Generating Terrain with L3DT Pro

From Multiverse

Multiverse Tools

Overview  •  Installing Using World Editor Release Notes  •  FAQ  •  Tools Troubleshooting  •  Future Plans

Tools UI References

Model Viewer  •  World Editor  •  Terrain Generator

Working with Terrain

About Terrain  •  Using L3DT Pro  •  Using EarthSculptor  •  Using PnP TerrainCreator  •  Importing Heightmap Terrain  •  Using Mosaic Creator

Other Tools

Third-Party Tools  •  Creating Skyboxes with Terragen

This is a quick tutorial on using L3DT Pro to generate a map for use with Multiverse.

L3DT Pro Homepage

Contents 1 Procedure 2 Exporting Heightmap and Alpha Maps from L3DT 2.1 Exporting the Heightmap 2.2 Exporting the Alpha Maps

Procedure

Prerequisite: Make sure you have L3DT Pro, version 2.4b or later. Previous versions had some bugs that affect their use with Multiverse.

1. Start L3DT Pro.
2. Chose File | New Map...
3. Select Design/Inflate as the terrain algorithm, and then press the Next >> button.
4. Change the Heightfield resolution (m) value from 10 to a power of two. This value must be a power of two for the terrain to be imported into the World Editor. One, two, four or eight are good values, depending on how large and detailed you want your terrain to be. This value is the number of meters in your world covered by one pixel in the heightmap, so if you set the value to 4, then each pixel in the heightmap will represent a 4 by 4 meter area.
5. The size of the map in pixels and kilometers is displayed below the Heightfield resolution. As you change the X and Y size, and the Heightfield resolution these values will change. You can use them to get an idea of the size of your map as you change values. The X and Y values are the size of the Design Map. Each pixel in the Design Map represents a 64x64 area of your heightmap.
6. Once the size values are all set the way you want them, click the Next>> button.
7. The next dialog is the Design map parameters. For now just leave these values all at their default settings. Later on you can experiment and see what effect they have on your terrain. For now, click the Next>> button to continue.
8. You should now be looking at the Calculation queue dialog. Only the checkbox for Design Map should be checked. Go ahead and click the OK button now.
9. You will now be looking at the Design Map. Each square (pixel) of the design map represents a 64x64 pixel area of your final heightmap. Each pixel in the design map can have various attributes set, such as altitude, roughness, erosion, climate, etc. L3DT uses these values to generate your terrain in detail. For now we will just use the sample Design Map that L3DT has generated.
10. From the Operations menu, select Calc. wizard.... This will bring up the Calculation queue dialog again. Check the checkboxes next to Heightfield, Water map and Attributes map, and leave the other checkboxes unchecked. Click the Next>> button to continue.
11. Click the Next>> button again to accept the default water flooding options.
12. Click the Next>> button again to accept the default Water-table modelling options.
13. Click the OK button to accept the default Attribute map options, and begin the calculations.
14. It will take several minutes (or longer depending on the size of your map) for L3DT to caculate the heightmap, water map and attribute map.
15. From the File menu, select Save and then Save All. Save the L3DT project.
16. Now that the Heightmap and Attributes Map have been generated, you can export the heightmap and alpha maps for use in Multiverse. The next section will describe this process.

Exporting Heightmap and Alpha Maps from L3DT

You must export heightmap and alpha maps from L3DT as image mosaics so World Editor and the Multiverse Client can use them. An image mosaic is a collection of tile images. Each tile is square, and its size must be a power of two. For example, a 2048 x 1024 pixel heightmap converted to a mosaic with 512 x 512 pixel tiles results in eight tiles in a 4 x 2 grid.

Exporting the Heightmap

To export the heightmap mosaic, you use the following process:

1. From the View Menu, select Show Map and then Heightfield.
2. From the File Menu, select Export and then Active Map...
3. Check the checkbox labeled Split map into tiles (mosaic map)
4. Specify a file name for the mosaic, either by typing it in the text box or using the Browse... button.
5. Press the Next>> button.
6. On the next dialog, change the File format to PNG.
7. Leave the tile size at 512. This is a good size for the Multiverse engine.
8. Click on the OK button to export the mosaic.
9. This process will produce a mosaic file with a .mmf extension, and several image files with .png extensions.

Exporting the Alpha Maps

To export the alpha map mosaics, you can use the following process:

1. From the Operations menu, select Alpha maps and then Generate maps...
2. You will see the Combine alpha layers dialog. You should note the texture names and their associated Alpha IDs. The Alpha ID is the layer number used by the Alpha Splatting algorithm. You will need the texture names and layer numbers later on when you load the alpha maps into the World Editor.
3. You don't need to change anything on this dialog, so click the Next>> button to continue.
4. You will now see the Alpha map file output dialog.
5. Use the text input box or the Browse... button to select an output folder and filename.
6. Use the default values for Image file format (PNG) and Layers per image (4).
7. Check the checkbox labeled Split alpha images into tiles (mosaic maps), and leave the Tile size at the default value of 512.
8. Click the OK button to generate the alpha maps.
9. This process will produce two sub-folders called filename_Alpha1 and filename_Alpha2, where filename is the export filename you entered. Each sub-folder will contain a mosaic file with a .mmf extension, and the associated PNG image tile files.