Creating and Texturing Terrains with Terranim8or
This tutorial is written for Terranim8or v7 and explains how to:
A. create terrains with Terranim8or
B. UV map and texture terrains
The sample images below show Terranim8or terrains textured with TAN8 UV mapping
and texturing method
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A. Creating terrains with Terranim8or
Terranim8or allows for terrain creation using either height maps, or random
generation.
Creating terrains using height maps
A height map is a gray tones image, where the luminosity of each pixel is interpreted by Terranim8or as the elevation (height) of the corresponding point of the terrain. Height maps are created by users in art programs, generated by specialized software, or downloaded from the net. Height maps allow for obtaining exactly the desired terrain shape. On the other hand, it’s not so easy to make by hand a height map generating a realistic terrain shape.
Here is the work flow:
1. Click Build > Terrain > From Height Map
2. In the “Terrain From Image” editor, load the height map
pressing Load Image... button. A thumbnail image will appear. It may be
distorted and of low quality, but never mind – it’s just to confirm your
selection.
3. Set the number of x, z divisions and the size you want for the terrain. When
setting the values for the divisions and terrain size, try to keep the same
proportions as the height map’s (width -1)/ (height.-1).
Example: Making a terrain from an image of width 400 and height 300, you should have the x divisions / z divisions ratio (and x size / z size ratio) equal to 399/299. Generally, this cannot be accomplished because we have integer numbers as divisions, but should keep the closest match.
4. Set the desired terrain height (the y coordinate of the highest point).
5. Check the values are correct, then click OK.
Terranim8or creates the terrain according to the settings you entered. Notice
that:
- color images could be used instead of gray tones images as maps
- the number of divisions for a terrain is limited only by the available system
memory, so a highly detailed terrain can be generated
- the most accurate “image to terrain” conversion is obtained when the
number of points in the terrain equals the number of pixels in the image. This
happens when setting the number of divisions to the image’s pixel size – 1.
- black pixels in the image correspond to the lowest position of the terrain,
while pure white to the highest elevation (given by “Y” parameter).
- a negative height value inverts the meaning of white and black.
Example:
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This height map is obtained after smoothing in Paint Shop Pro the first
height map image I found browsing the web. It is a 292x264 pixel size image. We load it in the
Terrain From Image
editor. We are going to convert it in a high resolution terrain. This is
accomplished choosing the terrain resolution to match exactly the image
resolution. The number of points along the x axis will be equal to the image’s
width and the number of points along z axis will equal the image’s height.
Though in the Terrain From Image editor we set the divisions - not the
number of points, anyone should know this basic equality:
Number of divisions = Number of points – 1 (The number of divisions could be interpreted also as the number of faces along a side of the terrain). |
| So, we shall set the x–divisions to 291 and
z-divisions to 263. The terrain’s size is set as we whish, but the x/z ratio
should be 291/263 to keep the faces square shaped. We choose 128 for x-size and
128*291/263 = 115.683 for z-size. For Y (max. height) parameter we leave the
default 40. See the image on the right for the settings. After clicking OK, we get this terrain (see below) |
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It’s not the most convincing terrain for sure, but it’s exactly what the
height map shows. Some parts of the terrain have stair shaped slopes due to
sudden intensity changes in the image. In the last part of this tutorial we will
texture this terrain. |