[Tutorial]How to make good non-real world scenarios

[LordAzamath]

After making my first scenario for OpenTTD (not yet published, for it was a map for wwottdgd) I came to this section, to see more custom maps.. And I found only maps based on real world (heightmaps of real places) or maps which are tile-by-tile edited in scenario editor..

So this tutorial is to get more nice scenarios which are not anyway related to some real things..

1. Part - Deciding

- Open a decent image editor.. Photoshop, GIMP or something like them.. This tutorial is just for GIMP though
- Now new image - You have to decide the dimensions of the map now.. If you want 1024*1024, then that's exactly the same size you should make your new file. This time I decided to make a long and noodly map 1024*512.
- Now open the menu Filters => Render => Clouds => Solid noise:
Tweak the values of x and y so that the noise preview would be as you like it.. Add some detail too so you see the preview getting noisier. Now press OK.

Currently you should have something like this:

step1.png (164.03 KiB) Viewed 639 times

2. Part - Modifying heightmap

- Now we dont want such map as heightmap because the edges will be bad..

badbad1.png

(34.18 KiB) Downloaded 214 times

- We add a border to the picture.. Select all [ctrl+a] Then from Selection menu, click on border. Select Feather edges. I put the border width to 50 pixels, but that may vary..
- You should make now a new layer and fill the selection with black. You should have something like this now..

step2.png (136.57 KiB) Viewed 629 times

Continued in the next post...

[LordAzamath]

- This is still not what we wanted, try it in heightmap loader in OpenTTD and you see sharpness and bad edges everywhere, we'll deal with it later.. Now we are adding some nice stuff.. Let's say I want to divide the map to lot's of areas.. let's take 4..
- You just have to make (yet another) layer and select paintbrush tool [p] Take a very feathered brush and enlarge it.. I have set keyboard shortcuts for it, but just open the File menu in main GIMP window, press Keyboard Shortcuts. There find a place Tools and 'Increase Brush Size'. Set this and Decresas.... to some good shortcuts.. I have them at 2 and 3.. Well.. Make your fuzzy brush bigger and paint (on the new layer you created) 1) Something to the corners, so they would be more roundy. Then add black stripes to where you want the waterways to be to separate areas..

step3.png (156.74 KiB) Viewed 588 times

Now try it what scenario editor tells ya..
IMO it's still like a bunch of rubber ducks.. So let's add some variation.. To make the map more heighty, increase contrast of the base layer.. (Colours -> Brightness-Contrast) Not too much though.. And you might want to make the map more bright too (higher areas..) Sometimes you need to lower contrast though, if it's too much.. Play around with the values.

step4.png (161.09 KiB) Viewed 562 times

Adding some variety

Now the whole map is just some weird up-down thing. Let's add highlights and shadows too..
- Make a selection with ellipse selector.. Use shift to add to selection rather than to replace

step5.png (187.75 KiB) Viewed 583 times

Continued in the next post...

[LordAzamath]

- Selection -> Feather Edges I made again 50 pixels..And now add two new layers, but be sure thay are under the previous highlight layers, but on top of the base.. Fill one layer (in the selection) with black and the other with white.. And then lower the opacity of both layers.. You should have something like this..

step6.png (153.98 KiB) Viewed 560 times

Now in scenario editor things are still strange.. That's why I wanted to keep everything in separate layers, you can CHANGE the base layer, to rerender the clouds with other settings and you won't lose the highlights.. I rerendered clouds with double sizes for x and y.. 16 and 8 instead of 8 and 4..

step7.png (188.16 KiB) Viewed 639 times

By now, you should have a playable map when you decide to play only on heightmaps.. But if you decide to define which industries where are, then there are options in scenario editor like place random towns and place random industries.. Thanks to the selective loading of industries in minimap, you can also delete some types of industries in some regions (effectively having only two or three primaries in one region, while the respective secondarys are in other regions to enforce cooperation.. (with shared infrastructure patch it can be quite interesting for multiplayer)) or place towns where you want etc.

And with this you have made a nice scenario without lifting a single tile with ingame tools.. This technique can be adapted to quite interesting things and by adding your own ideas you could make pretty interesting scenarios.. This one wasn't so much interesting, biut for teaching basics about how to make custom scenarios which aren't based on real world..

I won't add towns and industries to this one, because it was just a tutorial scenario and you can load it when you load step7.png in 'Load Heightmap'..
To see another outcome of this, please join #wwottdgd and that scenario has industries and towns controlled and added..