mountain landscape

[DOODY]

My mountains suck.. Is there a basic formula to start with??
 My sin looks good, but when i add peaks and plataues, it looks like triangle spikes and such.

[steely07]

Doody,are you "smoothing" them?

[wantok]

IMHO you can't beat nature when it comes to mountains... you will always get amateurish results unless you take real-world mountain elevation data as your starting point.

see the link in my sig for one way to do this.

[NUTTZ]

real world mountain elevation data? Are you kidding me? or they are amaterish?????

NUTTZ

Originally posted by wantok
IMHO you can't beat nature when it comes to mountains... you will always get amateurish results unless you take real-world mountain elevation data as your starting point.

see the link in my sig for one way to do this.

[wantok]

er - did you read the page, Nuttz?

the mountain ranges in gr8lakes are based on real-world elevation data... like i said, i think that mountain terrains should use real-world data as a starting point.

i guess the point of confusion here is scale.  with gr8lakes, there are three large mountain ranges which look very natural when flying around them - but when you look at the whole map, it looks pretty artificial, as the mountains pretty much radiate out in straight lines from the centre, to divide the map evenly.

i took a real-world mountain range that is actually fairly straight: part of the Cordilla Oriental mountain range in Colombia.  then i made various small adjustments - cutting and pasting sections, raising and lowering the overall elevations of some areas... but the original mountainous topography, the shapes of the ridges and valleys, the feel of the landscape, remains.  then i just copied the range twice and rotated them to create the other ranges on the map.

i certainly don't believe that maps have to be entirely real-world - that's almost always unbalanced for game play.  what i mean is that the texture of mountainous areas, on the fly-by scale, will only look good if real-world mountain data is the starting point.

[NUTTZ]

I sure did, but you said terrains should use real world data (elevation) or they look amaturish. We'll taking the mountain range from Colombia and throwing it into Michican is hardly "real world"!!! From that point on it is fantasy, and if you need to use real world elevations as a starting point, Great but once you alter it it is not real world data.  From what "I" read into your reply was IF 'WE" didn't use "real data" as a starting point it would be amaturish. I couldn't disagree more with that statement.  IMO real world data just looks too flat in AH, like everything else it needs to be modified or characterized. Your statement you used mountain ranges from Colombia as a replacement for the mountains in Michican only support what i am trying to say. So I toss "real world elevation out the window, Plus as you stated the scaling effects the map. you can 3d to your hearts content, your monitor will only show 2d, IMO you NEED to charaterize the map for the lack of stereoscopic view on the monitor.

Bottom line to  DOODY, play around and do what you think looks best. It's a cross between what you want, what you will settle for, sheer luck and alot of patience with the Editor. There is no right or wrong way.

EDITED to add this: IF you use AKWabbits mapmaker, Or mostly any map reproducing program ( the GS something something comes to mind)  as a grey scale it will show a shadow  to produce the elevations within the terrain. Once you convert this the "pure black" becomes water. So most of your mountains instead of having gradation uniform sloping up to the peak from all sides, ONE side will be water  or a sheer cliff. This is ONE of the reasons I personally DO NOT USE real elevation files. All mountains in your grey scale need to be edited  white being the peak using a greyscale to black on ALL sides to distinguish the natural sloping of a mountain. After that it all tweeking what "personally YOU as the creator like".
NUTTZ

Originally posted by wantok
er - did you read the page, Nuttz?

the mountain ranges in gr8lakes are based on real-world elevation data... like i said, i think that mountain terrains should use real-world data as a starting point.

i guess the point of confusion here is scale.  with gr8lakes, there are three large mountain ranges which look very natural when flying around them - but when you look at the whole map, it looks pretty artificial, as the mountains pretty much radiate out in straight lines from the centre, to divide the map evenly.

i took a real-world mountain range that is actually fairly straight: part of the Cordilla Oriental mountain range in Colombia.  then i made various small adjustments - cutting and pasting sections, raising and lowering the overall elevations of some areas... but the original mountainous topography, the shapes of the ridges and valleys, the feel of the landscape, remains.  then i just copied the range twice and rotated them to create the other ranges on the map.

i certainly don't believe that maps have to be entirely real-world - that's almost always unbalanced for game play.  what i mean is that the texture of mountainous areas, on the fly-by scale, will only look good if real-world mountain data is the starting point.

[wantok]

yup, i don't think we're in disagreement, Nuttz.  a starting point is just a starting point.  in gr8lakes i certainly modified the original real-world data quite a bit, and have mixed and matched bits of real-world terrain together... most of the time nature needs a lot of reworking to fit the bill.  

my point is simply that mountains are much better looking if you start with real world data... even after lots of manipulations (multiplying elevation, moving bits around, whatever) the feel of the original wild landscape will still shine through.

[DOODY]

Originally posted by steely07
Doody,are you "smoothing" them?

smoothing????????????

[aharder]

I've tried all this elevation mapping, smoothing, etc, but I find the best way to get a great, good-looking terrain is to use user-created/drawn heightmaps. It's as simple as opening up Photopaint or Paintshop and drawing out a nice map. Use THOSE tools to smooth etc and you have a rockin map. No need for this other jazz, imo.  
 
Here's a map I'm working on. Not natural-looking, but I don't want it to be.
Real-world height maps aren't a necessity.

[BenDover]

looks like an amoeba