How was the map made? Basically a question for the ones who know the numbers:-)

[stecph]

I really like the map, one of the aspects I like the most is how detaied it is.

I often wander how was it made,did he use a "brush" tool or similar? Or has he actually manually planted every tree and put down every rock?
Same thing for elevations and mountains,is there a tool he used?

Or maybe some other IT guy knows the answer, to me this is some kind of whizardy, but i am curious and fascinated by how games are made:-)

[Zee_]

For the smaller rocks and rubble, I'd say he likely used a brush to paint em in. It would take forever to plop every tiny pebble down. For the larger rocks you see along cliffsides and whatnot, those were most likely placed manually.

For trees I can't say. However, I can say that even when using a program like SpeedTree to plant entire forests of randomely sized and angled trees, you will have to go in and manually move or delete some trees to get the overall look and feel you want.

For mountains, its almost always simple tools that push/pull/flatten terrain.

If you want to get a basic feel for how landscaping tools work, you can try things out with any free to use engine like Unity, you can also use the toolkits for any Bethesda game (if you're just trying things out and not making or working on a mod, just don't save your work afterwards) if you feel intimidated by game engines.

[stecph]

Hey Zee thank you very much for the explanation, quite interesting stuff.
I will surely think of it while playing now:-))

I doubt I will get into it as my creativity works better in different areas, thankfully there is people like Chris and I guess you, who create beautiful settings also for me;-)

[Shidan]

The foliage, rocks, etc. is all randomly placed, based on some predefined "areas" that govern what can and cannot spawn in each region. These objects are then given numbers for how many can spawn in the area, how clustered they are, what alltitudes they can spawn at, etc.

The terrain height and stuff is done through a very hi-res heightmap image file, where the brighter the pixel is the higher the corresponding area is. Unsure whether the devs used a special tool to make the map and then exported to this file (that would be my guess), or simply edit the file directly, but modders have successfully edited the file manually to add and change the landmasses.

[stecph]

Originally posted by Shidan:

The foliage, rocks, etc. is all randomly placed, based on some predefined "areas" that govern what can and cannot spawn in each region. These objects are then given numbers for how many can spawn in the area, how clustered they are, what alltitudes they can spawn at, etc.

The terrain height and stuff is done through a very hi-res heightmap image file, where the brighter the pixel is the higher the corresponding area is. Unsure whether the devs used a special tool to make the map and then exported to this file (that would be my guess), or simply edit the file directly, but modders have successfully edited the file manually to add and change the landmasses.

Thanks Shidan, to my analog mind this all sounds like whizardy indeed, but extremely fascinating.
I understand what you say and can imagine how such softwares might work, but goes waaay beyond my imagination how can numbers do that:-)

I wish one day he'll show us how Kenshi "looks" like, I have no idea if it's lines of code, something like the FCS or what, :-)

[Ms. Lana]

There's likely several steps to the process. The process is probably something like this: first, a terrain heightmap is generated, which results in a 2D black and white image with black representing the highest elevations, and white being the lowest (or vice versa). This is used by the game engine or 3D software to create a 3D terrain. Next a similar image is made which outlines the biomes. This biome map is used to determine which plants and rocks spawn in which biomes. This all pretty much how Shidan describes it.

The next step, since computers and science-magic aren't perfect, it's up to the developer to manually clean it up and make changes as necessary. All of the towns, and likely the surrounding terrain are manually edited using brushes to change height, smooth, erode the terrain as necessary to make it realistic looking. Then buildings are placed and named.

To describe it all makes it sound like a simple process but it can easily become a very, very lengthy process. You'd be surprised by how long it can actually take to get that one rock to sit next to that one tree just right. Imagine needing to have a photographer's eye for composition on a small scale but a billion times over on a huge scale.

As far as the numbers go, I'll give a grossly simplified example. Set a variable called 'Foliage Density.' This has a range from 1-10. Biome A is lush and has a 'Foliage Density' of 10 and Biome B is a 2. At this point you can dive pretty deep into creating individual settings and variables for determining how far apart your various props mights spawn, do they spawn in clusters, etc. 1 would mean plants and rocks spawn in at random within a defined range of each other and in clusters of Y. For 10, that defined range is lowered, spawning the props closer together and more frequently and the amount and density of clusters is increased as well. True/False statements can be used to to 'Flag' certain biomes. Something like isSwampBiome = true can be used to determine exactly which props spawn there. A prop might have a tag that says that it can only spawn in a biome that has SwampBiome set to true. Again very simplified and I'm still trying learn how this all works too. It's one of those things where they say, "There's a million ways to skin a cat." (Let it be known I do not condone nor do I take part in the skinning of cats.)

[Erei]

For anyone who made map on Cities Skyline, you probably already knows what heightmap and stuff are.
It's actually fairly easy to do, at a basic level, before adding the asset. You made a really rough map in black and white, with black being the lowest altitude, and white the highest, with every variation of grey in between. You can even take a pre-existing area of the world/known planet surface and make a heightmap of it (there are website that can generate a heightmap from anywhere in the world).
Then you can manually edit it, but usually you use a program to make it look more realistic. One of them is Wilbur, it's a free program, and it's used a lot to make "fantasy" maps. The program can simulate erosions over the year, turning your really rough map into something that look like it could exist. With valley, waterways, etc... Then you edit the result to your liking, and done, you have a realistic map.
I used it and it's really impressive stuff.

Then you add the trees and stuff. Usually it's done by biome. You say which biome is what. In some game it's automatic (like above this altitude it's this biome, next to the desert is that one and so on). And you define what every biome have, and what density. Like alpine biome have all the pine trees variations, and at a high density, with that kind of grass. That kind of stuff is usually how random generated game map are done, like 7 days to die.
Since I know Kenshi use a lot of biome definition, I suspect they also went that way, and they didn't put every tree by hand. But then, there aren't that many trees so I might be wrong^^


When it's done, you probably want to review the land, see if nothing's clipping, and if everything is good. You adjust at will. Then you can add the unique stuff on the map, like cities and whatnot.