How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

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Eisenbaehr
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by Eisenbaehr »

Oh yes. I see the problem. Stockholm is in the year 2030 too :D

Watch Norway's mountain Glittertind, it looks like the highest mountain of the whole map. Try to find this on the OpenTTD-map. Next try to upper this highest point.

> Otherwise the map is to low or some mountains are flattened.

I will see what I can do.

> I don't mind if the map isn't turned 45 degrees

You say this map is rotated correctly or not?? I don't understand this enough ;)
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by jostor »

I'm used to playing with the real north to the north-west in game. 45 degree difference from what you posted would be what I'm after :)
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by Eisenbaehr »

Can you open an own thread for this task?
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by Vizoros »

Hey guys, I've been trying to make a height map of the Island of Ireland for a while now, but keep getting into trouble when it comes to merging the three DEMs that I have, I've been able to follow the steps until that point.

Could anyone please advise me on what to do? Or even do it for me explaining how you did it, that would be great thanks! :)
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by JoseWeeks »


As always, great work dude, quite beneficial suggestions to both beginners and experts. Really appreciable !!!!
Last edited by Chrill on 02 Jul 2013 22:36, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Edited the long quote
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by Chrill »

JoseWeeks: Please try to not post such excessively large quotes. While your feedback is welcome and appreciated, such quotes are simply too long. I've taken the liberty of editing your post. :)
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by TinyMusic »

I'm not sure if this question is asked already, but is there a way to add rivers in MicroDEM? Do I need to download extra data files or something?
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by Eddi »

OpenTTD has no method (yet) to read rivers integrated into heightmaps, you have to put them in manually in the scenario editor
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by TinyMusic »

Eddi wrote:OpenTTD has no method (yet) to read rivers integrated into heightmaps, you have to put them in manually in the scenario editor
I meant drawing rivers in MicroDEM with a black line, so it would be sea level.
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by kamnet »

No, because in those heightmaps, black is sea level. Actual rivers are never at sea level, and exist at every height above sea level. MicroDEM is not a drawing tool, it only interprets the scientific data into a more human-readable form.

OpenTTD's ability to read heightmaps is just based only on simple colors. So when it sees a black line crossing several other shades of grey, should it interpret that as a river running down several heights, or should it interpret that as a river that has cut a deep gorge into the landscape, or should it interpret that as two masses of land separated by a very thin section of sea?
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by YNM »

Maybe by implementing a portion of the new heightmap features that rivers are drawn as blue pixles over the existing grayscale heightmap ? I'm not sure how hard is that, but from my viewpoint there will be some incompatibility in terrain (height) generation and river generation as one may notice when generating scenarios/game.
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by bokkie »

You might want to have a look at http://wiki.openttd.org/Terkhen/Scenario_format
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by YNM »

Oh yes, I meant that. Quite hard whether to class it as heightmap or scenario I guess.
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by AlexG »

how can I generate maps with microdem? Ive tried different softwares and tehniques...I can' t bypass Data Manipulation and merge different dems. I wanted for an Europe map on 2x4096 size and some particular countries but since last week, I couldn't advance to much with it...
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by TinyMusic »

Sadguardian wrote:how can I generate maps with microdem? Ive tried different softwares and tehniques...I can' t bypass Data Manipulation and merge different dems. I wanted for an Europe map on 2x4096 size and some particular countries but since last week, I couldn't advance to much with it...
The description at the OP uses an older version of Microdem, so you don't use Data Manipulation. To merge DEMs together, click Open, then Open and Merge DEM, and pick the DEMs that you want to merge
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by YNM »

... Either that or the fact that it takes a whale of time to open, merge, and present those DEM datas to you (depends on your specs, through). IMO general it's a hell easier to make the heightmaps separately, then merge them using image editing program.
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by AlexG »

No luck so far....I tried to make something in microdem (I did got further with the Merging step) but now, some water (Black Sea) are showed in black squares and the Mediterranean Sea doesn't look correct placed :roll: Some ideas ?
I want to mention that when I did download the SRTM data, the London server did work a bit slow and in the very first time (without modifications), one grid was with black squares...
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by E C G »

How To Generate Suberb Heighmaps on Mac:

OTTD does a really good job at reading heightmaps, and reading this topic has inspired me to also create some real world scenario's.

