Quote Originally Posted by Redrobes View Post
Waldronate is the guild master of FT Pro and Wilbur. In the mean time, have you looked at Wilbur as well ? I was led to believe that it had some height manipulation ability too and I think its data is compatible with FT Pro.

Wilbur:
http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~jslayton/software.html

Ravells has just posted about another height map editing program which might create data compatible with FT Pro:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...diting-program
Wilbur does in fact have height manipulation ability.


Basically OP, what I recommend is:

1. Using photoshop, GIMP, or a similar image editing program, create a basic outline of your continents and large islands. Color what you want to be land white, and what you want to be ocean black.
2. Save that as a .png or .bmp file.
3. Open the file in Wilbur.
4. Using select> from terrain, select all the ocean and bring it to one or two miles below sea level. Select the land and bring it to around zero.
5. Using either filters>fill>mound (which unfortunately puts mountains in the centers of continents) or by using a brush (don't worry, it's not as hard as in FT pro) create some contours for your terrain, including where the major mountain ranges are.
6. For your oceans, you can just do a mound and then invert it. If it looks weird, try using fill basins.
7. Make it a bit random with percentage noise. I find a value of 5-10% works well.
8. Use the span filter to get your maximum and minimum heights how you want them.
9. Now erode it. Incise flow can work, but I prefer precipitation based, even if it takes longer. This will create more authentic-looking shapes. However, it will also wear down your mountains, so in step 7 you should make them a little higher than you want in the final result. This should also erode a bit of land and create continental shelves.
10. Adjust your land a bit with brushes and the exponent filter. If your continents are too high in altitude, you can probably use the subtract brush with high width and height but a low value, or use the exponent filter with a value for land between 1 (no change) and 2. If your mountains are too eroded, you can fix them with the span filter, but be careful, as it may affect the altitudes of low-lying land and shallow ocean.
11. Now smooth out your adjustments with a bit more erosion.
12. To make continental shelves, you can either use mathematical>offset to lower everything 500-1000 feet, or use the exponent filter with a value for "sea" of about 2.
13. One more pass with the erosion filter should finish smoothing things out.