Fractal Terrain Pro - Rivers going crazy

welch3694

I'm not sure what's going on here, I'm using Fractal Terrain Pro and something's weird with having it generate Rivers. There are a couple of rivers that seem to glitch and extend waaaay far to the left. I have attached an image of the problem. If I zoom in far enough they stop doing that, but anytime I zoom back out it glitches again. This problem isn't confined to a single world either, I tried generating rivers on a couple different worlds and inevitably one or two rivers do this.

I'm running 64-bit Windows 7 with a quad-core processor & 3gb RAM, I can post more tech specs if they're useful.

Any idea of what I can do about this? The problem exists both in the main window view and also when I try to export, it's ruining my ability to use these maps.

welch3694

More info: I am using Fractal Terrain Pro v 2.3 (problem existed before and after I updated)

jslayton

Contact ProFantasy tech support and ask them about the beta version that should correct this problem.

Anoril

Hello,

I'm thinking about buying Fractal Terrain, but I can't figure out lot of its functionalities... The main page is not presenting a lot of screen shots and the demo manual does not talk about my concerns... And I'm quite interested in rivers generation

Where can I find good qual pictures to get an idea of what I can do with FT?

Thanks, Paul.

JimP

I use it to create islands, export them as bmps, and then import the bmp into CC3 and trace etc. and turn them into maps for my game world.

FT is more for creating worlds. CC3 is more for drawing detailed maps of that world.

my method link updated Nov 7, 2016.

jslayton

http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/CGTutorial/ is another example.
See also http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/mars/index.html as an example done with the original Fractal Terrains.
http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/ThereandBackAgain/ shows interaction between FT and another program.
The ProFantasy map gallery at http://www.profantasy.com/evidence/gallery.asp has some examples of FT output as well.

jslayton

It depends on what version you used. If you have version 1.23 or earlier (the original FT, not FT Pro) then you can't perform those sorts of tasks because the generation algorithm was changed. The original FT had a timing-sensitive bug that meant that worlds would not generate consistently across machines or (sometimes) even on the same machine.

If your version of FT is 1.24 or newer then you should be able to perform that sort of processing. You'll need a relatively new version of FT Pro (a version downloaded form the PF website) to work with that tutorial, however.

Anoril

Hello !

Actually, I don't own FT and I'm thinking about buying it I just got a FT file generated years ago. I tried the PF FT demo and my map loads with no issue. Good point I guess My point is to be sure I can deal with my old file that a large part of my campaign is based on...

The Demo does not present the Montain "Incise Flow tool" So I can't follow that tutorial part... :P

At last, I don't see differences between before/after smoothing lands... I may be blind!

I'm very impressed by the result of your tutorial even if I don't really understand every point (smoothing, painting and so) and my own attempts end in very poor results. By the way, the map I work on was Ridged Multifractal and it looks odd because of artifacts all around and I was wondering to know if it is possible to create a new world with a good look (Wilbur RMF) and then copy/paste my small island into the map... Is it possible and how to?

Please considere I just want to be sure FT can fulfil my needs before I buy it I can post image sample to detail what I intend to perform...

Thanks a lot!

Paul

jslayton

The demo version is not in sync with the most recent version, unfortunately. I'm pretty sure that you can't get the same results with the demo as you can with the current version.

Changing the fractal type will unfortunately change the world. It's not something the can be done without extreme pain and (usually) poor results. Pasting a small bit of terrain into a larger world is a very difficult task that often does not give the desired results.

Anoril

Sniff...

I'll check with the demo if it is possible to get easily an island that looks a bit like my old one... Or I can try the billion worlds: one may present the same one

BTH, is there a way to rotate a map?

Thanks a lot for your time!

Regards,

Paul

jslayton

I'm not sure what you mean by rotating the map. There is the basic recenter projection operation that will move the center of projection to the center of the map area. There is also the rotate fractal function operation that will move the fractal parts of the map around, but not the editing parts (this features is only useful for a few very specific purposes).

What sort of thing did you have in mind?

Anoril

I produced a pretty good looking map with the demo but I would rather get the north and south hemisphere upside down... I know it is possible to deal with the image as this, then inverse the sun shading then export as bitmap and rotate with a bitmap editing software. But if FT is able to H mirror or 180° rotate the map, it would be nice

I'm very impressed by FT. It is not the kind of software we use all the day (once you get a fantasy world, I assume you use is quite forever...) but it is a pretty good piece of software. It's a pity it does not automatically generate full world with corrected landmass and smoothed stuff (like explained in your tutorial) but anyway, it is a good job!

I budget the buying (BTW, I'm full of questions and I hope the manual will explain in detail the prescale stuff, layers and so. I'm a bit technic and I like to know what is going behind the scene...)

Best regards!

Paul.

JimP

That is easy. Just tell everyone looking at the map that south is at the top, east to the left, west to the right, and north is the bottom of the map.

That is what I do for my game world, which takes place in the southern hempisphere.

Anoril

True

Paul