Editing Mission Builder (section)

=== Terrain Generation ===

Unlike race tracks, the whole area is important.  Players will be able to go everywhere, so we need to make sure there's something interesting in every direction.
The first thing to do is to look at other maps in the area, try and work out how they were created.

I'll be using an empty map to demonstrate these transformations.  The sun has been turned down to reduce glare, and fog is reduced.

[[File:MBW_Screen1.jpg]]

The green area shows where the terrain will repeat.  Darkwind maps loop forever (as you probably noticed), and this line shows the edge of the map section. You can't paint textures outside this area - you need to head over to the other side of the map.  It doesn't have any effect in-game though.

Making a map starts in terrain terraform editor mode.  There are two types of transformation - generators and modifiers. They work in order from top to bottom, and can be layered to produce complex effects.

==== Generators ====

Generators override the terrain, and wipe out everything above them in the stack.  There's no point using more than one of these, they just override each other.  The "New Seed" button gives a different random terrain.  The green minimap in the bottom left shows a preview of the terrain that will be generated.

*'''fBm Fractal''' - basic hilly terrain.  Hill frequency is (more or less) the number of hills in the area.  Roughness is the steepness of the hills (I think - it doesn't actually seem to do much).  Detail adds smaller hills between the large ones.  This is the most useful generator for most areas.

[[File:MBW_Screen2.jpg]]

*'''Rigid MultiFractal''' - produces ridges or sand dunes.  This is used for most of the terrain along the SS-Elms route.  Frequency and detail as above.

[[File:MBW_Screen3.jpg]]

*'''Canyon Fractal''' - Produces steep-sided canyons.  Think of Sarsfield, or The Maze.  Chaos adjusts how winding the canyons are.  With low numbers of canyons and moderate roughness, this can produce rolling hills.

[[File:MBW_Screen4.jpg]]

''Low Chaos''

[[File:MBW_Screen5.jpg]]

''High Chaos''

*'''Sinus''' - produces small bumps all over the map.  The graph will be important for a lot of operations, so it's worth explaining how it works.  The height of the graph shows how much of that size effect will be part of the final terrain - large bumps on the left, small ones on the right.  A couple of examples:

[[File:MBW_Screen6.jpg]]

''Small Ripples''

[[File:MBW_Screen7.jpg]]

''Large Ripples''

[[File:MBW_Screen8.jpg]]

''Varied Ripples''

* '''Bitmap''' - claims to use an 8 bit bitmap as the base for a terrain.  Unfortunately I can't work out which folder it looks in for bitmaps.  Anyone who works it out, let me know.

==== Modifiers ====

*'''General''' - sets max and min terrain height.  This is the biggest effect on the "hilliness" of the terrain.  This is always the first transformation, and can't be deleted.

*'''Turbulence''' - adds extra noise and roughness to the terrain.  It gives a twisting sort of effect.  Requires clicking on a higher level and back before seeing any effects.

[[File:MBW_Screen9.jpg]]

''No Turbulence''

[[File:MBW_Screen10.jpg]]

''Light Turbulence''

[[File:MBW_Screen11.jpg]]

''Heavy Turbulence''

*'''Smoothing''' - the opposite.  Smooths out rough edges and makes a more even, rolling terrain.  Number of iterations has the biggest effect on the outcome.

[[File:MBW_Screen12.jpg]]

''No Smoothing''

[[File:MBW_Screen13.jpg]]

''Light Smoothing''

[[File:MBW_Screen14.jpg]]

''Heavy Smoothing''

*'''Smooth Ridges/Valleys''' - smooths only the top of mountains and ridges.  Useful to avoid sharp peaks that cars have trouble driving over.

[[File:MBW_Screen15.jpg]]

''No Smoothing''

[[File:MBW_Screen16.jpg]]

''Heavy Smoothing''

*'''Filter''' - applies a transform based on the height of the terrain - each input height can be linked to an output.  There are all sort of complex effects that can be achieved like this, although I haven't experimented much.

[[File:MBW_Screen17.jpg]]

''The original terrain''

[[File:MBW_Screen18.jpg]]

''Filtering used to set the terrain to three levels''

*'''Thermal Erosion/Hydraulic Erosion''' - don't appear to do anything.  Let me know if you work it out.