Monday 29 April 2013

Importing worlds into Topia

OK, I admit it, this post is a little hacked together. There is a message carved into the preset world 'creator's message' that points at this page as being the source of info for importing worlds and I haven't actually managed to write it yet...

I'll edit this with pictures and examples but for now I'm just going to dump the info needed, hope it helps...

A valid import file is a 1024x1024 uncompressed .tga file. 8, 24, and 32 bit variants all work.
The file must be called heightmap.tga.

As of V1.3, you can now drag these files into Topia via iTunes file sharing, just drag the file into Topia. You can still use software like iFunBox or iExplorer to get the file onto your device, simply drag heightmap.tga into Topia's documents folder.

Run the game and now, while editing your world, an 'import' button will appear in the Edit menu.

In 8 bit monochrome mode the colour of the greyscale image corresponds to the height above sea level, in a colour image the red channel is the height above sea level.

The simple 'import' button reads the file in. Everything will be above sea level but can be adjusted to be more interesting in the Scale/Offset/Smooth tools.

The 'Import & Make Seabed' does more and is designed to work with some heightmap files I found while experimenting. In this mode anything with a height of 0 is the sea. Rather than have a world with oceans that are only puddle-deep this mode generates an 'interesting' seabed automatically. 

With colour files the green channel is a 'grassiness' map, the blue is a 'potential grassiness' map, it's easiest to make these the same at the moment.

Sorry about the rushed guide, I will be updating this page with examples as soon as possible.

1 comment:

  1. Superb feature Glenn! Can we expect anymore updates in the future as I really like the game and would love to see it grow.

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