How to get heightmap (bitmap) into WM and the same size out

Bug Reports
#1

Hi,

I’m trying to setup a workflow for generating and modifying terrain heightmaps between few programs and WM is the last problematic part. What I need to do, is get 512x512 heightmap into WM, than run it through a few devices (like erosion) and then get the modified bitmap but at same SCALE out.

Currently I’m unable to do that because with any combination of dimensions in file input and World Commands/World size i get 0.96km or 1.08km terrain size (i know there are “relative” things in the process). Than when I render out output file, my heightmap is a bit smaller or a bit cropped. And I don’t like the idea to for example try render out a larger heightmap with my original map being smaller inside this bigger map and than try to crop and downsize in photoshop.

Is there a way how to setup all this so I can get exactly same heightmap in and out through let’s say just FileInput -> FileOutput devices?

#2

Hi all,

i have the same problem!
I’m creating a terrain for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and want to use WorldMachine for terrain erosion.

So i want to

  1. Get a heightmap into worldmachine
  2. Erosion Filter or anything, ignore that for now
  3. Export the heightmap for use in 3D modeler.

Additionally, i’d like to make erosion mask images in WM (masks that show where on the terrain a certain texture will be drawn), to paint sand-flows and natural thing like this. WM seems to be the app of choice for this.

So, right at the start:
How do i get my heightmap to stretch to the entire terrain?
Currently, if i create a file input device and point it to the heightmap, it will have a red exclamation mark next to it. The manual says (under 2.5: importing a terrain):

Note that currently terrains are always scaled to fill the entire current world size. This means that if you pan the terrain (in Explorer mode, for example), you will get incorrect results. WM give notices of this by placing a red exclamation mark by the device icon, signifying that this device is not "stable" in Explorer.

But i have no idea how to fix it.
Any help appreciated :?

#3

World Machine doesn’t care what resolution file you import or export – assuming both the file input region and the output region are set to the same area, you could import/export at equal sizes or any unequal ones and it wouldn’t matter. The important thing is that the file input world region matches the output region, which should be same sized (7.68km) by default.

#4

Since I found this topic while searching and it seems to relate to my question, I thought I’d add to it. Firstly, I can’t quite understand the point re the “file input world region” and “output region” being the same size. Is htere somewhere that the size of the file output region is set?

Anyway, my question is about a workflow that involves transferring .ter files back and forth between Terragen 2 and World Machine 2 I am experiencing some confusion over the correct way to size the terrains.

To explain: I have a terrain in TG2 from which I generate a .ter which is 10 km square and 1000 pixel resolution. When I import this into WM 2 Basic, I therefore change the size of imported terrain from 5.13 km square to 10 km square. I then apply an erosion filter, and re-export the terrain to .ter. But when I open the newly generated .ter in Terragen 2 again, it seems to default to a size of about 8.3 km square. I guess I could solve the problem by then doing a heightfield resize in Terragen but I just wanted to know if there’s something simple I’m missing.

Thanks!

#5

klisapri@mail.ru

#6