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FTPro rivers are pixelated

ZemekisZemekis
in Mapping with ProFantasy's Software
I just started using FTPro 2.2 and hit my first snag with the rivers. I realized that all my rivers come across heavily pixelated. On "coarse" the pixels take the size of a conintent and on "very fine" they are still as big as an island or something similar.
I've tried changing the world size to 500 miles but that didn't help either.
I wanted to use the world map for a fantasy campaign and was quite happy to not have to draw everything from scratch. Is there also a way to use the rivers as vectors as in CC3?

On a general note: does it make sense to use FT to create fantasy maps or am I better off doing this in CC3 alltogether?
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Comments

  • LatharionLatharion Traveler
    Here are a couple of things to remember regarding the river drawing routine within FT Pro (please correct this if I am incorrect, Joe). First, the river routine only creates major river routes. It does not create tributaries or riverlets, streams, or minor rivers. Second, the river routine creates rivers using vectors as opposed to pixels. As such, usually, rivers will appear rather straight for long periods, or will be "jaggy looking". Although the rivers can be converted to pixels from vectors afterward, the results are simply an overlay of the original vector-based river mapping. I know that Joe has mentioned in the past that he wished he had time to enhance the river routines, but other more pressing bugs are higher on the priority list.

    Personally, I use the river routines in FT Pro as a starting point, and redraw them to my taste in CC3. It will probably be easiest to do it this way.
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  • 2 years later
  • RobertM525RobertM525
    This sounds very similar to what's happening to me in the Fractal Terrains Demo 3.0.15. I'm attaching a screenshot.
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  • jslaytonjslayton Moderator, ProFantasy Mapmaker
    Don't check the "Keep River Image Overlay" option on the "Select River Length" dialog. FT uses an image overlay during the river creation process to show the user a preview of the calculation grid that FT is using to find the rivers. Rivers will never have more resolution than shown in the river overlay used during computation. If the overlay is kept after the initial computation operation (checking the "Keep River Image Overlay" option on the "Select River Length" dialog does this), then it may mask the vector rivers computed by FT. If there is a "River Channels" overlay on the "Image Overlays" window, then try hiding that and see if you get the vector layer to show.

    The image below shows what the screen would look like with and without the "River Channels" overlay created by checking the "Keep River Image Overlay" option on the "Select River Length" dialog.
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  • RobertM525RobertM525
    edited April 2013
    I think what I was doing before was using the "Very Coarse" selection (for some stupid reason). I tried it with Very Fine and... well, see the results for yourself:

    http://imgur.com/a/reMBg

    Seems to have worked as intended. (Though I find some of the river flows to be rather... illogical. Shouldn't all of them flow to the sea? Especially ones that flow into tiny rivers right next to the ocean? And the fact that some are straight lines is disappointing. I guess that's asking too much of the program.)
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  • jslaytonjslayton Moderator, ProFantasy Mapmaker
    http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/CGTutorial/index.html offers some suggestions for getting better results from FT. Search for "Fill Basins" in the document to get a, idea why you're getting straight rivers and why rivers stop short of where you might expect them.
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