[SHOWOFF] What Are You Working On

[Dracbane]

I spent some time working on a world map generator. Since I'm pretty bad at mapping myself I wrote an application that can fill a map with randomly generated terrain.
It's still missing normal maps. Generated them with noggit, since I just fill them with up vectors, yeah I'm lazy...
I wanted to expand it with different zones and random placement of trees and stuff like that, but I'm too busy with other stuff atm.
The shown area is, I think, 20x20 adts. But the only limit is the maximum amount a wdt can hold.
My plan was to be able to quickly generate a massive worldspace you can start tweaking and filling with content.

Love it! Hope you finish it! Don't think this is lazy at all. It is a great quality of life improvement for people who like building maps but are not so fond of terrain building and texturing. I love building maps, but I hate trying to do textures.

[Kaev]

I love building maps, but I hate trying to do textures.

^ this!

[TheBuG]

Pff, I hate doodadplacement, I love texturing ;p.

[Skarn]

Automatically generated content can't replace hours of manual work.

[MountainLion]

I spent some time working on a world map generator. Since I'm pretty bad at mapping myself I wrote an application that can fill a map with randomly generated terrain.
It's still missing normal maps. Generated them with noggit, since I just fill them with up vectors, yeah I'm lazy...
I wanted to expand it with different zones and random placement of trees and stuff like that, but I'm too busy with other stuff atm.
The shown area is, I think, 20x20 adts. But the only limit is the maximum amount a wdt can hold.
My plan was to be able to quickly generate a massive worldspace you can start tweaking and filling with content.

I can't wait to use this tool  :geek:

Automatically generated content can't replace hours of manual work.

My plan was to be able to quickly generate a massive worldspace you can start tweaking and filling with content

Some people don't have time to shape land, so yes, it can in fact replace hours upon hours of manual work. Unless people are taking their manually shaped land to the department of quality control... Then that's a whole other thread/topic everyone would like to see, I'd assume. Not really.

[Kaev]

I spent some time working on a world map generator. Since I'm pretty bad at mapping myself I wrote an application that can fill a map with randomly generated terrain.
It's still missing normal maps. Generated them with noggit, since I just fill them with up vectors, yeah I'm lazy...
I wanted to expand it with different zones and random placement of trees and stuff like that, but I'm too busy with other stuff atm.
The shown area is, I think, 20x20 adts. But the only limit is the maximum amount a wdt can hold.
My plan was to be able to quickly generate a massive worldspace you can start tweaking and filling with content.

I can't wait to use this tool  :geek:

Automatically generated content can't replace hours of manual work.

My plan was to be able to quickly generate a massive worldspace you can start tweaking and filling with content

Some people don't have time to shape land, so yes, it can in fact replace hours upon hours of manual work. Unless people are taking their manually shaped land to the department of quality control... Then that's a whole other thread/topic everyone would like to see, I'd assume. Not really.

I would definitely shape the land by myself, but my textures are looking awful when i paint them, so that's what i would use it for.
Ofcourse it would look better when talented people would do it by hand, but not everyone here has this talent (yet).

[Skarn]

Sorry, but unless this tool is capble of generating at least basic terrain shape out of alphamap data, it is useless. The only possible use of it now is creating those kind of maps people are messing with on ac-web and some other similar wow modding resources. No automation can replace manual work you are dedicating your time and artistic skills into.
Try reaching a similar effect to the one on the picture and I will say sorry and take my words back  

[Milly]

I think the map generator is a pretty neat innovation and it's great to see people working on tools regardless of how useful they might seem to be. Though this certainly can't replace even the most basic manual design, and I wouldn't recommend using it in its current state.

The concept is very interesting though, I'll admit. Especially if you're going for a more realistic worldmap. But wouldn't it be better to use a world map generator program to create the shape, and then carefully apply a more accurate height map via Photoshop? Or better yet, use the worldmap shape as a basis for applying alphamaps and then do the shaping by hand.

