Differences

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--- world_setup:appearance:terrain [2020/02/02 06:07] – [Landscape texture generation] mit
+++ world_setup:appearance:terrain [2020/02/02 06:17] (current) – [Landscape texture generation + 'Pattern Maps'] mit
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 There are tools available publicly for generating heightmap images, and you can find lots by googling. If you've got a decent paint program you can use lightening/darkening and smoothing tools (etc) to generate images that produce realistic landscapes that you can craft to fit your game needs.
-==== Texturing the terrain ====
+===== Texturing the terrain =====
-So here's where it starts getting a bit tricky. The simplest option for texturing is just to put a little grass texture over every tile.. the world looks a bit bland but its nice n easy. This is usually the default setup.
+So here's where it starts getting a bit tricky.. Making nice looking landscapes takes some effort..
+==== Basic tiled landscape textures ====
+ The simplest option for texturing is just to put a little grass texture over every tile.. the world looks a bit bland but its nice n easy. This is usually the default setup.
 If you wish, you can then add other textures (like roads, beaches, muddy areas) by creating textures and 'painting' them on your map using 'texmaps' (where a texture is stretched over a number of tiles across the map) and 'tiled surfaces' (where a texture is used repeatedly over a number of tiles). To do this you probably need to spend a fair bit of time in the map editor drawing out shapes, and it'd help if you have a good 2d image manipulation program to make some decent textures, but without a lot of effort and skill this method is always going to look a little 'primitive'.
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 ==== Landscape texture generation + 'Pattern Maps' ====
-The most recent option, as used on the recent worlds I've run for A tractor, is to combine the heightmap based generation of landscape with a secondary global image (referred to as a 'Pattern Map') which specifies areas of the landscape that use a different texture than would normally be used. (As an aside, **Lovelace** also utilises an extra, custom method that means areas around each town use a more fine-grained texture to lay out roads, grass verges and sandy areas. Configuring this differently for your own world will probably require some 'Technical Discussion').
+The most recent (and most powerful) option, as used on the recent worlds I've run for A tractor, is to combine the heightmap based generation of landscape with a secondary global image (referred to as a 'Pattern Map') which specifies areas of the landscape that use a different texture than would normally be used. (As an aside, **Lovelace** also utilises an extra, custom method that means areas around each town use a more fine-grained texture to lay out roads, grass verges and sandy areas. Configuring this differently for your own world will probably require some 'Technical Discussion').
 This secondary 'pattern map' image works by using each colour channel of the image to weight the use of texture at each point - so (for instance) a full-red pixel in the image means the corresponding tile is mostly 'texture 1', a green pixel in the image means the corresponding tile is mostly 'texture 2', and a blue pixel in the image is mostly 'texture 3'. A white pixel (i.e. one combining full red, green and blue) is an equal blend of all 3 textures, and all the shades in between allow you to blend between areas of the different textures as you see fit.
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 There is a serious techno-art-gamedev skill to be developed in the creation of these assets and I've personally found it quite interesting working out how to make them. You may find better methods and I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't already tools to make it magically brilliant :]
+<note tip>Activate pattern map texture generation system by switching ***settings** -> **Landscape** -> **Auto Texture Generation Mode** to **5** and set the pattern map texture you want to use in the server dialog, Tools Menu -> Terrain Editor (Then click 'Save Terrain Settings'). You may need to relog once after activating this system for distant parts of the landscape to appear correctly.</note>