How To Create Dynamic Water Levels

[Pinzu]

How To Create Multiple Water Levels

Hi. I haven’t seen any tutorials on this technique so I have the privilege to provide you with it. It’s really simple and by the end of the day you will be creating lakes and rivers running down every mountain.

NOTICE: Before we start you must disable 'Enforce Water Height Limits' located in the advanced menu.

Important!

Example

Creating a base terrain with shallow water and a cliff hight of 2.

What it looks like.

Step 2: Copying the water - Create a new map with the size of 64x64, as before use the shallow water base. The tileset doesn’t matter, what does is the cliff height. Previously we used [2], this time we want to use a higher water level so set it on [3]. Once the map is created you select some of the terrain and copy it.

Example:

Creating a new map with a different cliff height to copy the water from.

Selecting a area to copy (Ctrl-C).

Step 3: Pasting the water - When you have copied the water it’s time to return to the original map. Paste the water where you want it or in a corner to be used as a palette for later. The cliff that appears under the water can easily be removed by just using the same level tool.

Example:

This is how it looks when you paste (Ctrl-V) )it to your map.

To remove the cliff below the water simply use the Same Level tool circled in red.

Step 4: Creating the water palette – Repeat Step 2 and 3 changing the cliff height every time. Once you have pasted over enough water levels you can start terraining. When your completed it will look something like this:

Example

This is how the palette looks when completed. The red numbers is the cliff height of the water. I do not recomend the area of the water being as small as seen in this picture.

Step 5: Terraining - You can now use your previously created palette to paste the water height where ever you want on your map. If you regret any of the water heights simply paste a new one over.

Another trick you can use once you have decided the water height is to expand the area by using the Deep Water or Shallow Water tool on the water and just draging it to where you want to expand the water.

Example

I have selected the Deep Water tool and am holding over as to expand the area.

Once the water has been expanded a hill will be created below it.

To remove the hill simply use the Plateau tool circled in red.

Here is a sample of the process. I decided not to fiddle around with it too much so forgive me for its apearance.

Sample

This is how it looks after I have pasted terrain from the water palette.

This is how it looks after the hills have been raised around it.

This is how it looks after I tried to make it resemble a mountain.

[...]

 

[PurgeandFire]

Good work. I think this explains it really well and I like the sample screenshots. I can't see anything wrong with it; I think this might actually be a bit more appropriate than the water walls tutorial.

Approved.

 

[darwin]

I have been making maps for 10 years, and I never knew you could cut and paste terrain!

That aside, this is a very nice tutorial. I've been doing a water map and working with this sort of water, and this would have been very helpful. I've been monkeying around raising cliffs, adding water, then lowered the cliffs and raising the terrain. If you had done this a week earlier!

Anyway, good job, and +rep.

EDIT:

This reminds me. On this same map, I need to detect when a boat goes down a level of water. Terrain height appears to give me the height of the ground beneath. GetLocationZ does the same. Is there anyway to detect water height?

 

[Pinzu]

Thank you for your kind words.

This reminds me. On this same map, I need to detect when a boat goes down a level of water. Terrain height appears to give me the height of the ground beneath. GetLocationZ does the same. Is there anyway to detect water height?

Well I'm no scripter but I'm sure there are workarounds to your problem.

1. Check if the unit is on water.
2a. Place invisible platforms under the water or change the ground beneth acordingly?
2b. Create enter and exit regions?
... I don't know if any of this may work for you but atleast I tried.

 

[darwin]

Thank you for your kind words.



Well I'm no scripter but I'm sure there are workarounds to your problem.

1. Check if the unit is on water.
2a. Place invisible platforms under the water or change the ground beneth acordingly?
2b. Create enter and exit regions?
... I don't know if any of this may work for you but atleast I tried.

The problem is that it needs to be exactly precise, so regions won't work. Changing the terrain below would have worked if I hadn't messed it all up already. Anyway, if anyone knows please post it. If not, I'll work around...maybe I'll shake the camera so the player doesn't see how bad the drop looks. Thanks again for the tutorial.

 

[Pinzu]

Made a small update in the terraining section (Part 5); Added a trick/technique.

 

[The_wand_mirror]

Euhm this is what happens when i do it the terrain around it deforms or something there seems to be nothing i can do about it. And i am using a fresh installation of warcraft 3.

