Depth terrain guide

Every control

Every control in the panel, top to bottom. A section or control marked Map only or Photo only shows in that mode alone.

Load and save

They stay at the top while the panel scrolls. Your pictures stay on this device for every lab tool until you press × on a tile. Reset puts the controls back: your picture, the Photo or Map choice, your ground picks and your paint stay.

Image AButton: Your picture. Press it to open one from your device, or drop one on the land; two at once fill A and B. It is kept on this device, never uploaded, and every lab tool that takes a picture opens with it until you press × on its corner. It is read the way the land is read now, Photo or Map.
SwapButton: Changes which tile Depth terrain uses, so a picture you added as B in another tool can be used here. When the other tile is empty, the sample map comes back.
Image BButton: A second kept picture. Depth terrain raises land from one picture at a time: the tile it is not using is dimmed and says Not used here, and pressing it only says so.
Try a sample mapButton: Draws a sample island map and reads it in Map mode.
Save PNGButton: Saves the view as a PNG named terrain.png.
CopyButton: Copies the view to the clipboard as a picture.
Download OBJButton: Saves the land as a 3D mesh named depth-terrain.obj.

Image

A line shows the size of the picture the tool is working on.

Read the picture as

Photo · MapPick one: How the picture becomes land.

Photo: The brighter a pixel, the higher the land. Best for photos and greyscale height pictures.

Map: Each colour is read as a ground type with its own height. Made for drawn game maps.

Ground types Map only

One row per colourFilled in by the tool: Each colour found on your map, its share of the map, and the ground type it was read as. Change a wrong guess and the land rebuilds.
Brush paintsChoice: The ground type the brush paints, or Erase my paint to take your paint away.
Brush sizeSlider · 1 to 10 · starts at 3: How wide the brush is, as a share of the map.
Paint on the landButton: Turns the brush on and off. While it is on, dragging paints instead of turning the land, and Auto-rotate stops.
Clear paintButton: Removes everything you painted.

Shape Map only

Sea levelSlider · 0.05 to 0.6 · starts at 0.25: Where the sea ends and the land begins. The water follows it. See sea level.
MountainsSlider · 0.2 to 2 · starts at 1: How tall the land climbs above the sea.
Coast riseSlider · 0.3 to 3 · starts at 1: How far inland the ground keeps rising from the shore. See coast rise.
SmoothSlider · 0 to 3 · starts at 1: How much the heights are blurred together.
DetailSlider · 0 to 2 · starts at 0.5: How much small roughness is added to rough ground such as hills and rock.
Clean-upSlider · 0 to 3 · starts at 1: How hard labels, roads and small specks on the map are cleaned away.

Files for your game Map only

Each card is one engine or use. Keep your work lists every file and how to open it.

One card per engineFilled in by the tool: Download buttons, one per size where there is a choice, and a How to open it list under each.

Render mode

Textured · Ground types · Wireframe · Points · Height map · Normals · X-rayPick one: How the land is drawn.

Textured: Your picture laid over the land.

Ground types Map only: Each ground type in its own colour.

Wireframe: Only the lines of the mesh. See wireframe.

Points: Only the corner points of the mesh.

Height map: The land coloured by its height.

Normals: Each slope coloured by the way it faces. See surface normal.

X-ray: A see-through green surface with its mesh lines. See X-ray view.

Terrain

HeightSlider · 0 to 3 · starts at 1: How tall the land stands. See height scale.
SegmentsSlider · 32 to 512 · starts at 256: How many squares the mesh has along each side. More is finer and slower. The land rebuilds when you let go. Phones stop at 256. See segments.
Smooth Photo onlySlider · 0 to 5 · starts at 1: How many times the heights are softened before the land is built. See smoothing.
Invert Photo onlyOn or off · starts off: Turns the heights over: dark stands high and bright sinks. See invert height.

Lighting

Sun angleSlider · 0 to 360 · starts at 45: Where the sun stands around the land, in degrees. See sun angle.
Sun heightSlider · 10 to 80 · starts at 45: How high the sun stands above the horizon. See sun height.
IntensitySlider · 0 to 3 · starts at 1.2: How bright the sun is. See directional light.
AmbientSlider · 0 to 1 · starts at 0.25: How bright the shade is: light that comes from every side. See ambient light.

Water

Show waterOn or off · starts off: Shows a flat water surface. Map mode turns it on for you. See water plane.
LevelSlider · 0 to 1 · starts at 0.2: How high the water stands. In Map mode it follows Sea level.
ColorColour · starts #0066ff: The colour of the water.
OpacitySlider · 0.1 to 0.9 · starts at 0.5: How much you can see through the water.

Atmosphere

FogSlider · 0 to 1 · starts at 0: How thick the fog is. At 0 there is none. See fog.
Fog colorColour · starts #0a0a1a: The colour of the fog.

Animation

Auto-rotateOn or off · starts on: Turns the land slowly on its own. See orbit camera.
WaveSlider · 0 to 0.5 · starts at 0: Makes the land ripple. At 0 it stands still.
Wave speedSlider · 0.5 to 5 · starts at 1.5: How fast the ripples move.
Reset cameraButton: Puts the view back where it started.

Reset

ResetButton: Puts every setting and the view back to how the page opened.