TerraPainter
Help
TerraPainter version 2.1.0
Copyright 2003 Peter's Productions
Last updated:
5-05-2003
http://go.to/ph
Contents
Introduction
About the program
Installing/uninstalling
System requirements
Program limitations and bugs
Copyright, etc.
Working with the files
Creating a new terrain
Opening a terrain
Saving a terrain
Copying a terrain
Pasting a terrain
Moving the cursor
Dragging
Moving
Rotating
Locking
Painting
Undo/Redo
Selecting an area
Effectiveness
Controls
Operations
Refresh Mode
Brush
Modifying the terrain
Edit terrain
Combine terrains
Soften terrain
Add noise
Terrain properties
Tools
Brush generator
Welcome to the TerraPainter help page. TerraPainter is a program which can be used do draw terrains for Terragen. If you have no idea what Terragen is, the program may be quite useless to you, although you can still paint with it. If you want to know what Terragen is, visit http://www.planetside.co.uk
TerraPainter is a program I wrote because I couldn't find any programs that did exactly what I want. This program really comes close. If you want to know what makes it so different, just play with it and you'll see. Have fun!
TerraPainter was written by Peter Kok in 2001.
For updates, this help file, etc, visit http://go.to/pH
For questions, comments, suggestions, error reports, etc, mail to: peters_productions@hotmail.com
Installing/Uninstalling
There are two installation versions of the program: the Setup-version and the Zip-version.Setup-version: Install the program by executing the Setup.exe file. Just follow the directions on the screen. To un-install go to add/remove programs and remove TerraPainter. You'll probably find the add/remove programs somewhere in your control panel (under software). If you're not sure where to find it go to windows help.
Zip-version: Unzip the files to a directory. Run TerraPainter.exe to start the program. To UN-install the program, just remove the files from the directory.
System requirements
-Some free disk space. About 300 KB for the installed program.
-Visual Basic 5 run time files. The file msvbvm50.dll should be installed in your windows/system directory, which is often the case. If it's not, download the file from the internet. You can download it from www.microsoft.com, but you can also download it at http://go.to/pH
-The usual things
About the processor: the program is quite slow (see program limitations), but I thought it worked fast enough on my Pentium 333 MHz. The faster your processor, the faster the program.Program limitations and bugs
-Speed: the program is quite slow, but as long as you don't move your mouse to fast, it'll be acceptable.
-Painting: sometimes the cursor will stick on its position when you start to paint, and nothing will be painted. Just try it again.
-Brushes: Small brushes (1*1 pixels, or x*1 pixels) do not work correctly.
-There's no zooming function.
-You can't scroll terrains, so larger terrains may cause problems. Note that large terrains also slow the program down considerably.Copyright, etc.
You may freely distribute the original zip-file, as long as you don't ask money for it. No files may be removed from the zip-file. None of the files in the zip-file may be modified. I can not be held responsible for any damage done by the program.
Note about formats: Although it is possible to work with image files (such as bmp, jpg, gif), it is recommended that you save your work in terrain format. This will prevent loss of information.
Creating a new terrain
Create a new terrain by selecting New from the File menu. Enter the width and height of the new terrain. Terragen uses 257x257 as a standard. Then enter a value for the initial height of the terrain.Opening a terrain
To open a terrain, select Open from the File menu. You can open files which are in terrain format (.ter) or in some other image formats. When opening an image, the average of the red, green and blue color determine the height of the terrain. Note that images can only be saved in bitmap (.bmp) format.Saving a terrain
To save a terrain, select Save from the File menu. Then type the name you want to give the file, select the desired format and press save. You can save a terrain in terrain format (.ter) or in bitmap format (.bmp). When you save the image in bitmap format, the image which is currently being displayed, is saved. Saving in bitmap format may cause information to be lost. Terrain specific information will also be lost.Copying a terrain
When copying a file, using Copy from the Edit menu, the image which is currently being displayed, is entirely copied to the clipboard as a bitmap image.Pasting a terrain
If you paste a terrain, using Paste from the Edit menu, the contents of the clipboard, which has to be an image, replaces the file which is being worked on. Pasting an image has the same effect as opening a bitmap image.
The cursor consists of 6 points. 4 of them represent the corners of the brush. At the center of these 4 there is a point of which the coordinates are shown just above the image of the terrain. The height of the terrain under this point is also displayed. Then there is one point left; this one you can control with your mouse. There are several methods to move your mouse cursor.
Dragging
This is the default mode. Just move your mouse and the brush will be "dragged" behind the mouse cursor.Moving
Hold the SHIFT key down to move the cursor. The cursor will not be rotated now.Rotating
Hold the CTRL key down to rotate the cursor and lock moving.Locking
Hold both the CTRL and the SHIFT key down to lock the brush at its current position. You can move the mouse cursor now to e.g. select a different brush and start painting again at exactly the same position. When the mouse cursor is outside the wide region bordering the terrain image, you can safely release the CTRL and SHIFT key.
To paint, just keep down your left mouse button. The controls determine how the painting alters the terrain. The effectiveness determines which terrain heights are altered.
Undo/Redo
With undo and redo you can undo and redo some of your actions. Each time you press the mouse button and release it again above the terrain, counts as an action. Modifying the terrain and refreshing in manual mode also count as actions. Each action can be undone and redone. A maximum of 9 actions are saved, so you can undo (and after that redo) a maximum of 9 actions.
To select an area, keep the right mouse button down while you move the cursor. Operations which modify the terrain (edit menu), will only have effect on this area. To select nothing, click the right mouse button on the image without moving the cursor.
The numbers in the textboxes indicate between which terrain heights the terrain will be altered. The effectiveness is used when you paint, but it is also used with all actions that modify the terrain (edit menu). Press the All button to set the effectiveness to all terrain heights.
