Import height map to fractal terrains?

[kacey]

Is it possible to create a basic height map in Photoshop by hand and then import it to fractal terrains for further editing? Every time I try to import something all I get is a blue screen...What am I doing wrong? Do I need to save my file in a special format for it to work? I like the way I can rough up coast lines in fractal terrains but I'd like to bring in my own base map first so I can have more control over the land forms...Is this possible.

I know you can go from fractal terrains to Wilbur and back, but can I go from photoshop to fractal terrains or is it even possible to go from photoshop to wilbur to fractal terrains?

Thanks in advance for any help, this is really frustrating me.

Edit...I also wonder if it's possible to customize the interface in fractal terrains like you can in Photoshop or zbrush? The next world buttons are in an awful spot for using on my tablet, is it possible for me to move the buttons to the bottom right of the interface?

[waldronate]

Yes. You need to realize that it will be an 8-bit resolution height map because FT will treat your 24-bpp image as an 8-bit grayscale value by combining the RGB values. You will also need to handle your own projection: FT wants equirectangular as its input.

1 ) Make your map in photoshop with black as lowest and white as highest.
2 ) Flip this image vertically because FT will load it upside down when using it as a selection.
3 ) Save this file as a Windows BMP file.
4 ) Figure what you want your highest and lowest grayscale values to be (for simplicity, I'll assume that 0 grayscale is 0 altitude, and 255 grayscale is 10000 altitude).
5 ) Start FT, set your desired world resolution, and use Tools>>Global Set>>Land Roughness Edit with a value of 0 to get rid of the existing fractal stuff.
6 ) Use Select>>Load Selection and pick your file from Photoshop. You should see he crawling ants outline at about grayscale value 128 in your input file.
7 ) Use Tools>>Global Set>>Land Offset Edit with a value of the altitude span (in this case, 10000 max - 0 min = 10000).
8 ) Use Select>>Deselect to get rid of the existing selection.
9 ) Use Tools>>Global Lower>>Land Offset with a value that is needed to get the grayscale value at sea level to 0 altitude in FT (in this case 0 grayscale is 0 altitude, so the value would be 0).
10 ) Admire your handiwork.

You should be able to drag toolbars wherever you'd like them. You should also be able to click on those funny arrows at the end of each toolbar to add or remove whatever buttons you'd like. You can also "Customize" on that item to increase icon size (blurrier). These customizations are saved in the registry and will be valid only on your current machine and your current account, unfortunately.

[kacey]

Thanks Waldronate this is really helpful I’m going to go give it a try right now... I really appreciate the help.

[kacey]

It worked, but now the painting tools aren't working properly. I tried using the raise tool and got smooth lines so I though maybe I need to raise the roughness and everything just got really speckled and weird. I'm not sure if what I'm after is possible in FT, but I was hoping to be able to bring in a basic land shape and then Use the FT painting tools to do things like roughen the coast or raise and lower the land or change the North Pole position...Is this possible in this programme or am I asking it to do things that it just can't do?

[waldronate]

It's possible, just not pleasant.

For roughness, think of that initial world that you wiped out by setting the land roughness channel to 0. That world was visible because there was a value of 1 in that channel to start (0 = no fractal value; 1 = max fractal value; more than 1 = extreme fractal value, tending toward speckles as the value gets large). For best results in just roughening the world, use Map>>World Settings, select the "Fractal Function" tab, and set the Method item to "fBm with Perlin's Improved Noise" (you may or may not want to open the "Parms" button and set octaves to a higher values than 12, like 20). Then go to the "Secondary" tab, and turn off the Continental Shelves checkbox. Those two settings will make the underlying world into a nice and fuzzy noiseball without too much in the way of discontinuities.

Just painting with a land offset brush is probably going to get you uninteresting blobs wherever you paint. You can make a brush image that has interesting noise using something like Photoshop (or make a mountainous island image in Wilbur as shown in http://fracterra.com/FunWithWilburVol6/index.html ) and use that image as a brush image by clicking the "C" button on the painting toolbar when a paint tool is selected to get the custom toolbrush dialog.

You would probably be well-served by making a land=white and sea=black mask image from your original world. This image will let you quickly select your intended original land areas (load the mask image as a selection), sea areas (load the mask and use Select>>Inverse), and coastlines (load the mask image and use Select>>Modify>>Border).

Now that you have some preliminaries out of the way, load up the land mask and use Tools>>Global Set>>Land Roughness Edit with a value of about 0.1 or 0.05 to get a little roughness on top of your world. If you want to paint by hand, I recommend a value of 0.01 or less for the roughness paintbrush value. Painting with a value of 1 or less for offset editing is also advisable because you want to avoid seeing the exact value of the brush.

Changing the north pole position does not move editing data, unfortunately, so it won't work with a world done in this manner.

[kacey]

Thank you so much Waldronate, changing these few settings really made painting by hand in FT allot easier.