Terrain minimum height

#1 IIRC, The terrain bitmap that implements the height map can be found in the TerrainFile object. You might be able to write code to adjust all the points upwards a fixed amount then save the .ter file. I believe the terrain minimum height should be what a 16 bit 0x00 height point means, so changing it wouldn't seem to fix your problem. You need to adjust all your terrain heights within the 0x00 .. 0xFF range of each 16 bit height map point.

You could probably do it patching in right here:

bool TerrainFile::save(const char *filename)
{
   FileStream writeFile;
   if (!ResourceManager->openFileForWrite(writeFile, filename))
      return false;

   // write the VERSION and HeightField
   writeFile.write((U8)FILE_VERSION);
   for (S32 i=0; i < (TerrainBlock::BlockSize * TerrainBlock::BlockSize); i++)
      [b]writeFile.write(mHeightMap[i]);[/b]

#2 Another similar thread:
www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=62237

#3 Exporting the terrain as a heightmap seems interesting, but I can't find a way to do it. I think I might just have to flatten the terrain and start again, making it all higher. Matthew, that's an interesting idea, but not something I want to delve too deep into right now :P

#4 TerrainFile::save is called normally to do the work when you save the terrain from the editor. The terrain is stored in the .ter file as a 256 by 256 grid of heights. All the stock TGE code in the previous post does is write out each height value to the file. (It does it one by one, 65536 times.)

Assuming your min ht is zero and your max height is 1000 (for a total variation of 1000 meters), raising all the terrain by 10 meters is something like:
mHeightMap[i]+(unsigned int)(10.0* (65535.0/1000.0))

This kind of change just adds 10 meters to all the terrain values as they are saved, giving you 10 more meters under the terrain to dig your river.

You could insert the code above one time, load, and then save the terrain, then remove the extra code.

Note: You would also want to make sure that none of the values went over 65535 after you added some to it (takes another couple of lines of code.)

#5 Whoah - it's that simple? I might do that after all :P. Thanks!