[Award Winner] Fractal Terrains Pro Tutorial

[Feralspirit]

Hello. I'm new to the community, and hope I'm not speaking out of turn. I've been using the Demo for Fractal Terrains, to see if that was the software I wanted to invest in, my results have been exciting, as I was breaking new ground, but disappointing as well, there isn't the freedom that paper offers. I was very pleased to find the tutorial, your results look fabulous. So, I'm walking through it and discover I don't have the Incise Flow function. Reading through the thread I find I'm not alone and go on. I was heartbroken to find Show Image Climate does not show up on my Show Other Shader options. So, I will not be able to duplicate your results with the demo version I am using. Let me just throw this out there, is this software worth buying? What is the general consensus of the community for favored software? Obviously anyone reading this thread might respond with a little bias, I'm just looking for a little direction (ha, ha). Anybody have an opinion?

[Steel General]

First off...Welcome Aboard! Be sure to open a thread in the introduction forum.

I can't answer your question(s) on Fractal Mapper as I do not use it - I'm sure someone who does will be along shortly.

As for favored software, well that's a matter of preference, availability, $$$, etc. I started out using GIMP (can't beat the price - FREE!), then I later moved to Photoshop when I was fortunate enough to get a copy very cheaply - so that is my current preference. But if you're just starting out and don't have much money to spare then I would recommend GIMP.

P.S. Very cool avatar

[Thorf]

Hello,

Thanks for linking to this tutorial! I just bought Fractal Terrains Pro today, and I'm still wrestling with it now. I've had bad experiences with Pro Fantasy software in the past, but I'm beginning to think that it's the documentation rather than the programs that I dislike; it seems like the program is very powerful, but the manual just doesn't explain properly how to use it.

That said, the reason I'm posting here is that I'm following along with the tutorial (which seems much better written than the manual was) but I'm having a problem using the Prescale Offset tools. Basically, I can't get them to have any effect on the map at all. I've tried putting the Value up and down, but they just won't raise or lower the land.

Does anyone know what I might be doing wrong?

[Midgardsormr]

If I recall correctly, somewhere there's a checkbox for "Enable prescale offset editing." If that's not turned on, the offset tools won't do anything.

[Thorf]

If I recall correctly, somewhere there's a checkbox for "Enable prescale offset editing." If that's not turned on, the offset tools won't do anything.

In the Editing panel of the World Settings, yes. I thought it might be that too, but it was ticked. So presumably it must be something else.

Thanks for answering anyway. It's probably something really simple like that...

[waldronate]

When painting into the prescale offset channel you must use the prescale offset tools. The tools on the palette are only for the offset channel, not the prescale offset channel (it's confusing, I know). Those tools are found on the Tools>>Paint Values>>Prescale Land Offset, Tools>>Paint Raise>>Prescale Land Offset, and Tools>>Paint Lower>>Prescale Land Offset menu items. I recommend just picking one of the tools and using the Operation dropdown on the toolbar to change between Value, Lower, and Raise.

On other thing is to make sure that you have the most recent version downloaded from the ProFantasy site (it should be 2.3.0.8 or later).

If the problem persists be sure to contact ProFantasy tech support and Linda should be able to help you.

[Vandy]

Hi, All.

I have repackaged waldronate's great tutorial as a PDF document and have attached it to this post.

Regards,

Gary

[Torius]

Hello All,

Yesterday I decided to start the mapping project for my D&D campaign. Previously I had built a setting using FT Pro and then exporting to CC2 for area maps and the results were decent.

I am new to the site and found this tutorial on FT pro and I learned more in my 4 hour session last night than I had previously understood about using FT Pro.

I followed along with the tutorial and the results were great until I hit a small snag after applying the rivers. After the rivers were drawn in , there were 2 rivers in parallel that were straight lines cutting from one continent over the ocean to the other continent on my map.

It doesn't appear this happens when I export to world views in .jpg format, but when viewing the flat projection in FT Pro, these two river "lines" are visible.

Has this happened to anyone before using FT pro and is there a way to fix this?

Thank you,
Torius

[waldronate]

It's a bug in the river generation code and is on the (very long) list of things to be fixed. I am unaware of a good workaround for it at this time .

[guyanonymous]

It doesn't show up on exports of multiple files beyond a certain zoom point.

It is very frustrating.