Platform Tutorial Building World Terrain

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Now you are going to start creating your own world using the Multiverse tools. The first tool you are going to use is the Terrain Generator.

Overview of Terrain Generator

Multiverse Terrain Generator creates a world topography, that is, a world's basic contours and terrain elevation. Terrain Generator starts with a seed map, a two-dimensional matrix of numbers that defines the rough topography, and then it uses a fractal algorithm to fill in the details.

For more general information on Terrain Generator, see Terrain Generator Online Help.

You are going to create the terrain for a small sample world. To do this, you will first create a seed map, and then make some changes to the terrain properties.

Create Seed Map

Although you can use a seed map imported from a spreadsheet or a black-and-white PNG file, the simplest way to create one is in Terrain Generator itself. Follow these steps to create a seed map:

1. Start Terrain Generator by double-clicking on the desktop icon. First, you're going to create a seed map to use as a starting point for the fractal algorithm. Choose Edit | Create Seed Map. The Create a new Seed Height Map dialog box appears:
   
   
   




2. Enter the following values, then click Create:
   • Heightmap X Size (East/West): 100
   • Heghtmap Z Size (North/South): 100
   • Default Height Value: 0.00 (the default)
   • Heightmap Meters Per Sample: 10
   • Center Heightmap on Origin: leave checked (default)
3. Click on the Height Map Editor tab to edit the height map.
4. At first, you won't see anything. Hold down the left mouse button to move your viewpoint orientation (you may need to mouse slowly as the area can scroll by to fast to see/react to) around until you can see the seed map. Then use the W, S, A, and D keys (or the mouse wheel) to adjust the view until you can see the whole grid at a slight angle.
5. To start editing the seed map, change the Mouse Mode radio button to Adjust Height from Move Camera. This is on the Height Map Editor Tab.
6. Change the settings as follows:
   • Height Adjust Speed: 50
   • Brush Width: 7
   • Brush Taper: 10
   • Brush Shape: Circle

Now, as you move the mouse cursor over the seed map, the affected area will be highlighted. It's as if you are "painting" the height of the seed map with a paintbrush. Left-click and hold down the mouse button to raise the height of the seed map under the "brush." Right-click and hold down to lower the height.

7. Create an "island" of high seed values in the middle of the seed map by moving the "brush" around the center of the map. The exact shape and details are not important, but it should look something like this:
   
   
   

Set Terrain Properties

Now that you have created a seed map, you will set some properties that affect how the actual terrain topography is generated from the seed map. Continuing from the previous section, follow these steps:

1. Click on Terrain Properties again to display the terrain.
2. Click on General Terrain Parameters.
3. Change Height Scale to 130. This is just a scaling factor that applies a multiplier to the terrain elevation. Leave the other parameters with their default values.
4. Click on Fractal Parameters.
5. Change the settings as follows:
   • H: 3
   • Fractal offset: 0.4
   Leave the other two fractal parameters with their default values. For now, don't worry too much about the significance of these values. Explaining them would require a discourse on fractal mathematics, which is well beyond the scope of this tutorial. You can think of the fractal parameters as various knobs and dials that you can tweak to make your terrain look the way you want it to look. To get the terrain to look the way we want it for this tutorial, these are the values we need.
   
   The terrain map won't look very interesting--it is mostly flat with a small "bump" or mountain where you made the seed map elevations higher. But it will serve the purposes of this tutorial.
6. Choose File | Save Terrain. The Save Terrain dialog box will appear.
7. Enter the name "tutorialworld" and click Save. The file will automatically be given the extension .mvt (Multiverse Terrain).
8. Choose File | Exit to exit Terrain Generator.