I am just wondering if anyone has any good ideas on how to make 24 bit (or 32 bit)heightmaps.. that is using the rgb channels for the heightdata instead of just a greyscale heightmap..

I have had some success using various software like World Machine, Terragen, etc.. but its diffcult to get a very smooth gradients even from here..

why? and how?

because 8-bit heightmaps limit you to 256 different heights, which results in jagged slopes on hi-poly terrains.

in MED you get to set the influence of each colour channel on the heightmap (if i remember correctly... i haven't used it in a while). u could have red * 1, green * 256, and blue * 65536.

looking back at your question, you need help in the making, and not the using... in which case my post is useless. sorry. i can't think of how you'd easily make one.

julz

yes the reason is just more precision. Ideally you would use a floating point texture, but right now I dont know of an easy way to generate them.

For instance, most topographic raster data is stored in various floating point or 32-bit formats...most DEMs are in such formats, from like the USGS and the space shuttle topography data..(this is cool stuff btw).

Also, progs like World Machine and Terragen use a floating point format to store heightmap data. There is however no easy way to convert these formats into a game usable 32-bit or 24 bit image. The best I can do is try various height gradients, such 0,0,0 -> 0,0,255 -> 0,255,255 -> 255,255,255 so that you have a full use of the color channels. However my attempts with this have not been all that improved form the 8 bit, and sometimes overly "chunky" or rounded.

Also, think about this: normal maps derived from simple 8 bit greyscale have alow precision as well.. you can make better normal maps using rgb channels..(if you want to make the normal map form a heightmap).

i c, thanks for clearing that up for me. You'd probably have to make a third party conversion tool, that will turn the pic into a hmp, and then open it in med, if med even supports that high of a precision.

All i want is a way to make 24 bit maps instead of a grey scale map.. MED supports this..

no test, and not sure to work, and I not sure to understand it

in photoshop you can use the levels(in "new fill or adjustament layer)

you need touch the output levels for create a three grey scale files, the first from 0 to 82, the next from 83/82? to 164 and the three from 164/165? to 255.

my terrain generator (see my homepage) supports that. you can import it in med... r*65536+b*256+g afaik.

then you have 768 height levels, don't you?