Create A World Tutorial Using Fractal Generators (You Tube Series)

Rhodalle

Sometimes I can’t answer people’s questions in a timely manner, about how I use Create-A-World, World Machine, and Photoshop, and since I am still itching to make another world, I am finally getting around to a video tutorial series that I have toyed with the idea of making for a while.. This should help answer those questions, empower the curious, and I really hope it inspires more casual players to take on CAW. Long live the Sims 3!

Part 1 (intro and overview)
Part 2 (Create your heightmap and export splat-maps in World Machine)
Part 2.5 (A few more WM techniques that might be useful with different map projects.)
Part 3 (importing and refining the height and splat-maps in CAW)
Part 4 (cleanup and finishing touches to the terrain)
Part 5 (laying plants)
Part 6 (placing trails and transparent trails)
Part 7 (non rout-able paint)
Part 8 (finishing up tips)

There are things I won't discuss at length in this series, like laying lots. It's just not necessary with this topic, which is focusing on creating a realistic terrain that interacts with your sims as close to how a real environment would as possible. Plants and routing are very much elements of a terrain so I feel they deserve more time.

More to come!

Rflong7

Hi

Awesome

I couldn't get Word Machine to do much - I had fun making lots of what looked like circuit chains.
I have Gimp but I really enjoy terrain sculpting and painting in CAW- it relaxed me. (Still never good with Gimp)
*But it's always fun to learn new things, especially with CAW.

Thanks so much for sharing!

Rhodalle

Aw! Thanks... I hope I didn't come across biased against the people who prefer hand-panting, and actually rock at it (in the video, when I basically said that it "takes too long and doesn't produce ideal reasults...") I didn't think that statement through at all. I was speaking from the reality of many who try CAW and it's not their cup of tea, including my own dismal experiences - just because it took so long, and the results never quite made me happy - but it was because of how little time I actually had, and inevitably the fact that I was being rushed showed. You are so kind, and your worlds are so awesome. The reality is, despite spells of impatience, I too enjoy painting by hand to get spots looking just right. The irony is, by hand is the only way to get it perfect! The computer always needs to be "picked up after." Half of Ulokea was done without PS or maps, so I aught to know it can be done. XD

Anyway I know you weren't coming down on me I just realized how the way I advocated this technique could have put down the old-school methods of great and dedicated world-builders like yourself. Which was really just ignorance, because I forgot, not what I meant.

Rflong7

Oh, No- I'm so sorry and I wasn't. I do like and appreciate the many ways of making worlds. I really want to try all the different ways of making worlds even though I never got that world program to work for me.

I tried to find a tutorial for it but just confused myself. Once I get moved and after the Holidays I hope to try it again. And that's why I say Thanks!

Rhodalle

Don't be sorry! Trust me it was nothing you said, LOL, I tend to hyperventilate everytime I speak publicly - your sincerity comes through 100%. I am just hard on myself. :,D I thought back to the wording in my video and just found it ignorant when I remembered there are great hand-painters out there.

I do hope this series is helpful to you! I just spent a long time in WM recording the creation of a new map, and I tried to get pretty deep into the technique of the nodes I used and the thinking behind the process.

flstrider

@Rhodalle Not sure if you are still around or working on any more of these tutorials, but I was wondering is there a way to import a heightmap from CAW into WM? just curious to know if this could be done

Rhodalle

Hey, I am sorry it took so long for you to get a response! I never left for good, but ended up being forced into a year hiatus due to moving, losing my computer, new baby and full time college after all that. Life is getting a little more simple again - for now.

To answer your question, there is indeed a way to get a CAW heightmap into WM. You probably found this out by now.

It's basically a custom generator. You import the png into WM and want to make it's edge behavior is set to tile, otherwise, if you add another generator to combine, and it's on another extent, you won't see it through the combiner. If that's all latin to you, ignore it, lol, just set it to tile and that you either have the resolution of your file/extents set to the same as the image or you can manually drag the scale of the png to be larger or smaller in the generator's settings. Say if you don't own WM and you need to work with smaller tiles than 2048 or whatever map size you are exporting from CAW.


TUTORIAL UPDATE: I do plan to make the third part of my tut very very soon. I lost all my recordings when my Asus died so I had to start fresh from where I left off!

Edit: you know, I will probably just include a quick tut covering how to import png/custom generators and maps into WM in part 3, since this is handy for people to know.