[Amaroth]

When I heard about automaticaly generated WoW map, I have also heard that "Minecraft can do it too". Well, I hope that whoever plans to tryto do this understands that this is not Minecraft and that generating landscape for WoW will be really far, far more difficult. Just btw, we, who have played Minecraft, all know how glitchy that generator sometimes gets. Fixing such bugs could be really troublesome, especially for someone, who uses such generator because he simply can't model and texture terrain.

I definitely undestand that someone wants to have 10x10 ADT map and just doesn't have time to do all spawning and shaping. I get it. But if someone wants such generator only because he is not bad artist, but only lazy to learn how to shape terrain to make it look better than piece of crap - thats something I will never support. And just btw, I am terrible artist myself, but my terrain looks at least OK enough. Because I wasn't fucking lazy and learned how to do it, in a simple and enough good-looking way.

Is there anyone who will disagree with statement, that auto-tune using is killing artistic aspects of music - and what music should be about? Well, you should also agree with fact that no generator should be ever used instead of painting by hand. Generator is robot. Robots don't have emotions. Art is about "explaining" emotions. Robots can't be artists. Thats my opinion on this matter.

[Morfium]

Woah, I never expecdted this to result in such a discussion. :/
Now I feel the need for some clarifications.
I never said this was planned to replace manual work, as this is simply not possible for me to create such a quality by simple heightmap generaton. Nor do I want that. I'm well aware that hand crafted landscapes can't be beaten by this generator and it's not its purpose.
It's not even geared towards creating WoW-like maps. It's like Milly said for more "realistic" terrain. So no mountains to separate zones, no steep WoW like hills etc.
Texturing is pretty basic too, it's simply height based. No fancy patters or anything. Sorry if you expected this to create blizzlike zone maps.
This is more like creating an empty canvas for adding content.
If you played The Elder Scrolls Oblivion you might be aware of the same thing. They generated the terrain and fixed things they didn't like by had (more or less ^^)

I love building maps, but I hate trying to do textures.

^ this!

Me too... but the texturing is kinda simple and doesn't look really good. Maybe I can find a way for patterns or stuff like that, but not at the moment sadly.

Automatically generated content can't replace hours of manual work.

is tool is capble of generating at least basic terrain shape out of alphamap data, it is useless. The only possible use of it now is creating those kind of maps people are messing with on ac-web and some other similar wow modding resources. No automation can replace manual work you ar

I never planned to. Please see this as a canvas and not a finished map. And it already is useful for me.

(..)But wouldn't it be better to use a world map generator program to create the shape, and then carefully apply a more accurate height map via Photoshop? Or better yet, use the worldmap shape as a basis for applying alphamaps and then do the shaping by hand.

I did that first, because I thought the same thing. It worked and was kinda ... boring. I wanted to be surprised too. The world I work on doesn't really need a predefined map. I have some concept ideas and almost no lore. More like ideas for scripts etc. And I want a big sandbox to fly over, see some lake and think "that might be a good place for xy". Might not be the best way to work at this, but I got no schedule anyway.

Australia

When I heard about automaticaly generated WoW map, I have also heard that "Minecraft can do it too". Well, I hope that whoever plans to tryto do this understands that this is not Minecraft and that generating landscape for WoW will be really far, far more difficult. Just btw, we, who have played Minecraft, all know how glitchy that generator sometimes gets. Fixing such bugs could be really troublesome, especially for someone, who uses such generator because he simply can't model and texture terrain.

I definitely undestand that someone wants to have 10x10 ADT map and just doesn't have time to do all spawning and shaping. I get it. But if someone wants such generator only because he is not bad artist, but only lazy to learn how to shape terrain to make it look better than piece of crap - thats something I will never support. And just btw, I am terrible artist myself, but my terrain looks at least OK enough. Because I wasn't fucking lazy and learned how to do it, in a simple and enough good-looking way.

Is there anyone who will disagree with statement, that auto-tune using is killing artistic aspects of music - and what music should be about? Well, you should also agree with fact that no generator should be ever used instead of painting by hand. Generator is robot. Robots don't have emotions. Art is about "explaining" emotions. Robots can't be artists. Thats my opinion on this matter.

