Noob Mapper Here

[Vorge]

Alright. Well Im following BDH's rome tutorial for mapping but I can't figure out how to make the picture greyscale. Like what the RGB levels are for greyscale... his tool for free conversion is nice but I just don't know what Im doing I guess.

[Tominokar]

For greyscale all the RGB colours must be the same. Highest is 255,255,255 (white), lowest obviously 0,0,0 (black).

[Baxon7]

look here..good guide to creat map

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=73660

[Goatbuster3000]

^ Lol, I don't think that's what he's looking for, friend. He's looking for a way to change a colored "picture" into a white, grey, black one. My friend suggests to go to image -> adjustments -> channel mixer, and check the monochrome box. This should change it to grey scale.

[Vorge]

Will this work?

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w...rent=mymap.jpg

[Goatbuster3000]

It looks as though it should, but there's only one way of finding out

[Vorge]

Time to go to the next step i guess.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/LCC/
What do I download from there? I can't figure it out.

[Tominokar]

I suppose you realise this, but you'll need to remove those black lines before using it as a height map. Once you've done that, the best thing to do is test it before you work on climates and ground types, for this you need to add some regions (depending on the size this will vary, about 10 for the maximum of 1021x1021).

What's that a map of by the way?

[Vorge]

Its just a piece of africa as I am just working on a test map at the moment. So I changed it a little bit.
http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w...rent=mymap.jpg

I got the long/lat lines off. Yet none of the downloads on the nasa site work. So I don't know what I should do to get the terrain map.

[wilddog]

Vorge
1. You probably need to tone down the map a bit if you are using the full range to 255,255,255. It often works better to go to a lower heights detail.
2) Once you've got it convert to a grey scale anyway just to make sure (looks like there's some brown near the top).
3) don't forget to change any 0,0,0 colours to sea or to 1,1,1
4) That map looks like it has lots of unmatching squares on it so it's likely to show land deforms at those points ie straight line ridges/drops.
5) The vegetation maps you are trying to get to i think are the eastern and western hemispheres TIFF files. But the colour coding isn't the same as M2TW and you will need to work out how you intend to match the sizes as this will generate more colours.

[Vorge]

Ah. Thank you Wilddog. Ill tone down the greyscale then. I don't have any sea in this map. I knew coasts are kinda tough so I started my map without any Thats just for now btw lol. I can't get the western/eastern hemispheres to download. Anyone know somewhere else I can grab them?

[wilddog]

Vorge
I was just at the site and it didn't look like there was any problem to download (It gave me the option to save straight away). You are looking at the 25.4 mb eastern hemisphere TIFF and the western one aren't you)

[Vorge]

Ya. It puts up some quicktime plug-in for me then says it fails to launch the plug-in. Also. Do I not want to have the water be blue on the Heights Map?

[wilddog]

Vorge
Yes you need Sea & lakes to be blue on the heights map. However I thought you said you had no coast?

[Vorge]

I decided i wanted a little coast lol. I just can't decide. But I'm sticking with a little coast.

[WImPyTjeH]

I decided i wanted a little coast lol. I just can't decide. But I'm sticking with a little coast.

Btw, we don't call anyone 'noob' here - inexperienced is a better term :wink:

Good luck with your map

W

[Vorge]

Hrmm... Does anyone know how to get 2 different 20 by 20 pieces into the same spot in paint? I can't figure it out... maybe paint doesn't work.

[WImPyTjeH]

Hrmm... Does anyone know how to get 2 different 20 by 20 pieces into the same spot in paint? I can't figure it out... maybe paint doesn't work.

Huh ? Paint just works fine. Could you re-ask your question please ?

W

[Vorge]

Alright. I went to the place for the heights map. Got the tiles I wanted. Converted them and changed it to greyscale in the 3Dem program. Now I want to put them togethether in one screen so I can do regions and what not.

[wilddog]

Haven't used paint but why don't you download GIMP or something like that. Anyway what you need to do is create a new image of the right size and copy and paste the smaller ones into it. Don't know if paint allows that.