User:TheMooseIsLoose

Blue Sky Noise Mapping Tutorial [Part 1/3] draft

-Uses terresculptor for heightmap work and gimp for diffuse texture, relies on SSMF for materializing

-all free! (but not all foss)

Primer

-Springmapedit aeonios version

-JAVA

-Gimp 2.9 unstable

-terresculptor standard

-a good text editor, Notepad++ or better

-blue texes/gimp .pats

-part 2 needs beherith DNTS pack, gimp dds plugin, featureplacer?, that metal spot widget from ZK repo, anarchid mex gfx placer

-you have at least 8gb of ram, right? gimp will become unpleasant to use if you start needing page file

-set gimp to single core

Heightmap with terresculptor and GIMP

-menu tools/settings/dimensions check power-of-two +1

-settings/rulers and units/ change units to "generic". Set 1 unit = 174 generic. 1 terresculptor height unit = 174 spring height units

-menu file/new project/ pick 1025

-generate noise/ clamp from bottom to make flatland / erosion / etc

-when ready to export, normalize first

-save as 16-bit greyscale png, mirroring either needs to be done with SME or GIMP (or requires premium terresculptor)

-if diagonal mirroring desired must be done with GIMP

-handpainted paths are also best added with gimp

-when ready, save from GIMP as 16-bit png again

-import terrain in terresculptor

-resample to different size if desired, final small erosion pass

-export heightmap

-Set altitude to desired ingame height. remember 174 spring units for every terresculptor unit. Spring height can be seen in the bottom right corner of altitude window.

-extract 3 slope masks at (degrees) 0 - 27.5, 27.5 - 55, 55-90

-optional 4th height mask for underwater, or snowy mountain caps

-save at least 1 colorset overlay, ensure auto-range colorset is checked

-we are now ready to texture in GIMP

Diffuse texturing with masks in GIMP

-put .pat files in correct folder

-preferences / increase tile cache size to 5-6gb or so

-create new image in gimp with correct diffuse texture dimensions [springmapsize x 64 x 8]. in this example they should be 8192x8192

-Image / Mode / set as RGB

-open as layers all the masks

-scale all layers to image size (cubic interpolation okay)

-in the layers tab top right shift-leftclick each layer to convert to a mask

-Ensure you are editing the layers for the next step, NOT the masks. In the layers dialog on the right, the thumbnail displayed on the left is the layer and the thumbnail on the right is the layer mask. Click on the respective icons to edit either the layer or the mask.

-paint bucket, fill whole selection, pattern, pick one of the brushwalker patterns. Use the tabbed dialogue in the lower right corner to filter patterns to only SpringMapping catagory. Do this for each mask layer, may take a while to fill each layer with tiles.

-open as layers the colormap(s)

-scale layer to image size again, then set layer mode on the right as color[LCH]. Adjust transparency on this layer to change amount of colorizing

-diffuse texture complete, export as .bmp with option "write space header" checked

testing in spring

-make new map in SpringMapEdit, set as 16x16

-import heightmap, must be correct dimensions or nothing will happen

-import texture, adjust height in map properties if you want to get a preview before compiling

-menu save as, choose name, this will save the 2 core .smf and .smt files

-put in blueprint or something. (expand on this)

-pick correct height you saw earlier in terresculptor

-start spring.exe and pick your map, Zero-K chobby will also work with .sdd directories with correct settings

-check pathing with f2, vehicle and walker boundaries should align with your texture

Distribution Map

-new image 1024x1024, mode greyscale

-set background color to absolute white

-same open as layers, scale to layer size procedure as before. convert layers to masks. You don't need to keep the aspect ratios of the layers, just make them square. This allows them to be stored most efficiently in GPU memory.

-paint bucket color white, whole selection, of each layer

-right click each layer and remove alpha channel

-image / components / compose , choose color model RGBA. Choose the red, green, blue, and alpha layers to be compiled

-image will likely now be invisible, check the channels tab top right to see your 4 chosen layers

-export as .png or .dds (dxt5)

Specular Map

-open diffuse texture .png with gimp

-scale to 1024x1024

-menu colors / levels and reduce output brightness by about 75%

-export as .png or .dds (dxt5)

Adding Metal spots

-enable local widgets in Zero-K, restart

-put the metal spot widget in correct directory, check enabled=true

-load ZK again, place metal spots with widget

-export, name map_metal_layout.lua, put in /mapconfig/

-put anarchid mex fgx widget in correct place. [or just pre-pack .sdd into archive and make tutorial reader download and extract it?]

Custom colormaps in TerreSculptor

-colormap export doesn't work atm unless autorange colorset is enabled, workaround is as follows:

-uncheck autorange colorset, adjust altitude to shift and constrain colormap. keep an eye on range.

-probably should set directional light to -90deg, or try and make it match ingame lighting (must be eyeballed)

-menu View, click Axis Tripod off

-Set camera to Top on toolbar, set mouse scroll speed to finest sensitivity, and zoom screen until the scene takes up as much space as it can.

-menu Tools, save screenshot

-Import into gimp, crop to content, and resize it up to your diffuse texture