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Using MicroDem for land areas with no coast - a question. - Printable Version

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Using MicroDem for land areas with no coast - a question. - dunkelgrun - 29.08.2008

Ok, followed Clockwatcher's tutorial and encountered no problems whatsoever making map_h for an inland area.
However when I come to map_c that shouldn't be a problem either but it is. You see, the lowest point of elevation on my map is 74m - no sea level. So I can draw the rivers on as normal but reducing the map height on map_h along the rivers down to 0 metres is going to leave me with 74m cliffs at either side at the edge of the map - further inland they're going to be huge.
I know what I need - a .dbf height table that begins with 74m = RGB 0,0,0, but I've no idea how to make or modify one. Another alternative might be to darken map_h sufficiently enough to change 74m (RGB 80,80,80) to RGB 0,0,0; but I don't know how to do that or what effect it might have on the rest of the elevation.

Sorry this is so long-winded but does anyone have a clue?

:cheers:

- fly_zo - 29.08.2008

.... i didn't find any other way than editing elevation for inland rivers manually .

Here is what i did ( if that can help...)

1 painted rivers on separate layer ( when making map_c)

2 saved as temp file and re-sized to map_h dimension ( 4x smaller)

3 pasted river layer in map_h.tga

4 applied color overlay and stroke effect ( 1-2pix out) for river layer so i had areas little wider than rivers

5 adjusted color (shade) to one rang of elevation present on map ( example. high mountains )

6 pasted river layer again , erased part that covers high mountains and applied same effect just with slightly darker shade ( to match medium high areas )

7 same thing for lower areas

8 manually edited elevation borders so i had gradually color change


so final result looks like this :

[Image: map_h.jpg]

- asheshouse - 30.08.2008

I guess that the ground levels for inland areas should be left high so that the game engine knows the correct altitude for engine performance etc.

However what you could do is to use a technique similar to to adding road/rail. In your image editor make a new layer with a single RGB shade to represent 74m level. Then merge layers, subtracting the new layer value from the master layer.

This is just a thought, I havn't tried it so it may not be that easy.

- zipzapp - 30.08.2008

While waiting for my computer to compile some files i wrote this little tool:

http://files.filefront.com/lowerexe/;11650745;/fil

Usage:

Put "lower.exe" and your map_h.tga in the same folder. Run lower.exe. Type at the prompt "Niedriger:" the wished lowering value. It's not Meter but the greyscale value you want to lower your map. If you type in "20", a value of 100 will be changed to 80 and so on. A value of 20 or lower will be set to 0. The tool creates a new file "map_h_neu.tga" with the lower values. It doesn't do anything else.

Well, i did not realy test the results, but it seems to work.

Zipzap

- zipzapp - 30.08.2008

Soryy, better take this:

http://files.filefront.com/lower1exe/;11650995;/fi

There was a type mismatch in the first version. This one will work.

- dunkelgrun - 30.08.2008

Righto chaps, I think I've cracked it :o !

Zipzapp: thanks for the adjuster tool; I'll certainly be able to make some of use of it. I can't use it on map_h though, as the height values are in a logarithmic scale. For example, subtracting the equivalent of 74m from everything (RGB 80, 80, 80) will indeed set my base height to 0m, but (for example) 2000m would get dropped to 341 -348m. In other words, a blanket reduction flattens the elevation right out.

What I have done is downloaded a .dbf file editor. The best one is a trial version and doesn't work until you cough up nearly $50 - no thanks - so I've found some older ones that work. It may mean a bit more manual labour but what I can do is set 74m and every height value below it to RGB 0,0,0, then copy the values from 0m and up in Clockwatcher's table to the 74m height and beyond. This should have the effect of lowering my map_c so that 74m on the ground is shown as sea level; it also limits the max. elevation I can get to 1600m, which is more than enough for my map.

I'll let you know how I get on; it's now late and I have to be up in five hours to do a long day's work. Wish me luck! Smile

:cheers:

- zipzapp - 31.08.2008

Well, i didn't know your map is so mountainous. What area is it? It would not be difficult to change the values depending on their value. It could be done with a table (like you plan it, not difficult to do but some work) or just by maths. Last would cause some rounding, don't know how accurate the result would be than.

- Redwulf__32 - 01.09.2008

Dunkelgrun.

Had the same issue on my WIP Denmark map, we have lakes above sea level here too.

I made my map_c using "Lake check" + "Ocean check" on to get the overall water/land map.

On the other hand, I used "Lake check" off for the map_h, this ensures the lake surfaces are at the correct altitude, leaving "Ocean check" on puts the ocean areas correctly at 0 m.

Hope this helps.....