How to Make Smooth Coasts

[SigniferOne]

Behold, the magic method explained to me by Wilddog, which will make your coasts appear sublime.

We can turn a square into a circle:


The magic of 'massaging' a coast...


We can go from this,


to this:


So how does this work? Here is the unadulterated, complete PNG fragment (with the last digits of the RGB code added - Gigantus). Download it and use the Eyedropper Tool to analyze its color values:


Pay particular attention to the main depression in the middle.

The theory is the following: 1) the darker the sea pixel, the more inclined the adjacent land pixel will be. 2) All decreases in brightness must be gradual. 3) editing land pixels is unnecessary, other than keeping them at rational height of 1 to 10 pixels (mine are at 6, creating that nice sensation of a landmass 'raised' above the water).

Voila, coasts like you've never seen before:





Etc.

[apple]

Nice guide.

[dragonsign]

nice one

[Yelü Dashi]

sweet + rep

[Nakharar]

2nd Yelu Dashi

[SSJPabs]

I would be willing to play many MANY more mods if they did this.

[Gigantus]

I thought I make it a bit easier for the folks out there: enlarged the pic and added the last two digits of the RGB code (0 0 225 = 25) into the pic. Click on the thumbnail to get the full pic.

[SigniferOne]

Yes it's basically gigantus' values plus 200.

[Yelü Dashi]

I thought I make it a bit easier for the folks out there: enlarged the pic and added the last two digits of the RGB code (0 0 225 = 25) into the pic. Click on the thumbnail to get the full pic.

thanks for that gigantus, I was working on something similar myself - colour coding the different values.

@ Sig, I was wondering if you'd be willing to release any other sections of the height map for us ?

Most of my coasts run vertically, and its making my head hurt re-doing with this method.

I realise you've put a lot of work into it, but you could actually save many modders hours of tedious work if you released small bitesize section of perfected coastline ! no worries if not.

[Nevada]

Nice guide, Signifier.

But even with it, smoothing coastlines is still a very time consuming and awful thing.

[Swagger]

gorgeous tutorial

[Gigantus]

Little Tip:

Put a low number like 205 on a stretch of coast on the pixels that are pointing out to sea (like the 18 on the top right of the pic). Open your 'color changer' and dial up by 5 (210). Place the pixel to the left and right of the first one. Repeat until the row is full. Leave the inward pointing pixels at 255.

[SigniferOne]

But even with it, smoothing coastlines is still a very time consuming and awful thing.

Well yes it is, but when you're done with it the map is a very nice and beautiful thing.

It depends on how much you care to make the world you're making be real and appealing. Some people make careless half-assed skins using vanilla M2TW units, while others create original stunning high-res skins where creases of the cloth shine in the sunlight. It's the same thing.

[SigniferOne]

@ Sig, I was wondering if you'd be willing to release any other sections of the height map for us ?

Sure, I'll try to post it soon.

Most of my coasts run vertically, and its making my head hurt re-doing with this method.

Why would it? What's different?

I realise you've put a lot of work into it, but you could actually save many modders hours of tedious work if you released small bitesize section of perfected coastline ! no worries if not.

I thought I did release small bitesize sections of perfected coastline...

[Nevada]

Put a low number like 205 on a stretch of coast on the pixels that are pointing out to sea (like the 18 on the top right of the pic). Open your 'color changer' and dial up by 5 (210). Place the pixel to the left and right of the first one. Repeat until the row is full. Leave the inward pointing pixels at 255.

I'm already doing this this way, it makes some really nice coasts, too, even though they're far from being as perfect as the ones from SignifierOne.

@Signifier: How did you remove the waves at the coastlines?

[SigniferOne]

Heh actually I'm not sure, that's something that I do want to add back in. I probably have to paint the coasts with a 'coast' terrain type to bring the waves back.

[Nevada]

I like it without the waves.

Bad you don't know how to remove it...

[SigniferOne]

I think I removed it simply by not having any 'coast' tiles.

[wilddog]

@Signifier: How did you remove the waves at the coastlines?

@SigniferOne - I seem to remember asking that question along time ago also. I hadn't managed to achieve that so how did you do it?

Nice coastlines though

[Socal_infidel]

@SigniferOne - I seem to remember asking that question along time ago also. I hadn't managed to achieve that so how did you do it?

Nice coastlines though

Seems a certain someone posted this ages ago