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Creating Rivers with Rolling Shores

Level 4
Joined
Dec 31, 2006
Messages
15
Walp, here's a tutorial on how to make rivers with "rolling" shores and not straight cliffs.

Difficulty
Very Easy - 2/10
Tools Required
~ World Editor ~
  • Now, the first thought on how to do this would be to make all the cliffs into ramps. WRONG! Ramp shores just don't look.... natural.
    • I am using tileset Lordaeron Summer.
    • Before you start, make sure the map's Initial Cliff level is at least 4.

STEP 1 - River Path
First, go to the Terrain Palette. Select "Apply Texture: Rough Dirt", along with "Apply Cliff - Shallow Water". I suggest you use Size 8 and shape Circle for your brush.
Then, draw up your river. If you want it to be really deep, Lower One with the cliff tool and then use Shallow Water
Here's mine so far.
map.JPG

When you're done with that, go to Advanced > Enforce Water Height Limits and UNcheck it. Then, uncheck "Apply Texture" in your palette and then fill in the river you just dug. Do not use Undo.
It should look like this:
map1.JPG

STEP 2 - Lower Terrain
Check "Apply Height: Lower" with the size as 3. Then, go over the Rough Dirt texture you placed earlier and lower it to the desired depth. Don't get too close to the grass. When you're finished with that, go over it with size 8 and smooth it a little bit.
Here's mine.
map2.JPG

STEP 3 - Terrain Texture and Doodads!
Once your river is smoothed down, move the grass up closer to the river, and have it change to dirt about one or two tiles away from the water. Then add some water plants, some rocks, trees, bridges, etc. When you are ENTIRELY finished, re-enable "Enforce Water Height Limits". You must disable it if you want to mess with the river any more. If you edit the terrain anywhere near it, the river will disappear if it is on.

Here's my finished product.
map3.JPG

  • Notice how the Fog and Sky settings really helped this area out. Use them often!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Level 1
Joined
Apr 1, 2008
Messages
7
Hummm? I get flying Rivers to.... what do i false? :bored:

Can someone explain it for Dummies? :razz:

i dont get the second picture...
how do you remove the cliffs on pic 2 ?
ahhh nevermind... i got it :))
 
Last edited:
Level 3
Joined
Jun 6, 2008
Messages
51
lol now i getting flying rivers lol inspired me to new map =D

To the people getting flying rivers and anyone who might view this tut in the future, you are probably going overboard with step 2. The water will stay at the level it was set at in step 1, so if you lower the surrounding terrain below that level you will end up with a "flying river" - a wall of water where your river was.

Ah! Also, never use brush size 1 for step 1 unless you want a water wall. The result is always horrible. :ugly:

Lol jafdahl, I almost made a Run, Kitty, Run! variant using water walls instead of cliffs but got bored with it and never finished it.

I love this technique :thumbs_up:
 
Level 3
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
32
:thumbs_up: This looks very helpful indeed. Thanks bunches for putting this up.

The map I'm working on requires a pretty long river and some ponds as well, and the way I usually make rolling coastlines doesn't tend to work too well with rivers. Going to give this a try later when I'm done designing my map in Photoshop.
 
Level 2
Joined
Feb 9, 2009
Messages
13
thanks just did it and added some cool features. only part i did not get was the i think part one when u dug it out hmm other then that GREAT
 
Level 6
Joined
Feb 6, 2015
Messages
266
Hello. Is it possible to "undo" this (the shallow/deep water) to a map that's already been saved and how ?
 
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