Creating and Editing Zones and Terrains - Wizards and Warriors: Massively Multiplayer Online Game Creation - page 205

Figure 12.6
Import RAW File dialog box.

Creating a Heightmap
Heightmaps are a very quick and easy way to create a game ' s landscape. Many

games use this technique to generate a world s terrain rather than needing a 3D

artist to spend a lot of time and effort creating a terrain manually. The artist will
create an image that contains shades of grey or the colors black and white in an
art package such as Microsoft Paint or Adobe Photoshop. If the image contains
the color white, this means that the terrain is extremely high, whereas the color
black means it

'

s at ground level. The relevant shade of grey will define at what
height the terrain will be generated; the darker the grey, the lower the terrain.

'

You can see a simple heightmap example in Figures 12.7 and 12.8.

Figure 12.7
An example heightmap.