20 heavily eroded and terraced 32x32 empty areas made with L3DT and imported with YATT waiting to be populated with creatures, placeables, triggers, grass, rocks, trees, etc., and texture blended. The maps are roughly half rolling area with 1-4 eroded and terraced hills. Nearly all the walkmeshs require little to no touching up. The area transitions work but need attention. The areas are not designed to fit together but are connected for convenience.
YATT imports your L3DT Height and Alpha maps into the toolset. The YATT website explains what pixel sizes your L3DT maps must be in order for YATT to succeed. You will have to resize your L3DT maps accordingly either on export from L3DT or in an image viewer/editor such as Irfanview(it's free last I checked).
When you resize your map, you will also have to translate the max and min altitude of the L3DT height map if you have not already accounted for this in L3DT via the horizontal scale in the Design Map dialog.
Otherwise, your map will be stretched or squashed when you import it into the toolset. It is possible you may like this effect.
You can find the max altitude in L3DT by right clicking and choosing Operations->Heightfield-->Change vert. scale. Note, I messed up and set the wrong min height on all these maps. The result is that for each map, half of it is below sea level.
The smaller the L3DT tile count, the faster L3DT operates, but the smaller the resolution. I find that this is not a problem as cluttered terrain is a pain to maneuver through, and with the right settings, L3DT will crumple and roll the terrain so the eye is not bored, and leave the terrain usable.
The Design Map is the first map that L3DT makes. It is a grid and rough layout for the whole project. You can control a number of parameters in each grid. You can place mountains, plateaus, and seas. Change climate, erosion, terracing, lake formation, peaks, ridges, rolling, height on a grid by grid basis by clicking on each grid or brushing them on. You can also make changes on the entire map as a whole.
In retrospect, I should have tweaked the Design Map before I released my maps. I could have placed some mountains, plateaus, or seas to highlight the no-walk areas better.
Wow, I love these areas. I'm adding trees now and plan on using them as screen shot stages.. Thanks so much for making these.
Posted by nicethugbert at 2008-10-1422:03:22
The baron rosencheckl seal of approval? :O *faints* _________________________ NTB's Hills and Valleys Vol. 00
Posted by baron at on10/14/08
Really very attractive, prefab areas any mod maker would be proud to use.
Posted by jaz at 2008-10-1414:08:05
Oops. I see you already did that. :)
Posted by jaz at 2008-10-1414:06:48
Nice work. Perhaps you could release the L3DT files too? That way folks can make their own size area or even super areas with these images (in YATT).
Posted by nicethugbert at 2008-10-1410:36:44
Months of saying "NEAT!" have finally paid of. I have brain washed the populace. I now have my minions. NEAT! I even have one very enthusiastic one. He's probably an usurper. :) I've had in mind the making of a tutorial but I am not yet ready. All of this is trial and error and I do not yet understand all the L3DT terms. That's why I supply the L3DT files. So that people can experiment starting with those. You can generate new maps using many of the previous maps settings, or tweak them. Yes, I have plans for more of these. I already have a number of 2x2 and 3x3 grids of connected 32x32 tile areas done in L3DT. I have to import them into the toolset. L3DT also has all sorts of brushes and tools to further tweak a map or make it from scratch by hand. It's amazing. _________________________ NTB's Hills and Valleys Vol. 00
Posted by MokahTGS at on10/14/08
This is great!! I really hope you plan on more of these. Here's some ideas: Islands (volcanic and eroded cliffs), deep canyons, river valleys, rough mountains. Keep up the good work! _________________________ Mokah - The Grumpy Strumpet || Dear Strumpet Letters || Jabberwocky Development Blog || Vertex I - The State of the Union ||
Posted by The at on10/14/08
Some of these are great for random encounters and just some random wilderness areas.
Posted by NeVerSun at on10/14/08
To say it in our, very annoying, words: NEAT! (hehe ;) _________________________ My NWVault-Prefabs
Posted by [MD]Sephiroth at on10/14/08
Excellent work! Could you spend some time on a tutorial using L3DT and YATT please? _________________________ Serveur Action/Rôle persistant : FR] Les Terres dechirees Electro-pop Music : Shed
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