You probably disagree, but I don't see myself as an artist here. I have a project I work on for myself. What I want is content. I'm a single person and well aware I have no time to create a map that size on my own. So generating content randomly allows me to do this. Sure it doesn't look as amazing as the hand crafted works here. But it gives me the chance to realize what I want, when the alternative would be giving up. I can always tweak areas until I feel like they are decent enough for my purpose. And this is not about laziness, but being realistic in my case. Plus, you can do fun things with auto tune too. Just a matter of taste. ^^

And as a final note, it's not like I did this to force everybody to generate terrain, sorry if some people were offended by this.I love the creations on here and I love browsing the Showoff area to look at those amazing screenshots. It's just for creating a basis to work on, nothing more nothing less.
Uhm... sorry for the wall of text btw. X-x

[schlumpf]

I spent some time working on a world map generator. Since I'm pretty bad at mapping myself I wrote an application that can fill a map with randomly generated terrain.

I like this.

[Amaroth]

Like I said, I get it Morfium. But only as long as this is not being mis and overused - like auto-tune often is lately. When you use this just for fun or because there is clearly no other possibility - yep, I am fine with that, I didn't say otherwise. But what really hurt my eyes are projects made by people who clearly just underrate a little bit of most simple practice and training before doing something and are just looking for most lazy and easy ways while EVERYONE, even someone, who can't draw anything more complicated than stick figure, could do much better, if he were just at least trying to do better.

[Dracbane]

I spent some time working on a world map generator. Since I'm pretty bad at mapping myself I wrote an application that can fill a map with randomly generated terrain.
It's still missing normal maps. Generated them with noggit, since I just fill them with up vectors, yeah I'm lazy...
I wanted to expand it with different zones and random placement of trees and stuff like that, but I'm too busy with other stuff atm.
The shown area is, I think, 20x20 adts. But the only limit is the maximum amount a wdt can hold.
My plan was to be able to quickly generate a massive worldspace you can start tweaking and filling with content.

I can't wait to use this tool  :geek:

Automatically generated content can't replace hours of manual work.

My plan was to be able to quickly generate a massive worldspace you can start tweaking and filling with content

Some people don't have time to shape land, so yes, it can in fact replace hours upon hours of manual work. Unless people are taking their manually shaped land to the department of quality control... Then that's a whole other thread/topic everyone would like to see, I'd assume. Not really.

I would definitely shape the land by myself, but my textures are looking awful when i paint them, so that's what i would use it for.
Ofcourse it would look better when talented people would do it by hand, but not everyone here has this talent (yet).

This was also more of my thoughts. I can shape land and texture quite well, but I just hate doing it. I would much rather be 'putting the world together' than trying to make sure the texture on such and such hill is perfect, which feels like all I do. So having a program I can drop my map into and get my basic textures applied would be great. Like he said this isnt an "instant complete map" just a basic tool for speeding map creation up a bit. I would still have to go back and tweak everything to my liking.

[Alastor]

Just creating next character of my ... just like Rime Etere , Rhazana Mortess Gamaron ....
this one is
Alythess Strix'Efuartus




honestly im getting tired of everything i dont have much to do so im just strugling and doing every single crap think that gets on my mind ( like extracting music from SWF app by Washa [ wow hentai artist] )

[MountainLion]

Let me just remind you that this is a Showoff thread, not a "Here's what I think is wrong about your Showoff". Though I suppose you are self-entitled to critique people's work, the reality is that -put simple- no one cares when it's not properly executed. I am sorry to say this but I think you are embarassing modcraft, can you imagine people starting out reading your comments? Do you think they would ever want to share their work with us? I think not because they would fear your professional opinion attacking their work for every little detail. That's not constructive criticism or feedback. That's just you being a negative lame nerd. At this rate there will be no new fresh artists and modders. Someone who 'knows what they are doing' should enourage others, not otherwise.

...

Taking this way too pesonal. Take a chill pill.

To Morfium, don't worry. You don't have to "defend" your points of view since, well, this is not an acceptance thread. You continue working at -what I personally think- is a great tool and share it if you want to. Thank you. I share your thoughts as I too am working on my project by myself and barely have enough time. Plus, the shaping and texturing is the least of my concerns atm.