk reads this he can respond with more details.

P.S.  There another option apart from the two I listed above - use a terrain-generator app like Terragen, World Machine or Grome to create your elevations.  There are some posts on the forum about ways to do that.  I haven't used them myself (for AH).

P.P.S. And, if you haven't already, make sure you read NHawk's excellent Terrain Editor tutorial on AHWiki.

[NHawk]

LOL...I read every post in this forum. Sometimes a day late, but I do read them.

I haven't had my tile setter online for ages now. MachNix's is actually much better. But, if someone wants it I can sift through my CDs and put it online.

And as a side note, I use a combination of Terragen and World Machine for most of my terrains. The main trick is to remember that what you see in those generators is usually not what you get in AH.

P.S: I've been busy with an electronics project and making a new terrain. So I haven't been monitoring the forum as much as I usually do.