Heightmap editor

The problem I've found with trying to do heightmaps with fractal programs is that you cannot really decide what you want that area to look like, and instead have to keep generating, adjusting settings, and such in hope that you'll eventually come across something good... Then you have to go through all the loops needed to import that map for each quad. The purpose of this article is to hopefuly provide some sort of alternative for those who know what they want their worldspace to look like.

A few things before we get started.

The heightmap editor should only be used in cases where your worldspace will be using up more than a 10x10 cell area. The heightmap editor generates cells for 4 entire quads, and may create much more land, and filesize than is practical for smaller projects, like islands. In the case of smaller worldspaces, the landscape editor is strongly suggested since these extra unused cells can be hard to remove.

The heightmap editor tends to be one of the most resource demanding aspects of the CS, so may not be something which everyone can use due to their hardware limitations. Generally, you need atleast 2gb of RAM to make the heightmap editor work, and may need 3gb if using Vista. Most causes of crashes from the heightmap editor occur due to the high RAM requirements needed to make it function.

With the exception of adding new quads, or generating LOD meshes, the Heightmap editor should only be used in the initial stages of any project. This is due not only to the mesh errors that occur at the corners of each quad upon saving, but also due to RAM requirements; smaller files have a less impact. Changes to a worldspace after things have been placed in that world should be done using the landscape editor.

The initial settings for brush strengths and color settings are just plain useless. For most projects, I would suggest using the color settings I have shown here; File:Heightmapsettingsaa4.jpg The important part is the height values linked to each of the colors. 4096 is roughly where 0 (default water) height is in the CS.

As long as you are working within the blue to brown to white range, you should be fine with heights. If you start going into pink, your worldspace may have mountains that are too tall, if you go into the black, most of that terrain will be hidden by the eventual LOD meshes.

The heights between points of your map are also important. Normally, differences of more than 2000 vertical units between two adjacent points of land (each point is arranged in a grid with distances of 128 between points) will make that area unable to be edited with the landscape editor. Differences greater than 4000 vertical units between adjacent points will make the whole cell error out. Meaning that you can't have very many steep, tall cliffs without careful use of the tools.

Before opening up the Heightmap editor, it is suggested that you have defined your worldspace in the CS, and saved as a .esp. Opening the heightmap editor before saving can cause some crash issues.

Getting started.

The toolbar looks something like this. File:Toolbar.jpg From left to right the buttons are: Save, Undo*, Grid on/off, Color Settings, Box Select, Lasso Select, Level Tool, Raise Tool, Lower Tool, Soften Tool, Noise Tool, Smudge Tool, Preview, Overview on/off, Paint Height, and Eyedropper.

• The undo tool is essentially useless in the heightmap editor since even a very brief usage of any tool creates dozens of individual changes. If you make a mistake, you will either need to work over that area again using other tools, or close the heightmap editor without saving (x in the corner), and start over again from scratch.

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.

Noise Parameters Applies to noise tool and internal fractal generation.

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

The key to using the heightmap editor is using many small changes to get things how you want instead of trying to do it all at once. The intensity/amplitude for any brush should never be above 100 (other than the Soften Tool which needs to be in the 1000+ range to do anything) since the brush works rather quickly. Falloff can be useful for adjusting how steep of a change you want based on the center of the radius to its edge. Smoothing and flatening can be rather useful in certain situations.

Frequency works with the noise brush, lower frequency means greater distance between features, higher frequency means a shorter distance between features. A setting of 100-200 will make for a very rugged terrain, a setting of around 40 will make for terrain that is bumpy, without being too much. Using various brush size, intensity, amplitude, frequency, falloff settings along with additive/subtractive, and various seeds can make this tool rather useful in areas that you want a bit of variation, like coastlines, hills, or with very slight settings, can help avoid having those perfectly flat plains. Using subtractive can also make for some interesting canyon formations.

The erosion settings can also be rather useful to use somewhere between when you have most of your landmass setup, and before you start doing those smaller touches to keep things interesting.

You can do quite alot with the heightmap editor, you just need to be willing to take the time to learn how to use it. All of my worldspace work has been either in the heightmap editor or the landscape editor, both have given me the kinds of results I've wanted.