Heightmap

farlowj · Post by **farlowj** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 2:57 pm

Does anyone know of one that can make heightmaps for ZDoom? If not, can someone make one perhaps? Or is it too complicated? I would help me to make some terrain, you know, so I don't waste my time doing something and realize it looks like crap.

Nmn · Post by **Nmn** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 3:11 pm

Heightmaps? Are they supported in Zdoom? That would be awesome for terrains and whatnot, but my doubts are higher than my hopes

farlowj · Post by **farlowj** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 3:14 pm

I don't know if they are possible, just curious. I mean, with the slope things, couldn't you do something of the sort?

Cutmanmike · Post by **Cutmanmike** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 3:38 pm

anyone mind telling me what a heightmap is?

farlowj · Post by **farlowj** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 3:49 pm

Sure. As far as I know, a heightmap takes a grayscale bitmap and makes a 3d like model of it. White is higher areas, black is lower. So you don't have true 3d (which is why I'm asking if it can be done in ZDoom) but you have the map split into triangles to make hills and stuff. If you have played any new games, they have heightmaps. FarCry, probably Doom3 in the outdoor parts, UT2004, and others. It makes it easier to make realistic outdoor environements without drawing every triangle by hand. Does that help?

Cutmanmike · Post by **Cutmanmike** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 3:51 pm

I think I understand, and no it isn't compatable with zdoom

Post by **Bio Hazard** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 4:02 pm

oh god i wish ZDoom could do that...

i had thought of this before but i thought it would be too hard to code so i never mentioned it

wildweasel · Post by **wildweasel** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 7:01 pm

Think somebody could make a script that takes a heightmap and converts it into sloped sectors for pasting into a new WAD?

Phoenix · Post by **Phoenix** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 7:13 pm

could, but at least in my experience slopes become messy and difficult when used for 'natural' things. it's possible i just don't know how to use them right though

Mr. Tee · Post by **Mr. Tee** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:56 pm

Wouldn't heightmaps add tremendous overhead to WAD size?? You'd have to store a large graphic (larger than 512x 512 I imagine, and I have never successfully imported one larger than that) as the heightmap, depending on the area you want to recreate...

It looks like you'll be making the slopes by hand for a while at least!

wildweasel · Post by **wildweasel** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 5:33 pm

Maybe as an alternative, instead of using slopes to "smooth" the terrain, one could use the heightmap and write a program that interprets these and adds several sub-sectors with differing heights based on the intensity of the gray color. It could be easy to do - but then again, I don't know how Doom's map format works.

CodeImp · Post by **CodeImp** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 5:34 pm

I have done a little bit like this, look at my unfinished map and walk over the flesh path in the lave into the dark cave. In there you will see how the floor "curves" downwards. This is done with triangulated terrain (and so are the edges of the flesh path in the lava). However, I did not use a heightmap, just did it by hand (time consuming precision work, yes).

Risen · Post by **Risen** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 11:12 am

Seems like a better feature for a map editor than for ZDoom.

Cutmanmike · Post by **Cutmanmike** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 11:18 am

Well it's nice to see that code imp actually uses doombuilder instead of making it for others too

Macil · Post by **Macil** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 6:12 pm