sea edges

[Gigantus]

Well, back to the drawing board.

[on a mountain]

The recipe is trial and error, and playing with height/depth values on both sides. But be careful: If you use values that are too high on the land side you create a kind of "beach sausage", some kind of gentle longshore ridge (you see it in post 136). Try to rather pull down from the seaside.

By the way, in post 131 I still see a river that ends in sand, instead of flowing into the sea. Most of course know this, but for those who don't: when you draw the river, draw it one pixel into the sea. That ugly sand bar will automatically disappear.

[Göteborgare]

By the way, in post 131 I still see a river that ends in sand, instead of flowing into the sea. Most of course know this, but for those who don't: when you draw the river, draw it one pixel into the sea. That ugly sand bar will automatically disappear.

I believe that is the Region borders, you can see that it splits a bit and got some grey. Can also see another blue border on the other pics.

*edit*

By the way...
Do you have any tips and tricks on making fjords look good?

[dragonsign]

How to make a square into a circle:



The magic of "massaging" a coast... [/quote]
Could you give a bit more in-depth explanation?

[Resurrection]

Hi all, I am currently trying this technique of smoothing coast and the outcome is very good. Unfortunately I have also discovered one somewhat nasty side-effect:




Notice the visual bugs in red elipses. When looking on the coast directly, it is ok, but when you slide aside, this appears. It also affects Northern and Eastern coasts while Southern and Western are completely unaffected.

I am trying to get rid off it, but no matter how I colour the pixels around the spots, the result is always this at certain places (sometimes worse, sometimes slightly better). Not even setting the coast 1,1,1 helps... Only removing the smoothing sea can fix this but also removes of course the smoothing effect.

Does anybody know how to fix this or is there any trick how to avoid it?

I could figure out only one workaround using forest ground types to cover the bad coast, but it can hardly be used everywhere.

Thanks for any tips or advice.

[wilddog]

You are simply seeing a sea triangle protruding into the land. Raise the land correctly and it goes away.

[SigniferOne]

No, sometimes the coast "mesh" is higher than the actual land underneath, creating this strange pocket of space. The best you can do is to fiddle with the land height to bring it as close as possible to the coast 'mesh'.

[Resurrection]

I have extensively documented this issue, but I haven't found any good solution.

1) Basic smoothing of the coast

Here is the piece of map_heights.tga

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Not much to say about it. Simply I used 0,0,210 in corners and gradually by steps around them back to 0,0,253. The land is 5,5,5.

And here is the result, in-game look.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Obviously there are some coast bugs. They might seem as sea triangles, but they are incorrect texture mesh as SignifierOne says.

2) Raising the land

Here is the piece of map_heights.tga

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I used generic 15,15,15 around the coast and gradually lowering by 3 steps inland to somewhat reduce the difference from other land.

And here is the result, in-game look.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Wrong mesh was covered, but the raised land on the coast covers also the smooth coast. The look is very bad imho...

3) Lowering the land

Here is the piece of map_heights.tga

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Around the corners in-land was used 0,0,0 land and in the corners in-sea was used 0,0,247. Rest of the land is 5,5,5 and the other smoothing land is the same.

And here is the result, in-game look.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The problem was solved but the price is losing most of smooth coast effect. This cannot be reverted or compensated by lowering the sea (no matter how low, the look in-game is the same).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I would like to find the solution, but there most likely is none. I was looking at the piece SignifierOne posted here (and kindly sent it to me, thanks!) and I noticed it has the same issue when looking from certain angle. I have been trying for countless hours now and I even experimented with crazy things, but nothing reasonable came out of it. I consider this as a tax for smooth look of the coast. As I stated earlier, proper ground type might be used to cover most of these...

Any thoughts or ideas are welcome.

[wilddog]

No, sometimes the coast "mesh" is higher than the actual land underneath, creating this strange pocket of space. The best you can do is to fiddle with the land height to bring it as close as possible to the coast 'mesh'.

Obviously there are some coast bugs. They might seem as sea triangles, but they are incorrect texture mesh as SignifierOne says.

No as said

You are simply seeing a sea triangle protruding into the land. Raise the land correctly and it goes away.

The beach bit forms a specific line according to the meshes - that is correct (see post 72). So you adjust height and depth to remove it. It can't go absolutely 100% because the odds are you won't get the maths right 100% of the time due to scaling (and applying 5,5,5 to everything makes that a dead cert). However you can generally remove it a lot less than is showing.

[Nero666]

I've written a quite powerful script in Matlab which smoothens the coastlines. I don't have M2TW installed (HD full), but in RTW the algorithm leaves no strange shores at all on the map. If anyone's interested I could process your map_heights and give a smooth map_heights back.
It would be appreciated if you could return the gesture by donating some money to ROP (for our website, which costs $69/year). You can find the paypal link for that on http://www.riseofpersia.com.

EDIT: Here's a screenshot:

[Gigantus]

Someone had to find the right algorithm eventually. That coast really looks smooth.