Need some help, I need to know more about the greys working in a heightmap, Help?

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I want to create my own height map but im having trouble singling out the exact grey for hieghts. Can you guys help me? I need a good guide so i can create from scratch. I saw one online but im new to hex numbers and stuff. PLEASE HELP?! xD

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Answer by AlwaysSunny · Apr 24, 2015 at 07:06 PM

Are you talking about creating a heightmap in a program like gimp or photoshop? And you want to know which shade of grey relates to specific heights?

A black value will give you a height of zero.
A white value gives you the maximum height the terrain's settings can produce.
You have 256 degrees of fidelity per channel in a texture.
Black is 0, White is 255.
Any grey value in between will be value / 255'ths of max height.

 grey value 0   =   0/255 = 0.00 = sea floor
 grey value 85  =  85/255 = 0.33 = one third of max height
 grey value 170 = 170/255 = 0.66 = two thirds of max height
 grey value 255 = 255/255 = 1.00 = highest peak

If your image editor only wants to display hex values, investigate the application's settings to see if you can get it to display HSV or RGB instead so you can have the fine control you seem to be asking for without HEX conversions.

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Noved90 · Apr 24, 2015 at 10:03 PM 0

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I'm using paint.net

AlwaysSunny · Apr 24, 2015 at 10:31 PM 0

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Click the "edit colors" button.
The HUE value doesn't matter.
Use a SAT value of zero.
Use a LU$$anonymous$$ value between 0 and 240 based on what you want.

Not sure why LU$$anonymous$$ is capped at 240, but it means your fidelity is 241 degrees. Shouldn't be a big deal. Just means your height at that pixel will be value / 241'sts of the terrain's max height.

If you insist on 256 degrees, set each RGB component to the desired value (0...255)

Of course all this would be easier just dragging the LU$$anonymous$$ slider around with a zero saturation. That way you don't have to key in values. Consider getting a copy of GI$$anonymous$$P if you plan on doing this kind of work often. It'll make it much easier.

Need some help, I need to know more about the greys working in a heightmap, Help?

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