Response to Bedwyr
Hi Bedwyr...
Ok - let me get one thing straight - I HATE READING DIRECTIONS TO! LOLAnd if you think reading them stinks - try writing the darn things...AAARRRGGGGHHHH!!! Lol.
I can understand where your coming from (sorta, lol).
A lot of FT PRO users naturally assume that FT PRO will just drop the proper biome / climate regions onto the map by default, i did, but I discovered later that I was VERY WRONG!!!
FT PRO likes to fall back on a default "mild Earth" climate model when you don't design / paint out your own climates (or haven't yet done so).
To do the desert regions on my maps - I had to paint them in with FT PRO's climate brushes, and there are at least two different "stroke and weight" settings that you have to tweak around with a bit to get them to do what you want them to. I had to paint in both lower water levels AND incrementally higher temperatures to flesh my desert regions out properly.
To really get your deserts right - you can't just lower the water level - or likewise - just increase the regional temp. - you have to mess with BOTH values.
Remember that when using the image climate files (Alternate Climate Coloration Window) to shade land masses - your using a graph function that textures land masses according to two variables, TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION. When adjusting / tweaking / painting / creating / perfecting climate zones - you have to play around with both values.
Actually - although time consuming - this gives you more precise control over what your doing. FT PRO isn't just a "random generator", but it's also a "paint" program that allows you to paint up / create your own maps (terrains and climates) yourself.
If FT PRO were just a "random generator", then I would have little use for it at all (if any).
The brush buttons are a bit qwerky - true - you have to play around with them and adjust your brush settings. I personally have a problem with how basic the brush shapes are - and how they should be more organic.
Climate zone "blending" should be improved, but I'll have to give it more thought as to exactly how that might be accomplished.
I'm going to try to simplify the User's Manual in 0.50 a little more from what it was in 0.001. Like you said - often - we learn by doing
I also understand the chaparrel problem - it haunts me to.
I suppose that since chaparrel zones are transitional by nature - then they are bound to show up relentlessly. I'm still working on that one.
Fractal Terrains Pro is an invaluable tool - a wonderful application. But I do believe that it can be further refined just as Campaign Cartographer was. The image Climate function that allows users to design there own land / climate textures should not only be included in all future retail / production versions of FT, but actually should be expanded to allow users even more control over the distributions of global climate related texturing features.
If you'll recall from the Terraformer User's Manual - I gave graphic examples of how EXTREMELY close I came to near duplicating an actual NASA space imaged global map - using the Terraformer shaders on an FT PRO binary map of the Earth based upon the included ETOPO hieght data.
FT PRO can be "tweaked" using user customized elements - to create extremely believable, and somewhat "correct / near accurate" Earth like planetary texture maps. This will enable the user to more readily create
credible 3d models of how their model worlds would actually look in reality. That's the core purpose behind the Terraformer project. Making maps that look REAL...
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