Yuval 29 Posted August 28, 2015 I think the answer I'm looking for should come from experienced ArmA mappers with a long history in the modding community. I have been working on my heightmap for quite a while, it's kind of an Island and my goal is to make it somehow in the style of Taviana and Chernarus. I have my heightmap pretty much set, I even compiled it to A3 and run it. Now, in the future, I will probably make some design changes to the map - probably to add more detail but before I even think about making the mask and sat images - I want to know some tips from people who already experienced map making. I know the difference between mapping with V3 and TB is pretty drastic, taking the new road system into account. I made some flat areas in shorelines where I wish cities to be laid at. But I want to know if I should put some specific effort in the heightfield of my map. I really want my first map to be something as perfect as possible, so I can learn the best I can from this "map making study trip". If anyone can give me some guidelines or/and examples of specific stuff I should put my attention too before I start working on sat / mask I'd highly appreciate that - and I'm sure it will be great material for newcomers in the future! Note: I am at the very beginning of the map, I haven't set up any TB project yet although I did set up some basics such as surfaces, clutter, layers.cfg, config files and basic map source files for use later. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
spookygnu 563 Posted August 29, 2015 I think you need to be abit more specific in what "tips" you are actually after. What program are you using for altering and generating your heightmap? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yuval 29 Posted August 30, 2015 I think you need to be abit more specific in what "tips" you are actually after. What program are you using for altering and generating your heightmap? I'm using L3DT. I want to know what kind of detail or optimization should I give to my heightmap before I push it towards the next stage (which is mask image I guess) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
spookygnu 563 Posted August 30, 2015 Press "h" whilst in 3d mode and play about with the brushes. Avalanche is quite good once you get your head around how it works. Perlin noise is good but best when dropping the values down too. I've found when i want to fine tune smoothing anything dropping the value to 3 helps alot more too. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yuval 29 Posted August 30, 2015 Press "h" whilst in 3d mode and play about with the brushes. Avalanche is quite good once you get your head around how it works. Perlin noise is good but best when dropping the values down too. I've found when i want to fine tune smoothing anything dropping the value to 3 helps alot more too. Thanks! Really helpful, I'd use these when I resume my work on the heightmap! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
spookygnu 563 Posted August 30, 2015 Also having a sat map to work with can great improve how you want your island to look. You can overlay your sat map onto your terrain and by using the various brushes you can alter the terrain to fit the image. I have done this on many an ocassion to help define hills and roads, slopes and gulleys. Having a 3d view really is beneficial for this because you are altering the image in 3d aswell as the terrain. Another trick is if you are using a heightmap of a real wold locale you can use google earth to reference how it should look. This really only comes best if you have two screens or more. Will post an image later for reference. I'll also throw together a small tut for l3dt to use a sat as reference for altefing the terrain . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
