EDIT - Thanks for the suggestions, here is a better rendition with COLORS and images thanks to Reflection suggestion! Also fixed a typo that woulda confused some!
Taliis and Freeworld3D Map Editing
by DJRehab exclusively for mmowned.com
VERY IMPORTANT - TALIIS CURRENTLY DOES NOT IMPORT HEIGHT MAPS CORRECTLY AND THIS DOES NOT WORK WITH CURRENT TALIIS RELEASE...THIS IS NEARLY A LITTLE PREVIEW OF WHAT TO DO WHEN THE IMPORT HEIGHTMAP FROM PNG FUNCTION IS WORKING!!!!!!! ALSO IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH HOW TO PACK AN MPQ FILE OR EXTRACT FILES FROM AN EXISTING MPQ FILE LEAVE HERE....LEARN HOW TO DO THAT...THEN COME BACK!
That being said...you can, however, export heightmaps correctly and edit them now, and just inject them at a later date when Taliis has a better import script.
INTRO:
My computer sucks. Everytime I run NoggIt...CRASH!!! Everytime I run YiasDX....CRASH!!!! Then I found Taliis and almost creamed in my pants. Sure it is not as good on the eye candy as NoggIt, but i can run the thing so all is well!
First time I ran it I instantly dove in and opened one the Azeroth ADT files and was waiting for the big crash. Wow, no 3D view so I wont crash due to my on-board graphics card which internally sucks testicles. With this tool you can export and import heightmaps (which is how we will edit terrain forms) and also change textures, edit doodads/WMOs , and pretty much everything in the level (just takes time to do all this manually crunching numbers where noggit and yias offer easy interfaces at the expense of being bugged up pieces of crap imho).
Here I will attempt to teach you how to edit ADTs with Taliis and a few third party programs available online (Freeworld3D is not freeware despite the name but you know what to do...) Below is a list of tools I will be using although i am sure there are alternatives to the third party programs that you may even have installed already!
Taliis - Great program for editing different WoW filetypes including .adt that is found HERE at MMOwned (use search dummy head)
WoW ME - Tool by somewhiteguy that doesn't work with current WoW versions but houses a database of Zone names and what map files are part of the Zone
Freeworld3D - A world editor that supports importing and exporting heightmaps
(dont ask me for a dam Freeworld3D key generator it is not legal and I do not support Google, search strings, nor "CORE keygen"s *HINT HINT DUMB NUTS*)
Paint Shop Pro (or photoshop, or Paint.net whatever one floats your bubble)
MyWarcraftStudio - Name one model edit that don't use this...if you dont have it yet you are a retard
Patience and half a brain
STEPS
Find ADTs and Extract Them
In the Model Editing Guides and Programs forum is a sticky thread of all WoW Model Editing Downloads in one place....get Demonkunga's tool and MyWarcraftstudio! In Demonkunga's tools is a handy tool called WoW Map Editor... run the WoWME.exe and the bottom list box contains all zones in World of Warcraft.
Click on the one you wish to edit and click Show Associated Maps. This will list all the .adt files that have part of whole of this zone in it!
Use MyWarcraftStudio to open up .mpq files and find the .adt file(s) you wish to edit and extract them to a new folder somewhere.
Getting the heightmaps
Run Taliis and have it open the first ADT file (or only adt file whatever). Double click the adt file in the left list box to expand it into the seperate components of the ADT file and click Heightmap. It will then display the heightmap on the right of the window
In the menus go to Edit > Heightmap > Export to PNG
In your graphics editing tool open the heightmap png (NOT THE LOD ONE although i dont think it matters which one lol) and save it as a BMP file (Freeworld3D does not support PNG for some reason).
sorry no image for saving images it's kind of duh!
Import to Freeworld3D
First off, Freeworld3D MUST BE FULL VERSION as the demo can not save height maps. Open Freeworld3D and in the menus select File > New Project. Set heightmap resolution to 512x512, Make sure LOD is checked, Units per step = 1, Initial Height = 0....Click Ok! I know 512x512 is kind of large but i use this for my own personal preference you can toy around later AFTER YOU FOLLOW THIS THROUGH and get a feel for it
Next, in the menus go to Terrain > Import Heightmap. Select your converted heightmap bmp and click the radio button marked "stretch". Next set the Scale Height to 0.05 then press Apply!
Use the Terrain Tab on the right hand docked window and there will be deformation tools (raise, lower, smooth, flatten, etc. pretty much like noggit terrain functions) and modify however you want!
Now fix it to work correctly by changing the scale back. Go to the menu Terrain > Scale Heightmap. Set it to Scale Height = 20 and click Scale (this reverses the effect of scaling to 0.05 when importing the height map to work correctly with Taliis!!!). It will look all sorts of fudged up now, but it will work trust me
Go to menu Terrain > Export Heightmap > Power of 2 and save the image as 24-bit BMP file. Open it in your image editing program and and use the Select All function (usually CTRL+A) and then edit > copy.
Open the original heightmap.png (the non converted one that Taliis created and not the LOD one either...) and select all there as well. Use menu Edit > Paste > Paste into selection (In Paintshop Pro shortcut is SHIFT+CTRL+L). Now click save
Open the original heightmap_LOD.png and do the same as above. Select all and paste into selection then save.
If your program does not support Paste into Selection, just get the image sizes of the original two PNGs Taliis created and resize the modified BMP heightmap to match and save over the Taliis created PNGs!!! ----YOU MUST SAVE OVER THE ORIGINAL CREATED TALIIS HEIGHTMAPS FOR THIS TO WORK AS THATS WHERE TALIIS WILL READ FROM!!!----
Sorry the one above was last pic the rest should be simple to follow
Back to Taliis!
Open Taliis (if you even closed it, i dont) and reopen the ADT you edited the heightmap from. In the menu go to Edit > Heightmap > Import from PNG. If you have
heightmap visible on screen and notice no change its because it does not auto refresh...click something else (Like Alpha Layer or anything in the listbox) and than back to
heightmap. VOILA IT IS DONE!!!! of course current Taliis does not import the maps correctly but with a newer version (hopefully) this will be fixed!!!
Now just save the modified ADT file and make yourself an MPQ and woohoo!!! lol I did this although Taliis defuncts the heightmaps just to see and it totally screws the maps for now, but patience is a virtue...lol
NEXT TO COME
TEXTURE EDITING THROUGH ALPHA LAYER hehe bet ya can't wait and I haven't even tried this...it might work with current version!!!!! Will try tommorow
Taliis developer(s) - Contact me and we will get some work done
happy modding and I can NOT wait for a new Taliis that works with Heightmap importing!
THANKS FOR READING
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