The operation, refresh mode and brush together determine how the terrain is being modified when you paint. These controls are placed on the left hand side of the window. For altering the terrain without painting, see modifying the terrain.
Something about the height of the terrain: the height of the terrain is a value between -32768 and 32767. The higher the value, the whiter the image, the higher the terrain.
Operations
The operation indicates which relation there is between the current height of a point of the terrain, the "height" of the point of the brush directly above the point of the terrain, and the result.Overpaint - Ignores the current height of the terrain and sets the result to the height of the brush.
Add - Adds the height of the brush to the terrain.
Remove - Subtracts the height of the brush from the terrain.
Highest - Sets the result to the height of the brush if it is higher than the terrain.
Lowest - Sets the result to the height of the brush if it is lower than the terrain.Refresh Mode
When you paint, e.g. in the add mode, the height of the brush is added to the height of the terrain. Each time the brush moves over a certain point, the height of the brush is added again. This might not be what you want, so to prevent this, there is a refresh mode. While the terrain is NOT refreshed, the operations affect only the original terrain. The newly painted terrain is painted in color (red if its higher than the original, green/blue if its lower). Only when the terrain is refreshed, there can be painted (e.g. added) again. Note that you can only undo a refresh when it was done in the manual refresh mode.The terrain is also refreshed after modifying the terrain.
Always - Refreshes directly (so adding will be done each time the brush is moved above a certain point).
At button release - Refreshes when the mouse button is released.
Manually - You'll have to click on the refresh button yourself to refresh the terrain.Brush
The brush is a greyscale bitmap, which is used to determine the intensity of the painting. The pixels with color values 1 to 255 are used to determine the intensity of the painting. The value 0 (black) is ignored, so you could say every pixel with the value 0 is transparent.Selecting a brush - Select the brush you want to use from the list of brushes. When a brush is selected, it will be displayed in the beneath the brush controls.
Adding/removing a brush - You can of course use your home made brushes to paint. To do this, the bitmap file (which is the brush) has to be in the same directory as the program. You can now add it by clicking the add button. To remove a brush from the list, click on remove.
Opening/saving a brushlist - If you have customised your brush list, you can save it and open it again by using Save brushlist and Open brushlist from the File menu. The default brushlist is default_brushlist.bsl. When the program is closed, the current brushlist will be saved to this file. The default brushlist is always opened at start up. The original brushlist is saved in the file original_brushlist.bsl.
Brush offset - This sets the offset for the intensity of the brush. This might be handy if your operation is overpaint, highest or lowest and your terrain's 'sea level' is at a different level then the minimum. When your operation is add or remove, you may want to set the offset to the minimum. Clicking the default (def) button will set the value to the minimum.
Brush intensity - Here you can set the intensity of the brush. If the intensity is 65535, painting has the full effect (100%) of the brush. The intensity can be any positive value. By clicking the default (def) button, the intensity is set to 32767, which is 50%.
There are several functions to modify the terrain. These operations only have effect on the heights indicated by the effectiveness textboxes in the main window. A modifying operation will refresh the terrain.
Edit terrain
With Edit terrain from the Edit menu, you can perform operations on the entire terrain.Levelling - This function levels the terrain to the specified value.
Adding - This will add the specified value to the terrain. If a negative value is specified, the terrain will be lowered with this value.
Percentage - Use this function if you want the terrain to be multiplied with a certain percentage. Enter the percentage value and the center of operation. The center of operation specifies the height of the terrain which is the center from which the operation will be performed. For example: you want to lower the "mountains" by a factor of 2, make the "seas" a factor of 2 less deep and your "sea level" is at a height of 10000, then enter 50 and 10000 in the value text box and center of operation text box, respectively.
Inverting - This inverts the terrain, making "seas" of "mountains" and vice versa. You'll have to specify the center of operation. Choosing a value which differs too much from 0 may cause terrain to be projected outside the range of possible heights, which will cause it to be lost.Combining terrains
This function allows you to combine two terrains. The terrains needn't necessarily be of the same size. The result has the same size as the original terrain. If the second terrain is smaller, this terrain modifies the original terrain in the upper left corner and the rest of the original terrain isn't modified.You can combine the terrain with a file which is saved on disk, or with a picture that has been placed on the clipboard.
Add - Adds the two terrains. (See offset secondary terrain.)
Subtract - Subtracts the second terrain from the original. (See offset secondary terrain.)
Highest - A point of the result is the highest of the two terrains at that position.
Lowest - A point of the result is the lowest of the two terrains at that position.
Projection - Projects a bitmap on the terrain. Of the bitmap only the blue colors are projected. At the next refresh action the bitmap is erased. (Projection might be handy if for example you want to draw over an existing map.)Offset secondary terrain - Is only used for adding/subtracting. It specifies the 0-level of the secondary terrain. Values above the offset are added to the original terrain, values below this level are subtracted from the original terrain.
Softening the terrain
This can be used to soften the terrain. This might be useful to prevent the "slopes" from becoming to steep, which might cause Terragen to display some "black holes" and weird pointy shapes.Adding noise
Add noise to make the terrain less flat. A random terrain is created, which is added to the original terrain.Maximum intensity - The maximum height of the noise to be added. Make this value negative if you want to subtract the noise.
Number of softenings - The number of times you want to soften the noise before adding it. Might be handy if you're adding much noise.
Use this to alter the terrain's properties. These values are not used in the program, but are saved in the terrain file and used by Terragen. Alter these values at your own risk, Terragen might not support certain values.
Brush generator
This starts the brush generator. Currently, there is no help available for the brush generator.
TerraPainter
http://go.to/ph