 

[FRENGERS]

@.@ Now i know this @.@ Tq so much
I don't know terrain can be copyed

 

[Pinzu]

Euhm this is what happens when i do it the terrain around it deforms or something there seems to be nothing i can do about it. And i am using a fresh installation of warcraft 3.

Try removing the cliff under it. (See step 3)

 

[Code_Name_XXX]

I don't mean to spoil in those whomed successfully do this but this is a, W-O-R-S-T Tutorial. Dood many other users will get stuck at step 3 and a video is pleasing for you to show us step by step /w instructions. Dood if your on to creating a video, I'am waiting.

 

[Pinzu]

Euhm this is what happens when i do it the terrain around it deforms or something there seems to be nothing i can do about it. And i am using a fresh installation of warcraft 3.

Hmm, I tried this again when i had freshly installed wc3 roc, it worked perfectly. Then I used my brothers computer and the same thing as seen in this post happend. I honestly don't know how to work around it yet. Or why it happens, maybe someone with more knowledge could answer this.

 

[Dr Super Good]

You can also modify the .w3e file directly.

 

[Pinzu]

I know now why it doesn't work for some people, its because they have the setting "Enforce Water Height Limits" enabled. To dissable it, you can press ctrl+shift+w or simply advanced menu and click on Enforce Water Height Limits.

 

[Dr Super Good]

This is nothing...

Big Images

People who use the editor to do water do not know what they are missing.

There are 16,384 different levels of water. This is a result of it being stored in 14 bits.

 

[NyxScream]

Hi, thanks for your teaching on the water.

Not if I could help the 5th part I do not get the sand under water ...

 

[Pinzu]

Hi, thanks for your teaching on the water.

Not if I could help the 5th part I do not get the sand under water ...

Have you disabled enforced water heighsts? (look at the first hidden tag.)

 

[mikeisman2]

awesome

 

[Thedraes]

This is nothing...

Big Images

People who use the editor to do water do not know what they are missing.

There are 16,384 different levels of water. This is a result of it being stored in 14 bits.

well, what did YOU use??

 

[Paillan]

well, what did YOU use??

He used this system with copy paste aparently. It's not that big deal.

 

[Thedraes]

i see... thanks for the info!

 

[Dr Super Good]

well, what did YOU use??

I used a custom written Java program. Although I do possess a Java MPQ reader, I do not have a writer. As such I used MPQEdit to manually export the w3e file of a blank map and manually imported the modified one back.

First image of random height water used the standard library RNG of Java on a per tile basis.

Second image took advantage of the Java image framework built into Java SE as part of the Java standard libraries. The framework supports most common file formats and has simple modification capabilities. After scaling the bitmap to the appropriate size I iteratively applied a mapping function to every pixel to translate it into one of the w3e fields.

He used this system with copy paste aparently. It's not that big deal.

No I used a custom written program as a "proof of concept". The reality is the editor really should have a tool to modify the water mesh like it has with the ground mesh. The reason why it does not eludes me.

Without a tool, doing what I did on the scale of what I did with the same precision using the "copy" approach would take you years.

 

[king arthas123]

Hey this was a great tutorial thanks for posting it

 

[Leubast]

Fast forward to today, this method no longer works in WE version 1.31b (6072) as copy and pasting water crashes the WE.

 

[ThomasEddington]

An idea: If you want flexibility in your map's overall water level, never create the map with any baseline water level. Using any base water level permanently makes your map with that base water level, and the only way to override water levels to higher cliffs is with pasting. Even if you uncheck the "Enforce Water Level Restrictions" in the menu, you will always have to cut and paste. Instead, create your new map without any water level. Then you can play with the water levels by simply (for example):

1) on a flat plane, use the "raise 1 level" to put a single square of terrain
2) change to shallow water, then overwrite that single square
3) repeat 1 and 2, except with 2, use deep water, and compare.
4) repeat 1 and 2, except use "raise 2 levels", and then repeat 3
5) with this method, you never need to cut and paste, and you can fully modulate without using another map. It's more tedious but you at least aren't Alt-W-1 and 2ing.

 

[forelmashi]

amazingly natural looking waterfall..