FT3 Overlay Issues

Hey all,

Rather than hijack someone else's post on FT3+ Overlays, I start my own.

Below you will see that I have somehow managed to select the image in my overlay and have applied a color to it. It is transparent because the overlay is transparent. I am trying to figure out how to apply that selection to the map, itself--along with the color.

Note that the selection is not perfect. It leaves unselected a lot of detail on the coast. Is the selection tool additive? I'll test of course.

Cal

Comments

  • jslaytonjslayton Moderator, ProFantasy Mapmaker

    If you're working to get a CC3+ map into FT3, there are multiple ways to accomplish that task.

    The most direct way is to export an image from CC3+ with just a few colors representing different altitudes, load that image into CC3+ as an Image Overlay, and use the Image Overlays>>Color-to-Altitude Conversion tool. The results from that tool may be smoother than you'd like, however, because the tool sets the roughness channel to 0 in order to avoid having to deal with the fractal items. You will probably recognize this as an ongoing theme in FT: you can use either hard-to-control fractal elements or uninterestingly smooth editing tools).

    If the Color-to-Altitude conversion tool doesn't give you results that you like, you can also use that same image to set altitudes using the Color-to-Selection tool to select each color and then use Tools>>Global Set>>Altitude Value to set an altitude for each selected color.

    A less direct way is to convert your map into a set of grayscale contours in CC3+ (for example, black as the ocean, dark gray as the main terrain, mid gray as higher elevations and white as the highest mountains) and export the image. Load this image as a selection in FT using Select>>Load Selection and then paint or fill to convert the selection to altitudes. I keep wanting to say that FT can also import that kind of height image directly as altitudes for a new world, but I'm not sure about that one because I get features confused among various pieces of software that I maintain.

    The least direct way to get a world from CC3 into FT is to go through an external tool such as Wilbur. Wilbur offers some features that FT doesn't and it's a little easier to do certain kinds of things in Wilbur as opposed to FT because you don't have to be constantly vigilant of the dynamic fractal elements in FT. https://www.cartographersguild.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=70261 shows how to take a set of masks at various altitudes and create a height map result (save the image as an MDR file in Wilbur). The output of Wilbur generation can be used as a new world in FT3+.

    Loopysue
Sign In or Register to comment.