Just created a height map via:

https://tangrams.github.io/heightmapper/

downloaded and then imported into max WITH zero problems!

and the results are fantastic!!! reallyy impressed with this feature! got a buzz when the height map imported. perfect. weldone everyone. you've done an outstanding job with these updates and I for one am very happy with the results !!!

TBH MEH.
not at you but its in my eyes a pointless feature to me, i would rather sculpt my own. i can see if doing an accurate game needing a map thats accurate but tbh i wont be using it, unless its used on models and characters but i have had no chance to see the video fully so im not aware if it includes PBR height mapping to objects? if not its the biggest pointless gimmick ever to waste time on in an engine unless, and im sure you are all going to give me a billion reasons why its essential. so come on guys change my mind from it being a very none essential addition.

I don't think i will bother

Dave

@science boy: Well, its not essential by any means but there is an app online that gives you heightmap data based on map files. And importing a terrain layout of my home town area into UE was a lot of fun to toy with.

Essential? No. Neat? yeah.

@science boy
I do love and enjoy sculpting/painting terrain.

However the heightmap feature may help to start fastest, and even the user can choose a specific biome.
You can generate a heightmap via some HM generator software, or via online, or via an algorithm.
Of course, there are from the free generator terrain software, till the most paid one (GAIA, Terragen, etc)

Heightmap has been a requested feature IIRC, meaning there is someone that wants it, out there.

At least me, I always end up sculpting/painting my heightmaps to fine-tune them, or just to get it matching with the landscape.

You can use it to get low or high terrain surfaces.





Or just for fun - Stewart-island



I must admit I enjoy that tool and plan to take profit in many other ways, not just terrain.
It has open other doors, do you want to cross them?

Well ya cant please everyone i guess.
Today someone was moaning because a Hud editor would not be in the EA release and actually stated it was more important than AI.
LMAO .. Cant wait to try his game.

Sadly sculpting tools are seriously lacking in brush types and the general editing functionality, as I have said before it is really crude at best.If you can edit and sculpt terrain better than a terrain generated with a height map, go for it.

At this point heightmaps beats terrain sculpting any day of the week. Pointless, not in the slightest, less of a priority compared other things, perhaps, but it was some thing long, long, long, long over due.

I will be importing the whole Island where I live just to see how accurate it will be. It will save a lot of messing about with terrain sculpting, mainly because as yet the sculpting tools and terrain painting a little lacking, ( no blending with painting especially. )

Height maps can give your terrain that more generalised look like the first picture 3com posted that looks more like a natural terrain with what looks like imperfections rather than flat and smooth, I have tweaked one of my apps and it creates quite nice starting terrains

i just feel people ask for too much, and complain aboot too little. GG max gives people who have a great idea for a story, the tools to make it happen, and Im very passionate about it and I salute the amazing features max already has. I'm excited, and i'll keep sharing that excitement

That heightmap generator looks so cool. Nice work.

With those terrain elevations, you can get nice terrain effects, the limit will be your imagination. It works the try guys, just try the GGMax heightmaps feature without a fixed target, the ideas will come by themselves, the map itself will talk to you about what is lacking there.
Here, I would like to get some sort of alien terrain, this that you see on a NASA photo, and you don't know if the terrain elevation is an alien facility or simply rock formations, or whatever else.

So I tried this one:


As I said before, once done, I fast noticed what lacks there, some sort of alien facilities, and some sort of spaceship.





Most likely this is not going to be a level, just want to have my hands dirty with that tool, that's the true goal here, the level will come on time.

@ GraPhiX
Nice tool guy! it come in handy to get HM.

This is exactly what Game Guru is about and I think people tend to forget that. Game Guru and Game Guru Max are NOT meant to compete with the big boys and it is not meant to create AAA titles. It is a miracle that we get AI that works right out of the box. Can't really say the same for any other engine unless I create it myself or buy the code from someone.

