Fractal Terrains 3 Upgrade just dropped...

[waldronate]

Try View>>Toolbars and Docking Windows>>Tool Options to bring up the Tool Options bar and it will let you set the tool options for tools as they are selected.

[waldronate]

The algorithms for generating terrain haven't changed from FT2 to FT3. As far as the interior lakes thing goes, those are artifacts of the basic terrain generation algorithm in the sense that they are areas below the base water level (0). You can paint water to raise or lower the lakes. Tools>>Actions>>Fill Basins as Lakes will fill the terrain with lakes at all altitudes, not just at 0.

[Mateus090985]

Try View>>Toolbars and Docking Windows>>Tool Options to bring up the Tool Options bar and it will let you set the tool options for tools as they are selected.

Thanks a lot! I would never find then there =)

[guyanonymous]

30000x16000 images require 480Msamples. At a minimum 8 bytes per sample (4 bytes for terrain and 4 bytes for color), that's 3.84GB before allowing room for the program or for the operating system. That's just for holding the output data. The working data takes much more than that for handling the editing data (4 bytes per sample for each of offset, scale, climate, water, ). 32-bit Windows programs get 2GB to work with per process (3 GB if you do ultra-special things behind the scenes to windows and the programs). Assuming that the full 2 GB of process space is available (which it really isn't), then that would give you a maximum output size on the order of 10000x5000 or so. FT isn't hugely efficient, so you'll probably get a little less than that.

Implementing a good virtual memory system was a bit outside the scope of the planned FT development. FT originally made some assumptions about maximum data sizes and further assumed that everything would fit into memory (yes, I was sloppy). Rewriting the system to work with a paged system would be a bit non-trivial because it would require rewrites of huge chunks of the system, with the attendant new bugs and likely breaking changes in some areas. Add in the performance wall when you run out of physical memory and it was just a bit risky for FT3 in my opinion.

I hear what you're saying (and understand it to an extent)...I was just hoping for something 64-bit based that could allow me to use my computer setup to capacity. With most new computers having 4-8GB of ram these days, and coming with 64bit windows by default (at least the one's I've seen friends/family picking up), I'd like to see more programs able to take advantage of that capacity. I do appreciate that instead of crashing, now, it tells me about memory limitations in the error message - but I'm still frustrated. I do know that I'm an extreme case in that I'm using FT Pro for art rather than role-playing, but that's just how I roll

I think I settled on 30000x______ because it was the maximum file size that Photoshop handled gracefully and that other programs could open when saved as bmp for use in the google-maps-ifier program I was using. It also corresponded, nicely, to the maximum zoom I was able to attain in FT Pro before the terrain pattern became more noticeable than the terrain shading it was providing (does that make sense?). When I zoomed more in FT Pro, the pattern used for terrain shading was more obviously a pattern, and less obviously shaded terrain.

I tend to go to extremes when doing things, but that said, I don't think outputting an image of the map at more than 7500 pixels in width is that extreme.

Do you think there's an easy fix/patch possible so that rivers don't get cut off 1-2 pixels from the edge of all multi-image outputs?

[waldronate]

There may or may not be a 64-bit version of FT one of these days. The reason I phrase it that way is that it's eays to make a mistake and create FTW files that aren't compatible between versions.

Do you think there's an easy fix/patch possible so that rivers don't get cut off 1-2 pixels from the edge of all multi-image outputs?

I have not observed this particular problem. It might be due to line clipping at the edge of the image, though. Example images might be helpful.

[Ramah]

Would you say that enough has changed in this version to warrant a new version number and having to pay again, Waldronate?

I guess you cannot say other than yes really but it does seem more update than upgrade. I would have thought the problems you mentioned through tackling virtual memory and paged system would be exactly the kind of thing tackled for a new version.

[waldronate]

This FT release was a little thinner than I had planned due to personal reasons that have made it a couple of years late already. As far as value for the dollar, I think that it is a fairly good ratio. It brings the FT product into line with the rest of ProFantasy's product set and avoids the issue with having to translate CC2 files into CC3 files (that's the primary justification for FT3 instead of something in the FT Pro group). It offers a number of useful upgrades and a few hidden features (for example, holding down Shift when doing Create on the Campaign Cartographer Export window allows output to SVG format - it's not fully-functional compared to the CC3 export, but it will get the basic contours out).

The textured climate shader is fun to play with and the addition of 16-bit PNG output is highly useful to certain folks. The Cosmographer export was updated (holding down Shift when picking the menu item will get you the older one, just in case). A whole lot of effort was put into making the program more stable and better able to handle low-memory conditions (something on the order of 100 user-reported issues were resolved).

A fair amount of time went into taking advantage of features of the newer compiler and windowing framework. Multiple rendering threads give a more responsive main window repaint on more capable hardware. It's compiled for SSE2, meaning what the code has crawled up the way up to the Pentium 4 era, at the cost of compatibility with some older hardware.

The $10 for upgrade isn't a bad deal and it will allow you to get the FT3 updates as they come out. I won't promise anything with regards to timing, but historically there have been significant new features that appear between paid upgrades (something on the order of ten official updates over the last ten years with a total of now two paid upgrades).

[ravells]

(for example, holding down Shift when doing Create on the Campaign Cartographer Export window allows output to SVG format - it's not fully-functional compared to the CC3 export, but it will get the basic contours out).

Wow, this alone is worth the upgrade for me! Only problem is that when I tried it, I came to this error message after going through the menu choices after pressing 'shift - create'. Any help would be muchly appreciated!

[waldronate]

Even though FT may want to install to the program files directory, it's generally been a good idea to not install it there because the system protections prevent programs from writing to that directory (it's a defect in FT from long ago that seems to have made it through the net). This particular problem may or may not be related to that, but I personally recommend installation other than in program files (or program files (x86) for you 64-bit users).

I'll put this one on the bug list. As much as I was hoping that most of the bugs were expunged before release, there are always a few after delivery.

[ravells]

Thanks Joe! uninstalled and reinstalled to the root of the C drive and it works fine now!

Thanks again!