Height Map Tutorial PDF download

Hello Everyone,

The time to submit my tutorial has finally come all that i have learned on this subject has be compressed in an easy to read and easy to follow tutorial I have uploaded my Tutorial in a PDF format to my Google Drive, I am happy for you all to distribute it in anyway you see fit as long as you make no financial gain from it.
Also if used anyway in any place for any reason or part thereof by any persons shown or distributed to or used as educational material in a learning enviroment all I ask is that you reference me, the blog from which you found it and Wendas Youtube channel for his excellent teaching skills and time spent making youtube tutorials of which i followed very closely and watched numerous times over to pick up new tips and tricks to make my work better and easier in the future.

Thanks for reading if any of you have any questions of any sort im always happy to help leave a comment or email me at Joshua.haymes@gmail.com.

Yours Sincerely
Josh.

PDF can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7oFqJTmmcCYRXZWa1dsSlVUR0U

World Machine

(*This post was meant to be posted last week but due to a network failure I had to save it offline and post as soon as I could.)

Hey guys!
Today my post will be about World Machine and how useful it is to making heightmaps look heaps more realistic.

World Machine can basically either make from scratch an entire planets coverage of maps and be completely randomised, manipulated and precisely programmed to change at the instant click of a button. another great thing that I use it for is to add natural landscape features to my height maps such as erosion and terraces, sandy banks, embankment erosion made by water and natural landscape happenings that occur in real life to effect and completely change the way peoples minds think in the way the see and absorb the landscape,

after spending many hours sculpting and defining your AAA map in Mudbox to the point that you feel that it looks completely real, you've basically just brain washed yourself to think so. others may say that it looks fantastic but they will know in the back of their heads that there is something missing but they will not know what?
That is where World Machine comes in handy, it dose not alter the entire height map to make it feel like its not yours anymore but it adds a few new layers and perspectives to it some of which you may not like and what to get rid of and that is why you need to bring it back and forth between Mudbox and World Machine to smooth out that erosion where you wanted to place a castle or lower some ground to make the hills look less steep so that trees can comfortably grow on them.

but all in all World Machine is a great tool and once you know how to use it, it can be very helpful in creating a rich and inviting map for your games some people may think it is cheating  but it isn't, it is just another tool in the ever expanding arsenal of the 3d game artist.

World Machine also helps create black and white masks so that you can easily and effectively texture your height map with ease. and those same masks can be used in UDK to be used as detail maps and is highly recommended that you use detail maps as well you may have noticed in some games the ground in open environments can look a little grainy and this detail map feature can quite effectively stop that if adjusted right and great tiles are used to cover your giant stretched texture map.


Hope you enjoyed the read for help learning to use world machine please sift through my older posts and what the tutorials I have posted and you will be shown all that is needed to get started it also shows you how to create Height maps to be used in World Machine using Mudbox and how to extract the black and white masks for use as detail maps and texture masks.

Yours sincerely
Josh.

PS, World Machine can be found at this URL "World Machine" it is a free download and i recommend that you purchase it if you wish to use bigger photo sizes then a 512 square.

Height maps and mobile gaming

Hey Guys im just checking in with you all,

From my knowledge of using height maps in UDK for the past few months the ups and the downs and the long hours it has come to my realisation that the landscape editor and terrain editor at this point will not work for mobile gaming etc platforms such as android and iPhone  im not 100% sure if PS vita or PSP can take height maps or that any other engines such as cry engine support use of height maps in mobile gaming but at this point UDK does not support it, if anyone knows an engine that can use height maps on mobile platforms please email me and let me know.

-Josh

A Few Photos of my stuff and an update

Hey There World
Long time no post lol,

Well anyways i have been very busy working away at my school project which incorporated using height maps  here are a few photos of what i have done and in a few weeks ill publish a short easy to navigate tutorial on how i achieved my results.

the very last photo is a picture taken from my udk project that im doing as part of a team collaboration at uni, my job was the landscape design and asset placement i have also made assets such as a modular rock set and some bridges and some ruins that are yet to be finished.
i also ended up using the landscape editor and have also just found out from a good friend a few very neat tricks for texturing on it.

Have a good one guys
Josh.

My Resources/Tutorials

   The following YouTube channel that I will be posting is where I have found 99% of my material from.
   This person is extremely skilled in the 3d arts and making models for games and utilising multiple programs to make the best possible results and along the way shows you his tips and tricks for making your work that notch better.

   The tutorials are in multiple parts and go for hours at a time each part but are extremely helpful.

   I will be making a readable 3-4 page tutorial on the creation of height maps extracting information that I have found watching tutorials published by this person. It will be for the absolute beginner but it wont go into the depth that this person does with all the tips and tricks it will show you how to basically make a height map and import it into UDK.

This link below is the resources I have been using and if you have the time I strongly suggest that you watch them actually make time and watch them they're extremely useful and I have learnt a lot of stuff from him.
Wenda111287's Youtube Channel

Terrain Editor or landscape editor?

This was a big concern for me when i first looked into using udk for my assignment.

After playing around with both i have found that landscape editor and terrain editor are almost the same thing they just both have different quirks about them and landscape editor is the newest of the two.

I decided to go the landscape editor due to the resources out there for this particular tool are quite easy to find as alot of people have made great tutorials for them. (i will post my links in future posts)

Whether you use Cryengine or UDK heightmaps can be created and used for both but what program you decide to use is your choice.

That being said i will be using program-wise as follows:
- Maya 2012
- Mudbox 2012
- UDK 2012
- Worldmachine
- Photoshop

Thanks for reading Stay tuned as i update further.

My overview

Hello there fellow 3d designers!
This particular blog will soley be discussing the use of heightmaps for use in udk.
Different workflows, links to awsome tutorials and my findings and tips that i have found useful.

Stay tuned