[TOOL] [WotLk] ADTForge

[Scytheria23]

BIG EDIT - links to original (horrible) tool have been removed.

Dear All,

I've bitten the bullet and decided to add alpha-mapping into the project (now renamed from ADT Guru to ADTForge).  This means I'm a few more weeks away from release, but in the meantime, some teasers:

- Complete control over heights. Extract height information from greyscale bitmaps, combine, manipulate and transform that data, protecting or masking areas.


- Rip data from existing ADTs, then manipulate like any other data.


- Easily write ADTs and accompanying WDL and WDT files.  ADTs are complete with textures (including animations, overbright and cube-map flags) and ground effects, AreaIDs, impassible flags, and (soon) alphamaps for the three layers above the base layer - all of which can be applied on an Mapwide, ADT by ADT or Chunk by Chunk level.


Maybe ready before Christmas... ask Santa nicely.

[Grymskvll]

Sounds really cool. Any plans for texture generating?

[fandramen]

Some idea could be while are you parsing the heightmap and then to an x and y apply x texture to another x and another y apply another texture and then continue with this process

[Scytheria23]

Yes, auto-texturing is the next step, along with being able to set different water heights (and types?) on the ADTs.  Additionally, I'll be working to add offset-fixes into the code, areaID generation, etc.

Scy

[Scytheria23]

Updated to v1.1 (already!)

- maskmin added
- maskmax added
- spike and pit removal added
- softening algorithms added

Scy

[Nupper]

Updated to v1.1 (already!)

- maskmin added
- maskmax added
- spike and pit removal added
- softening algorithms added

Scy

Code: [Select]

!unable to find or open ADTGuruConfig.txt

[Scytheria23]

@ Nupper

Have you placed the ADT Guru folder directly onto your C drive?  Have you renamed any folders?  ADT Guru will not work if you put the folder anywhere else or rename the folders.  

Path should be:

c:/ADT Guru/ADT Guru v1.1.exe

[Scytheria23]

Version 1.2 imminent. Sorry about the rapid update rate. Sharing is the best way to identify bugs. Thanks for the PMs.

- fixed anomalous walls around edges of map when elevate used
- fixed scaleup and scaledown so they behave as described (e.g. Properly)
- fixed scaling and elevating order to make it easier to predict final heights
- added function to dump and import terrain data as a binary file, so masks can be used without having to generate it all over again

No joy solving the install path thing  

Coming very soon

Scy

[Kaev]

Holy fck, that looks awesome. Thank you for releasing it!

[Scytheria23]

ADT Guru v1.2 RELEASE!

This will be the last release for a while unless a major bug is found. I'm spent.

Added a third user mode.  When you generate the procedural terrain, it is dumped as a raw data file (dump.txt) into the output folder.  If you choose user mode 2, this is read instead of running through the lengthy generation routine.  This saves a hell of a lot of time when testing masks.
 
Added a trap in the main generation routine that exits when the terrain is completed, even if this happens before the cycle ends.  This seldom happens, but it’s a nice surprise when it does.
 
Added an additional output bitmap – renderview.bmp – which shows the terrain in a (very) rough 3D view.  It’s aligned south to north along the x axis (yeah, I know), and heights are grossly exaggerated to make them more visible.
 
Fixed the file pathing issues.  ADT Guru now runs wherever you put it as long as the folders are kept the same and not renamed.
 
Fixed the anomalous wall around the edge of some maps.
 
Fixed the scaleup routine, which now behaves properly and doesn’t create silly columns.
 
Changed the order in which scaleup/scaledown and elevate occur, making it easier to predict the heights and position of generated terrain.

Scy

[Skarn]

Awesome stuff here.
OffsetFix currently bugs out badly on Windows 10 – I have to switch PC and use Windows 7 to run this!

Found that line in your PDF guide. Actually is an easy-to-solve issue on Windows 10. You can just do this: http://www.model-changing.net/forums/to ... ws-update/

[sinkhile]

I downloaded it, but I do not know how to use it, I trouble you to do a textbook on youtube

[Scytheria23]

@ Sinkhile: I'm not sure I could explain it on YouTube any better than the coverage in the documentation.  Which part is giving you trouble?

I'm currently building a second version of the app, which will offer a lot more flexibility and power. That, however, comes with a cost - it's considerably more difficult to use.  You'll be able to apply as many masks as you like, manipulating each in whatever ways you want.  This will allow you to add successive layers of fine detail to the terrain, and give much greater control over the output.  Because it's much harder to use (you have to specify the operations and their order in a special scripting language), I'll certainly come up with a few user-guide videos.  

BTW, the 'promised' auto-texturing is a dead end.  Although some preliminary trials gave reasonable results, they were no substitute for painting by hand in Noggit.  The effort needed to set up the auto-texturing was substantially greater than that needed to wave a mouse around in Noggit, so the tool would be kind of redundant.  The human touch is often better.

Scy

[Songen]

Hmm, I can't seem to get this to work properly. If I do any changes to the Seedmap images, the program doesn't work.

[Scytheria23]

@ Songen

Most likely cause is wrong kind of bitmap.  They MUST be 1537*1537 greyscale with .bmp suffix.  Check exact size of your file. It should be identical to that of the examples.  My guess is that you have edited them and then saved without making sure they are the correct type.  Gimp (which is free) will save in the correct format.  Just select Image > Mode > Greyscale and export with .bmp, refusing any offer to add transparency.  Resulting file should be exactly 2,368,126 bytes.  I'm afraid I'm not likely to improve the app by allowing different file formats or sizes - it's too much fuss when these things can be done by the users.