Map 34 - The Eastern Reaches of Khaluk

[pythagorasaur]

I asked if there was a height map for this area but alas this island region on the left was just photoshopped up and its going to come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that mine will be in 3D. The reason is that its more effort up front but less effort downstream if you like the kind of realistic terrain that I do. I have also mentioned about three times in the past my method for making 3D terrain out of 2D and this is a chance for me to actually post some attachments at every stage so its more obvious.

So starting with my mask (see top post of this thread) I did an edge detect on it and got the border out as a line (i.e. an all white page with just a line land border on it). Then I printed it on a sheet of A4 - though you could do this next part digitally if you like. With a blank land and only a line for the border, draw on the edge boundary rectangle which encloses the land border line so that you can cut it out later. Then start putting on contours with a fine pencil or better still a thin draftsman's pen. Look at where the existing rivers are and guess where the high ground must be in order to drive the water into them. Working from the peaks downwards, draw the concentric lines so that they dont touch. Clearly in real contours they could but its going to make work for you later if you do. Work down to the land border and then continue past it out to sea. Then I scanned back in my drawing (Pic 1). Then whack the contrast up to max so there are only full black and full white pixels in it. Tidy it up a bit so the contours still dont touch and then flood fill the bands black and white like a zebra. Start at the highest peak and work down. (See Pic 2).

Then again, tidy it up some more till your happy and also try to make the white and black bands about even sized. Then count the number of bands from highest peak to lowest part of the sea. Mine was 19. Divide 255 by 19 and pick a number which is a bit lower. I used 12. Then, starting at the highest peak, if its white then leave it, if its black then also leave it for the mo and come back to it. Take the next band which lets say was black, fill it with 255 - 12 which is 243. Flood fill the next white band 231 etc and work down. Finally, go back and sort out the first band if it was black to start with make it 255. Now I started at the lowest point of the sea and made that 0 and worked up but I got into a pickle so start at the high point and work down. (See the 2D Pic 3).

This in 3D looks like Pic 4 so blur it a lot until it evens out the bands. Thats 2D Pic 5 and in 3D Pic 6.

Thats about as far as you can go before needing touch up in a 3D editor but its enough to get you relief shading if working in 2D. Theres still a little banding in it but thats the limitation of 8 bit greyscale and ill put it into my 3D app and smooth it some more then it will be better. So for now thats where I am up to.

Edit: Ordered my images ok now.
Edit2: Picture order is still a bit ropey but you get the idea.

Hi there! I'm looking to do something like this (I've already got my topo) but I have absolutely no idea what tool I should use to make a 3D version of it. I'd appreciate it a lot if you could tell me what software you used for this!
Also, sorry for reviving such an old thread; unfortunately it's the only one that is related to what I'm attempting.

[Redrobes]

The height map is usually the hard bit and that post you quoted was the method I use to make the height map. Normally there are apps about which generate random heights which lead to terrain but that wont fit into a predefined space like we had for this challenge / community world section.

Once you have the height map / topo then its up to you what you want to do with it. I have a little app which can take the height map and show it in 3D. I dont have a windows copy of that locally right now but I called it DragonFlight. But there are many other ways to view a topo in 3D not least by using Blender and importing it and doing a displacement on a square which has a lot of polygons in it. I think there are posts about that on the forum somewhere.

For me personally, once I have the 3D height scaled to the correct real world sort of values then I use a programmable shader to tell it that stuff below 0 is under the sea then low values is sand then higher is dirt and grass then higher still is rocks and then at the top is snow and mountain tops. You can do that by hand using masks and Gimp. Its not too hard, but its easier if you have a tool to do that with. So most of what I did in this thread was done in 2D and then put into my DragonFlight with the height map to show it in 3D.

If your really wanting to get into the 3D terrain stuff then there are many apps specifically for this. We have Wilbur which does a great job of creating and importing height map terrain and fixing up issues that you get with randomly generated terrain - that one is free. Also Vue, Terragen, WorldMachine, L3DT, World-Creator, etc which I believe are all paid apps. But Blender is very capable and free and you can import your height map and texture into that just like I did and render out scenes similarly. And Blender is completely free so Gimp + Wilbur + Blender is the route I would go down if I didnt have my tool set.

Some of my tools I have uploaded and have as a service. Most of these are 2D and not specifically tailored to making 3D terrain but I could do one where you load in the topo and it renders out the preformatted shaded version with all of the under sea, grass, mountains etc. Anyway, here is the link to that thread with the instructions:
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=49031

Edit: Have a search around for posts like this:
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=36941

Or check out Blender Nation or YouTube blender videos showing how to do displacement maps.

(If anyone has done a good blender displacement tut here then post the link below).

[pythagorasaur]

The height map is usually the hard bit and that post you quoted was the method I use to make the height map. Normally there are apps about which generate random heights which lead to terrain but that wont fit into a predefined space like we had for this challenge / community world section.

Once you have the height map / topo then its up to you what you want to do with it. I have a little app which can take the height map and show it in 3D. I dont have a windows copy of that locally right now but I called it DragonFlight. But there are many other ways to view a topo in 3D not least by using Blender and importing it and doing a displacement on a square which has a lot of polygons in it. I think there are posts about that on the forum somewhere.

For me personally, once I have the 3D height scaled to the correct real world sort of values then I use a programmable shader to tell it that stuff below 0 is under the sea then low values is sand then higher is dirt and grass then higher still is rocks and then at the top is snow and mountain tops. You can do that by hand using masks and Gimp. Its not too hard, but its easier if you have a tool to do that with. So most of what I did in this thread was done in 2D and then put into my DragonFlight with the height map to show it in 3D.

If your really wanting to get into the 3D terrain stuff then there are many apps specifically for this. We have Wilbur which does a great job of creating and importing height map terrain and fixing up issues that you get with randomly generated terrain - that one is free. Also Vue, Terragen, WorldMachine, L3DT, World-Creator, etc which I believe are all paid apps. But Blender is very capable and free and you can import your height map and texture into that just like I did and render out scenes similarly. And Blender is completely free so Gimp + Wilbur + Blender is the route I would go down if I didnt have my tool set.

Some of my tools I have uploaded and have as a service. Most of these are 2D and not specifically tailored to making 3D terrain but I could do one where you load in the topo and it renders out the preformatted shaded version with all of the under sea, grass, mountains etc. Anyway, here is the link to that thread with the instructions:
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=49031

Edit: Have a search around for posts like this:
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=36941

Or check out Blender Nation or YouTube blender videos showing how to do displacement maps.

(If anyone has done a good blender displacement tut here then post the link below).

Thank you so much for this! My main issue is indeed creating the height map from the topo. I'll try using wilbur and blender, but learning everything on my own from scratch is such a travail haha. Also thank you for those tools you linked, the grid removal one seems especially useful for what I'm trying to do .

[johnvanvliet]

i have been using blender for many years , if you need help just PM me
I check this site about twice a week so it might be a few days before i respond