Reference Map Overlay

Hey! I’m new to these forums so please go easy on me hehe. I’m attempting to make a 20x20km continent using tiles to reduce the strain on the computer, of course, and I’m ready to get my landmass created based off of an image I have created prior to working with WM.

Just to give an idea of how experienced I am with the program, I got the tiles and resolution set up and I have some idea of how to use custom shapes to sculpt my terrain to my liking but I need to have the reference map I created in Photoshop overlay the layout view so I can more accurately recreate the map in WM.

I’ve looked around and it seems that more experienced folks can do this pretty easily but to a newcomer like myself, I’m completely lost and having a reference map overlay would save me a lot of time.

If I could get a step by step process on how to overlay a PNG image file over the layout view (for tracing and reference purposes) , that would be awesome.

Thanks!

Hi there,

It’s pretty straightforward:

  1. Create a new File Input device in your world. In the device settings, select your reference image, and click the “interpret as rgb” button as appropriate (if its color or greyscale). Then click the “Place from Current” button on the right to make sure the template overlay matches your render extents in the world.

  2. Create an overlay view, which is designed for exactly these kinds of scenarios. Wire your terrain-in-progress to the first input, and the guide bitmap to the second input, and click on it. You should see your reference map overlayed atop the terrain.

  3. You can freeze the preview on the overlay view by hitting f or clicking the “lock preview” button on the left side. You can now get to work on any prior device in the chain and see the final overlayed results!

I appreciate the quick reply! Thanks a ton! Now it’s time I stop being a novice and scan the manual!