a *good*, free heightmap/ terrain editor?
Author
There are a million and one terrain based projects on these forums, many of which also seem to include (or be) heightmap editors. I have had no luck, however, trying to find a decent, free editor to use to create terrain based maps. I have seen planty of screenshots/IOTD's, etc, but no actual useable software.
Am I missing something? Is there some great editor out there that everyone uses, but I just can't seem to find?
I really didn't want to detour from working on a game to building a map editor, especially since it seems that this particular wheel has been reinvented many times over.
Any pointers would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.
-g
Hi there!
Most terrain"engines" use a simple image where white is the highest possible point and black is the lowest...
then you could always hardcode a specific color to be trees or rocks/houses etc...
This way even paint would be the ultimate terrain editor!! :)
Cheers!
Most terrain"engines" use a simple image where white is the highest possible point and black is the lowest...
then you could always hardcode a specific color to be trees or rocks/houses etc...
This way even paint would be the ultimate terrain editor!! :)
Cheers!
Well, theres a heightmap GENERATOR on nehe's site that i use to generate my heightmaps, sure you cant smooth it and all that good stuff, but its better than nothing :-p http://nehe.gamedev.net/counter.asp?file=data/downloads/T/terraineditor.zip
hope that helps
-Dan
hope that helps
-Dan
Author
Thanks for the tips.
I get that I could just use photoshop/gimp/whatever, that's what I have been doing so far. As far as generating them with fractals, perlin noise, etc.. I could do that too, but this doesn't really make for very playable, fun maps.
I was just thinking that the most usable editor I have found so far is the sim city 3000 editor from like 5 years ago. I just thought that maybe someone would have built and released something better by now.
I am talking about being able to tweak the heightmap, add entities, things like that.
I have been looking for a while and have seen a couple on sourceforge like hme (2d only), and terraform (interesting, but linux only). I have just been suprised that with the number of terrain projects I see every day, that there is no particularly usable map editor to be found. Freeworld3d looks like it might have fit the bill, but it has to be registered, and the demo crashes every time I have tried to start it.
I get that I could just use photoshop/gimp/whatever, that's what I have been doing so far. As far as generating them with fractals, perlin noise, etc.. I could do that too, but this doesn't really make for very playable, fun maps.
I was just thinking that the most usable editor I have found so far is the sim city 3000 editor from like 5 years ago. I just thought that maybe someone would have built and released something better by now.
I am talking about being able to tweak the heightmap, add entities, things like that.
I have been looking for a while and have seen a couple on sourceforge like hme (2d only), and terraform (interesting, but linux only). I have just been suprised that with the number of terrain projects I see every day, that there is no particularly usable map editor to be found. Freeworld3d looks like it might have fit the bill, but it has to be registered, and the demo crashes every time I have tried to start it.
Author
Hey thanks for that. This is the kind of thing that I am looking for. It would be perfect if it had the ability to add entities, or was open sourced/plugable so that it could be exended into a full-featured level editor. I does not appear at first look that the embeded macro system would be suited to this task.
This is the best I have seen so far, though. Any others? I am kind of disappointed to discover that the folks here haven't produced anything like this.
This is the best I have seen so far, though. Any others? I am kind of disappointed to discover that the folks here haven't produced anything like this.
Making tools is often as hard as making the game itself. Thus, many professional developers, and most hobbyists, end up making only the bare minimum tools necessary to get the job done, and focus their time on the game making.
I used the UT2003 editor to edit terrains for my engine :E
It's 16-bit accuracy though, so can't be subsequently edited in a paint program without losing the accuracy.
It's 16-bit accuracy though, so can't be subsequently edited in a paint program without losing the accuracy.
Author
Quote:Original post by hplus0603
Making tools is often as hard as making the game itself. Thus, many professional developers, and most hobbyists, end up making only the bare minimum tools necessary to get the job done, and focus their time on the game making.
This makes sense, I guess I am in the same boat.
I was just hoping to avoid the "spend a few days/weeks hacking up an editor" that everyone seems to have to do by reusing someone else's solution. Every evening I spend working on a game editor is an evening that the game itself gets ignored. If everyone has to make one, then there must be hundreds of them on people's hard drives just begging to be set loose :)
Thanks for the unrealed tip. Great idea, but I don't have a copy of unreal :). Don't most commercial games' editing tools have (understandably) restrictive licensing when it comes to creating content for other games, though? I was actually looking at the far cry sandbox editor earlier (screenshots), and it looks pretty cool as well.
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