Difference between revisions of "Heightmap editor"

'''Brush Control'''

Apply to most tools

Size - Determines the radius of the current brush, and corresponds to the same values as the landscape editor. A distance of 1 will affect the closest point of the landscape grid, a distance of 10 will affect points within 1280 units.

Intensity - Determines the strength of the tool, or rather how quickly that tool works. For example, a setting of 50 with the Raise Tool will cause the area selected to be raised by 50 units for every 1/10th of a second (give or take (probably determined by processor speed)) that you hold down the button. Because most tools work rather quickly, it is usually best to use settings between 1 and 100 for most applications. It is better to make many small changes than to try and do everything at once.

Falloff - Similar to how it works within the landscape editor, falloff determines how affected things will be according to the distance away from the center of the tool. Simply put, a high falloff makes it so that the center of the tool has more effect than those areas near the edge, while a low falloff makes it so the edge of the tool is affected almost as much as the center. High for hills, low for plateaus.

 

 

Frequency - Determines the distance between features. Low frequency means more distance (smoother hills), high frequency means less distance (sharper hills).

Aplitude - Determines the height change the tool causes, or when used with fractal generation, determines the height of features. In most cases, this should also be set rather low. A combination of 1-5 amplitude, with higher frequencies can help create very rough terrain, but not too rough to be impassable.

Base Offset - Used almost completely within the internal fractal generator. Used for determining a minimum height for any feature.

Seed/New Seed button - Is used to determine the formula that is used by the noise tool and fractal generator. Noise generated with the same seed will have features in the same exact area, new seeds will change how the features are applied. When trying to add roughness to terrain, it is suggested to use a new seed after every pass through an area.  

Additive/Subtractive - Determines the behavior of the Noise tool, or the Fractal Generator. With additive checked, it will only cause changes that increase height. With subtractive checked, it will only cause changes that decrease height. If both are checked, the behavior will be the same as having both unchecked.  

*When used with the fractal generator, having additive or subtractive checked will apply the fractal generation over the existing landscape, creating a positive or negative change. If you have a frequency of 1, an amplitude of 1, a baseoffset of 1000, and have additive checked, the entire landscape within the 4 active quads will be raised by roughly 1000 units.

Random Seed - Causes the seed to change after every use of the Fractal Generator.

Persistence - Determines how quickly changes will be added with the noise tool (does not seem to affect other tools). Lower is usually better. Default setting is 50, a setting of 20 or so is suggested for most uses.

Octaves - Determines the roughness of features. Default setting is 8, 1 will create smooth features, settings above 8 seem to make no difference compared to 8, settings above 30 may cause errors.

Generate Button - Initializes the Fractal Generator, which will usually result in overwriting your terrain, or changing it in some horrible manner. Should only be used when you don't know what you want your worldspace to look like, or when this is something you want to happen.