Difference between revisions of "Fractal terrain"

How to add fractally generated terrain:

Ok, once you get FWE down and installed you are going to want to go and launch TESCS. Once you have the TESCS up you can either go through all of the rig-a-marol of loading data files, or if you just want to play around you can immediatly get started:

'''4.''' At this point you can either copy the settings fo the Tamriel world settings, or leave them as is, it will work fine either way.

'''9.''' Now what we HAVE to do due to the export function only exporting out height map data above sea level is reduce the sea level by ~4200 meters. This is accomplished under the '''''Processes->Lower Sea Level''''' option. Once you have lowered it by about that much your land should be looking much drier and even a bit cold in some places that it wasn't before. That is ok as this tool generates realistic climates as well as terrain based on a number of factors.

'''10.''' Once you have the sea level lowered to the appropriate point you are going to want to go under '''''File->Export to Binary'''''. This will bring up a new dialog box which will ask you what you want it saved as and how. Go ahead and hit the '''''Browse''''' button here and go out to your '''HeightField''' sub-directory under your '''Oblivion\Data''' directory. If it does not exist you will have to make it (it doesn't show up unless you've tried importing before). Once browsed out to there you want to enter in the name of '''0_0.raw''' into the filename field and hit '''''OK'''''. This will take you back to the export dialog box where you will want to select '''''16bit''''' before hitting '''''OK''''' (32 bit just makes it all come out flat).

'''12.''' With the heightmap editor open, select '''''File->import'''''. It will pop up a box mentioning the requirements which you can only hit '''''OK''''' on. Go ahead and hit '''''OK''''' and in a few seconds you should see alot more map than what you were looking at before. However it is still not in game yet.

'''13.''' Now you want to hit '''''file''''' and select '''''save'''''. What this does is automatically generate the cells and adjusts their height map based on the file previously imported. What I generally like to do while in the height map editor is move my cursor around the terrain and place it over an area that "should" be costal based on how it originally looked in the FWE, then check the lower left hand corner of the height map editor to find what cell it is in. At that point I close down the '''Heightmap''' editor and go to that cell in the cell editor window then check in the preview window to make sure everything looks right.

And there you have it you just imported some brand new, quickly generated terrain into your game. Now some notes on FWE, and importing terrain in general in TESCS. First, yes I realise that FWE does not generate really good terrain on the 1024x1024 setting. Don't get me wrong it does an AWESOME job, but piecing together a whole world from it would be quite a feat. Getting randomly generated terrain to all line up just right is near impossible I think; however, that being said it is absolutly awesome at generating whole entire worlds when you use the higher level settings (at the bottom of the generate land and water dialog box). By all means play around with it and you will see what I am saying, however if you do make sure to select the lwoest res full world map until you get one you like and then use the Map->Enlarge Globe function or else it will take forever to generate, especially on the highest setting. Now if some enterprising coder out ther could just find a way to right an app to go through the binary data files and automatically sift out and name what segments go where to break the entire generated world up into 1024x1024 pieces then everyone could rejoice as building worlds would be a cake walk.