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Topic: preselect terrain roughness?

Astuur
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Joined: 2009-02-28, 10:08
Posts: 733
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One Elder of Players
Location: Frankfurt / Germany
Posted at: 2013-06-20, 14:40

Rather than starting from scratch, I lke to modify maps built by the auto-create feature.
I think it does quite a good job as a starting point.
But I often see that the terrain has too many valleys and hills especially for "bergwiese".
In this way it greatly diminishes the accessability and the building spaces for houses of all kinds on this terrain.
I wonder if there exists some entries that can control this "terrain roughness" per terrain type .... and if it doesn't exist, whether it should be created?
We could probably get less uniform and more interesting maps if we'd allow for that sort of control.


Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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Adamant

Joined: 2012-10-11, 16:21
Posts: 180
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Widelands-Forum-Junkie
Location: Alemania
Posted at: 2013-06-20, 16:57

In the Editor exist a Tool that is surely useful in several Situations but sadly not this Situation. It is named something like "Altitude Noise". Sadly it doesn't only noise but also normalize what means that effected Area raises to Normal and then get its Noise to fluctuate around Normal determined by Upper and Lower Limits. Another Point is related to an assumed new non-normalizing AltitudeNoise-Tool that there are two alternative Targets reasonable: shall the Noise get added to the Terrain's "Normal" (Accumulation of Noise) or overwrite a second Noise-Variable and even noising am Area for Hours won't erode a Mountain but just change a realtive this Surface-Morphologie: if there was a high Peek than a more ore less high Peek will left there at all Cases. I think this Thoughts are related to your Need of Redesign of the Map as you would need a Tool that effectivele flat the Surface. I did for that Case fight with Noise-Tool to relevel Surface between defined Limits but it's almost impossible to identify actual Heights of Terrain but to check out with a thin Brush and guess the Height and test to reset Height on same Value as is: No Change means "previous Height is similar to setted Height". Then I take the Noiser, "guess the Area's TerrainHeight is similar" (resp around the determined Sample-Height), adjust Limits for Noising, press several Time at same Area till I got the Idea Result is fine or I need different Settings for Noise. And that all aims to reduce Work of a simple Task like flattening resp inverse noising a Terrain to let it look lesser tedious. As I complained you can use just very small Noise for a Terrain to keep it anyway usefull for Construction what means the Terrain have to be "alsmost totally flat" to keep able to utilize that Terrain. If you take just few Amounts of more Noise (1 or 2 Points) than the Terrain looks fine, can keep very few but only red Buildings and no real Settlement is anymore possible --- or you prepare several needed Areas back to "almost totally flat" to enable Yellow and Green Sites. I complained that Matter om a Thread I can't find now (english or german Forum) with the Title (like) "No SwitzerLand in WideLands".

I summarized that all Matter pointed with "either are Maps in WL tedious (flat) but usable or nice (noised) mountainous but unplayable". I suggested to lower the Requirements of Buildings (RED,YELLOW,GREEN,...) for FlatNess to be able to make mountainous Maps more playable.

I like your Idea to make the Brush Terrain-Type-sensitive (applied to specified TerrainType only) really. Do you mean something like solved by a Table for Terrain-Roughness specific to TerrainType as Standard-Noise for "placing" new Terrain? That Feature would simplify design of Maps indeed a Lot resp inverse would cause that more nice Maps originate.


Ivan the Terrible is dead .. Genghis Khan is dead .. and I do not feel well, too.

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