TerrainBlock::import - Heightmap should be 16bit greyscale!

#1 get GIMP! 'tis free.

16 bit is a weird format, but hey, that's what it wants.

Heightmaps actually come out real nice, it's just the texturing which needs fixing.

#2 I've tried gimp. I didn't like it. (it's been a while and I don't recall now what it was I didn't like)

#3 That'd be the bizzar-o-world interface ... it's the phtoshop equivalent of Blender.

#4 I like the Gimp, does boatloads more than Paintshop, almost as feature complete as Photoshop, and free!

There is/was a Paintship/Photoshop style window interface plug-in for it. I don't have a link to it, but it should turn up in a search. I'm not all that sure if it's been updated for the last couple versions though.

EDIT: it's actually improved a lot in the past couple of years.

#5 Ack!! Don't mention blender. I can't stand that program. (I'll keep DeleD and milkshape)
I've downloaded the latest gimp and will see if I can make heads or tails of it.

#6 Anyone willing to share the Gimp step by step on actually producing a 16bit grayscale? I've been turning it sideways and can't seem to see where you have that option on save, any type of export or conversion.

Thanks!

#7 Although you could do it in GIMP (which actually can generate grayscale noise without any addition plugins btw), you're going to get something that looks a whole lot more like terrain using an application specifically for that.

Someone else chime in here if you know the names of these applications, the only one that comes to my mind is L3DT.

#8 Anything but Gimp. Bleh! No matter how I save it, it doesn't work. This is something that really needs to be changed in T3D. If the only way to import a heightmap is to buy a million dollar app, .... nevermind. What I mean is, it shouldn't be this difficult to import a heightmap.

#9 I'm not actually trying to generate the heightmap, I'm trying to convert 24bit grayscale maps that I'd used previously in TGE/TGEA that came from DEM sources using MicroDEM.

I'd have to agree here that the 16bit restriction is a bit of monkey wrench into this process, since there really doesn't seem to be any simple/common editors that can natively export into this format.

I believe Imagemagik might, but I'm not really up to the command line conversion process, but it might come to that.

#10 I just investigated this some, apparently GIMP does not support 16 bit channels. So... you'd need to find either something to convert it, or some other art app entirely.

#11 I can find Nothing that exports 16 bit. (with one ecception and it only exports non power of 2)

#12 Apologies for the Gimp link then. I've a mate's laptop with PS7 which works fine on this --- but GIMP for normal maps!

#13 We could add support of 8bit greyscale... but the quality really is horrible if your terrain is more than 50 or 100 meters in vertical height.

#14 Ok Tom, so what is your recommendation as to how to generate the 16-bit heightmaps?

Thanks. :)

#15 Most 3rd-party terrain tools export 16bit pngs and photoshop will export a 16bit png.

I figure there are plugins for other paint programs to do the same.

#16 @Alan - If you can start another bug thread for 24bit images it will get logged and added to the bug tracker.

#17 Thanks for the answer, Tom. I have an L3DT license, but my question was more for general knowledge, considering there was some confusion above.

#18 @Tom,
saw your post as I was walking out the door this morning, just made the post:

Bug:24bit grayscale heightmap support
www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/90925

Thanks!

#19 Anyone had some luck with importing Heightmaps?
I've tried yesterday but I had no luck at all. I tried different formats. bmp or png are all not 16bit. And for 16bit raw files I get the message that it is not square (the raw file is 1024*1024).

Anyone had some luck?

#20 I've found that Cinepaint 0.17-0 will convert images to 16bit grayscale, here is a link that I'm hosting since it's a very old version and the current Windows versions are broken.

If you are using a Mac, just do a google search for Cinepaint and you can get the latest version.

www.monsterpacks.com/contentpacks/temp/Windows.CinePaint.0.17.exe

I just loaded my 24bit grayscale image into Cinepaint, selected 16bit unsigned from the image drop down menu and also grayscale then resaved the image and they loaded into T3D fine.

Functional workaround, but hopefully a later build of T3D will allow other bit versions.