I dunnoif I am missing something but my maps coming out of wm are always steppy look , even if I set up 16 bit maps It saves like an 8 bit one… what I am doing wrong?
the result of this is viewable by when I create outputs in tiff formats or bitmaps or r16 files in 16 bits , when I reimport them and I build world without adding any filter the result is a steppy world … so its like in outputting the details are lost somehow , also in the image open in photoshop I have only 255 levels of gray … instead of 2^16 … Am I wrong?
Hi there,
can you post an example output that is exhibiting this problem to take a look at?
here the output r16
This is the output generated in r 16 format from an original larger 8192 map , I split the work into 4 parts of 4096 , I do not use tiled because I need to put the whole map into the viewport and the results are bad in terms of scale detail of the erosion and other stuff , I wich I could do in tile but they come out bad and make bad erosion , different from focusing on each layer at time , the problem with this is that I have bad seams … and I have to fix those by myself with photoshop after , …
it woudl be good to have a feature that takes into consideration a blending extra portion of the map of the viewport ( more than just 1 pixel ) to allow better blending when making this kind of work …
Anyway the imported input map was 8192 , I selected a quarter portion of it and make all the needed erosion etc … then I export as r16 … when I reimport back the result is more steppy and the color map look to have all terraced cliffs like the rise fields in asia if you get what I mean …
may be because the resolution is smaller? dunno …
anyway I can’t get a very smooth gray transition , I also noticed exporting as tiff is much worst than just r16 and in cryengine where I am trying to export to it looks totally steppy terrain , with r 16 instead looks more smooth but some spikes do happen and I need to pass over a couple of times of smoothing , may be is the cryengine that doesn’t keep much of the details or may be is the map I dunno , anyway when I try to reimport back into WM its worst quality than b4 …
file sent in im …
here is the result of an output at 16 bit png for color map out of coastal overlay plus some modding to add a vegetation layer , the problem is those steppy lines wich aren’t present in the rendered window … why that?
The file you sent me is definitely 16bit height values.
Does your terrain look the same way in WM’s viewer after a build? What if you import the file you just exported in a new File Input device in the same world, build that, and compare the two. see any differences?
I actually tried two ways , one make the whole terrain ina single big large process 8192 size and the same size but in tiled way , well they are way different and the tiled output is more like I want altough is different from going into one by one each individually , the thing is that it doesn’t updates the 3d view so the results of the applied filters is not like the single pass build and it cannot be previewed , somehow you have to build it and cant preview , a preview also for tiled outputs woudl be nice …
Here’s how to rule out if World Machine is itself exporting a banded terrain in some way.
In the world file that’s producing banding, after you build the world and export the file, add a couple additional nodes as shown below: the most important is a File Input to load in the result of the world building. Examining the terrain imported by the File Input should let you see quickly if the file itself is banded or not.
To more precisely determine, I’ve attached an image of a verification setup. Just take a Combiner set to Subtract and feed it both the direct output from your world and then the loaded world file to see any differences between them (the clamp after the combiner is there to magnify the differences for inspection). When selecting that combiner output, anything but zero or near-zero values means there is a difference between the world coming out of WM and the file on disk.
When I check this, it shows there is essentially no output banding or loss of fidelity of any kind using the common raw16/32, TIFF, or PNG formats, as expected. I’d be very interested in any results to the contrary!