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ok hey guys im new at this but ive been trying to create a map and i have 3 questions on it so far... 1: in mspaint...how do i make tall mountains? like the ones in Illshnar with that speckle effect? 2: how do i make coastlines? and 3: i am using dragons mod 9 color chart to make my map but its kinda confusing for a newbie..i understand from reading Rayndor's tutorial that if you start with a light color and move to a darker color it will make cliffs so this tells me that the different colors makes different lvls in elevation but on thedragon pallette it has numbers like -5 5 10 15..etc is this also elevation in its finest? or is it used to link certain terrains to other terrains like grass to snow? or is it so you can make coast lines like if you want water and land to be plush then ide have to use number 5 blue for water adn number 5 green for grass to make a coastline..or what..if anyone can answer these questions i should be able to make my map.. thx for all the help...sorry for all the questions..thx

Yes, the numbers on the color pallette are elevations. For a coast, you put -5 water for about 10 tiles around your land mass the -15 for deep water. The grass is typically 0 elevation at the water's edge. Dragon will automatically put coast transitions there.

Each row of colors is for a different terrain - grass, jungle, snow, etc. - in increasing elevations. (0,5,10,15,etc.)

"Tall" mountains are made the same way. You start with the lowest elevation and add higher ones in steps on your map.

Hope that helps.

CMS
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CMS thank you for that that does help..now when the tiles are for a forest..does that mean that each number is a different forest or is it elevation still... and if im making grass at say lvl 5.. and i wanted little hills..do i go lighter in color or higher in number? and are ther etransition stiles from say desert to grass and grass to snow?

Glad to help. The forest colors are all one forest type. They're just different elevations as well.

If you want noticeable hills, you'd want to paint two grass (or forest, or sand, etc.) colors with at least 10z difference in height. Or, if you wanted your forest to be a bit higher than your grass, you'd paint something like 0 grass then 5 forest - or however much difference you want the two heights to be.

However, if you want those "cliff" things, like in t2a or around the Trinsic Moongate, you'll need to use the "grassbump" colors. Unfortunately, I've never done that so I'm not positive how that works. There are tutorials on this forum that can help there, though, if you do a search for them. Just look for "grassbump".

As for transitions: You don't have to actually paint a color for transitions. Dragon automatically places transition tiles between two different types of terrain. Please note that transition tiles where THREE types of terrain meet do not yet exist (I believe it was mentioned someone was working on those but it's a VERY large project so I don't think it was ever finished) so you'll have to use another program - most use Worldforge - to tweak those areas to make them look nice.

-CMS
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Dragon will never do 3-way transitions; at least not without a major revision from Darus.

UOL from Orbsydia does 3-ways, but I don't know what state the transition scripts are in. I stopped working on them a long time ago but I did leave DKnight (the programmer) with some templates and other people have carried on with the scripting. When I last worked on it it did everything Dragon did and then some. It doesn't run as well as Dragon on lower end computers though.

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Stormcrow: Just out of curiosity.... If there were 3-way transition tiles drawn, could one write a script for them, like floor tile scripts, and place them in the map and static them and have them look presentable?

-CMS
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ok so thi sis all good info im learning quickly ok also on dragons tiles it has things like cave entrance..now how do cave entrances work? do i just add one and then in game i link em to another place? or what?

I'm gonna have to let someone else answer "cave" questions.

I did mine a weird way because I wasn't happy with the way UO does their caves. ::shrug::

-CMS
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Try this tutorial;

http://www.ryandor.com/files/caveentrances2.pdf

It can be found under "Guides" on the front page of Ryandor's.

(Edit) Personally I place my caves in the dungeon zone. This lets you spawn monsters either inside or outside without them wandering off or allowing players to see them before they enter or leave the cave. It also enhances PVP/Roleplaying by adding a touch of realism.

Dev

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Agreed, Dev. I also set mine over there. That way, I could make them "dark", too - only lit by torches like real caves should be. *nods*

-CMS
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No, see above.
When Dragon encounters a 3-way transition it skips that spot because it can only handle an A-B transition.

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No, no...

I meant, if I created a 3-way tile and script, could I lay it down like I do floor tiles (I'm assuming it'd have to be "flat", though) and then static it so it looks like just another piece of the landscape? Not via Dragon, but actually ingame.

-CMS
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P.S. Of course, would save time to just make the silly tile and try it out. [/u][/list]

Oh, sure.

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