Terrain creation is one of the things I haven’t found much in the way of tutorials for … so here goes.
By following this tutorial you can create some very realistic and detailed terrain height maps in a very short amount of time. I’m going to show you just one of the many ways in which you can go about doing this.
You will need “Terragen”, a realistic terrain generation software which I have used for this tutorial. There are other terrain generations tools that you could use that may even do a better job. However I like to use Terragen because it is quick and dirty.
You can download it here.
You will also need G16ed conversion tool for exporting your height map to a 16bit bitmap image that Unreal uses for height maps.
You can download it here.
Terragen allows you to export your height map out as a 16 bit raw which can be imported straight into G16ed and saved directly to 16bitmap and your almost done. However I have added a few extra steps for creating larger and more detailed terrain.
Basically I want to create an expansive realistic mountain range for my level. My first problem is the free version of Terragen only lets you create height maps with a maximum resolution of 512. Obviously not enough for my purposes. In order to combat this I generate 4 separate 512 height maps all with terrain of epic proportions. I later join all four of these maps together into a 1024×1024 map. This gives me 4 a height map with 4 times more detail.
Here is a basic overview of the steps that are described in the tutorial.
Step 1 – Generate 4 realistic terrain height maps using terrain generation software
Step 2 – Export and open heightmaps in image editor (GIMP, Photoshop)
Step 3 – Join the 4 height maps into one larger one
Step 4 – Save out completed height map and convert to G16 bmp
Step 5 – Import you height map into your level and scale your terrain to the proper proportions
*The following tutorial can be continued here.
