Quote Originally Posted by Redrobes View Post
I asked if there was a height map for this area but alas this island region on the left was just photoshopped up and its going to come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that mine will be in 3D. The reason is that its more effort up front but less effort downstream if you like the kind of realistic terrain that I do. I have also mentioned about three times in the past my method for making 3D terrain out of 2D and this is a chance for me to actually post some attachments at every stage so its more obvious.

So starting with my mask (see top post of this thread) I did an edge detect on it and got the border out as a line (i.e. an all white page with just a line land border on it). Then I printed it on a sheet of A4 - though you could do this next part digitally if you like. With a blank land and only a line for the border, draw on the edge boundary rectangle which encloses the land border line so that you can cut it out later. Then start putting on contours with a fine pencil or better still a thin draftsman's pen. Look at where the existing rivers are and guess where the high ground must be in order to drive the water into them. Working from the peaks downwards, draw the concentric lines so that they dont touch. Clearly in real contours they could but its going to make work for you later if you do. Work down to the land border and then continue past it out to sea. Then I scanned back in my drawing (Pic 1). Then whack the contrast up to max so there are only full black and full white pixels in it. Tidy it up a bit so the contours still dont touch and then flood fill the bands black and white like a zebra. Start at the highest peak and work down. (See Pic 2).

Then again, tidy it up some more till your happy and also try to make the white and black bands about even sized. Then count the number of bands from highest peak to lowest part of the sea. Mine was 19. Divide 255 by 19 and pick a number which is a bit lower. I used 12. Then, starting at the highest peak, if its white then leave it, if its black then also leave it for the mo and come back to it. Take the next band which lets say was black, fill it with 255 - 12 which is 243. Flood fill the next white band 231 etc and work down. Finally, go back and sort out the first band if it was black to start with make it 255. Now I started at the lowest point of the sea and made that 0 and worked up but I got into a pickle so start at the high point and work down. (See the 2D Pic 3).

This in 3D looks like Pic 4 so blur it a lot until it evens out the bands. Thats 2D Pic 5 and in 3D Pic 6.

Thats about as far as you can go before needing touch up in a 3D editor but its enough to get you relief shading if working in 2D. Theres still a little banding in it but thats the limitation of 8 bit greyscale and ill put it into my 3D app and smooth it some more then it will be better. So for now thats where I am up to.

Edit: Ordered my images ok now.
Edit2: Picture order is still a bit ropey but you get the idea.
Hi there! I'm looking to do something like this (I've already got my topo) but I have absolutely no idea what tool I should use to make a 3D version of it. I'd appreciate it a lot if you could tell me what software you used for this!
Also, sorry for reviving such an old thread; unfortunately it's the only one that is related to what I'm attempting.