What's a heightmap?

[Garett20]

I wanted to use the terrain editor in NEXUS so I selected new piece. I fill in all the other information but I can't figure out what this means. Can anyone help me?

 

[alpaca]

A heightmap is usually a greyscale image that depicts the height of each pixel as a color (white is highest, black is lowest). Not sure what it means in this context, though, as there are no height levels in the game.

 

[Garett20]

What about for Mountains?

 

[alpaca]

You don't need a heightmap for that because they're just a terrain type. Maybe it has something to do with graphics, that's the only thing I can think of that would make sense.

 

[nodrownboy]

All of the terrain in the game uses heightmaps to determine appearance. It uses that grayscale image to create the actual 3d heights displayed on the terrain in the game. This is fairly simple to play with on the basic grassland and plain types, add a big dark circle to the heightmap and you'll end up with a big circular depression on your terrain in game.

I've not played with the mountains enough to know how the mountain base and tops relate.

 

[nodrownboy]

Also, if anyone has the Terrain Editor figured out, I'd love a basic tutorial, I can't seem to be able to do anything with it...