But since I have a Mac, I had to use a different program, and so I decided to share this. Also I'd like to promote my upcoming scenario, hehe.

So here's what I used:

1. Google Earth + the SRTM 4.1 plug-in (link in OP)
2. SimpleDEMviewer - https://www.jizoh.jp/english.htmlglish.html
3. Photoshop
4. OTTD

I know Photoshop is not free-ware, but since it's what I used, I thought I might aswell include it.

How To:
1. Google Earth
As explained, through SRTM you can just click on one or more of the heightmap-links shown in the red circle to download the DEM file.

Image

2. SimpleDEMviewer
Now use SimpleDEMviewer to open the image downloaded from Google Earth. Now you have to convert it to a greyscale image.

Select -> Tools -> Greyscale

To make sure that the image makes a clear difference between the sea and the lowest land-mass, we increase the default land-height by 100. Also set sea level to 0.

Now create the greyscale and save the image.

Image

3. Photoshop
The greyscale is already usable, but will not work nicely for OTTD because of the resolution. Also in some cases you want to get rid of a big body of water and focus on (specific)land rather. I do this in Photoshop.

First I edit the Image Size and scale down the image by 20%, just to make sure I can use most of the image's landscape.
Next I edit the Canvas Size. This is a very nice tool, since it allows you to get rid of most of the water and you can immediately set the right pixel resolution.

The geography of my map allows for a nice rectangular OTTD map, this is 1024 x 2048
So in the Canvas Tool I want it to adjust the Width to 1024 pixels and the Hight to 2048 pixels.
Before I adjust the size, I anchor the image to the right side of the canvas. This will make sure that any adjustments will use the right size of the image as the base, and so that will stay intact.

Now just save the new OTTD-proof image as a PNG file...

Image

4. ...and open it in OTTD with the same resolution settings.

As you can see, I am creating the South African Cape with most of it's West Coast District. Through Town Planning and Urban Design internships in Cape Town I've studied the Cape and the District's Spatial Development Frameworks. I have learned a lot about this area and now I just want to recreate that into an OTTD Scenario.

Hopefully I will be able to show some results in the Scenario section soon!
Attachments
Google Maps with SRTM 4.1 Data
Google Maps with SRTM 4.1 Data
Screen Shot 2013-10-22 at 2.37.05 PM.jpg (88.19 KiB) Viewed 18073 times
Photoshop - Canvas Size Tool
Photoshop - Canvas Size Tool
Screen Shot 2013-10-22 at 2.42.23 PM.png (273.18 KiB) Viewed 5522 times
SimpleDEMviewer - Greyscale Tool
SimpleDEMviewer - Greyscale Tool
Screen Shot 2013-10-22 at 2.40.34 PM.jpg (155.27 KiB) Viewed 5522 times
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Re: How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

Post by E C G »

To add to my above post:

Before importing the final greyscale, decide on what newGRFs to use, as it's very difficult to change this once you first saved your edited greyscale.

So decide what kind of scenario you want to make out of your greyscale, what industries should be there, everything. Especially if you work on a huge map, where a lot of work goes into landscaping and placing industries it can be a big slap in the face to discover you have to rework the scenario... from the ground up...

If you want to share your scenario then also keep the public in mind. Some people might really like to play your scenario but not with some 'out of theme' newGRFs or they want to keep the newGRFs to a minimum. Etc.

I have now started to do some concept development on my imported greyscale. Identifying the right locations of towns, rivers, industries and mountains and labeling them accordingly. Since you can create a greyscale out of your OTTD scenario, I might point out towns by raising mountains and lowering rivers, just incase I need to reload my newGRFs.

Then once I feel I'm confident with all the settings, I will start adding in all the cities, towns, hamlets, rivers and industries... O.o But for a student in town-planning and urban design, thats actually lots of fun. Hehe

Here's a first look at my scenario.
http://www.tt-forums.net/download/file. ... &id=174736
Attachments
Screen Shot 2013-10-22 at 2.45.39 PM.png
The Cape Peninsula in OTTD.
(383.96 KiB) Downloaded 10 times
Last edited by planetmaker on 22 Oct 2013 15:09, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: un-inlined large image - it broke forum layout
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