The heightmap feature is fantastic because it makes it a lot easier to import a nice-looking terrain and sculpt it to fit our projects. Even if we had all the tools and brushes to sculpt a professional-looking terrain from scratch, 99% of GG users won't be able to anyways because this engine isn't marketed towards experienced game devs.

@synchromesh;
"Today someone was moaning because a Hud editor would not be in the EA release and actually stated it was more important than AI.
LMAO .. Cant wait to try his game. "

Suggestion: See AUP 3.11
Depending on what type of Hud editing they are requesting-- (for example arranging on screen pre-drawn huds) sound like that is right in line with GGMAX vision (ie Storyboard) and would make a good bullet point feature. No matter, from what I've seen, there's no AI in the game you're most famous for working on, and nobody has made remarks about AI missing - have they? On the contrary- your creative imagination tied in with unique, attentive work has your project standing out from the crowd, and seeing some of the rare positive remarks for a GG project, so where are these dark vibes coming from? The best AI I foresee using in GGMAX, and in fact not AI per se is CC Speech Animation! On the other hand, if I want to throw together a horror AI shooter in 2 days... hmmm sounds like the perfect GG game for Steam!

Height Maps-- great job. Those will come in handy for sure. Another nice feature to see added when other features won't. Also great work on your tool @ Graphix. Those kind of controls and more brush tools would be terrific to see accessible to user maps. Maybe a handy hud editor is in the pipeline? That would need to generate a script- I'm assuming?

Not even LeadWerks has height maps nor procedural terrain, nor Menu Creator, nor Smart objects, nor etc, etc, nor CC of course! I'm a little put back by it's old school UI and the fact I'm still looking just to see how to dig terrains?!

Some very good points and some strong arguments for its inclusion.

The good thing with this thread and my comments started a huge discussion to look into this feature and has opened up the ideas people have. So i think anyone who presumed my Message was a spotty teenage steam kid with expectation of the next skyrim. Think again.
Although i must say loved granada's response made me chuckle.

But there was a few going off topics as well and a random asking too much? As i recall i didnt even ask for it. Lol well another good debate and i may have a little play with it

Like graphix creator nice work should think about expanding that and creating a more high rresolution version and sell as an app.

3com very nice work there

Wolf nice idea may have to do my home town in uk.

The shire would be a good one

Anyway arm has been twisted so thank you all for input minus granada's but his input was joy so thanks dave

Like i said he complained it would not be in the EA release ... Its coming but not in EA.

But overall the point of my comment was you cannot please everyone as some think the Heightmap importer was important and others do not like Science Boy whereas another thinks a Hud editor should be a priority and of course you have what you feel are your own priorities but one thing is for sure everyone will expect respectable AI on the first Early Access release.

BTW ... My game project does have AI in the form of Drones and an internal AI environmental presence so I do indeed have AI in my game.
But that's another story.

"I'm still looking just to see how to dig terrains?!"

Well without rewriting a terrain and collision system it isnt going to happen..period. Besides you dont need to dig terrrains, make caves etc in other programs. That said however a terrain non-collision hole area tool could be done allowing the egress from the terrain into an object such as a cave system/maze or underground base without too much drama and would be an excellent addition to GGM.

https://www.leadwerks.com/learn?page=Tutorials_Editor_Terrain



Now unless I am mistaken, leadwerks pretty much blows max out of the water considering it has prefab creation, as well as primitive creation among other things, it has for years...

Considering who the target audience is for leadwerks. You can code your own hud as you see fit and completely customize it exactly like you need it. It is miles ahead of max and classic.

No procedural terrain.......if you are an able coder the sky is the limit
https://www.moddb.com/members/joshklint/blogs/procedural-terrain

@wizard of id
Yes, I just downloaded LeadWerks on sale, opened it and glanced at it's UI without further use. I've been looking at whether I should get a new engine -- requiring a re-learn process ? But I have seen some impressive videos on it. So now it's a learning curve to get educated up on all those features you mentioned and how to start creating terrains... why is terrain button greyed out?!

I figure LW could give GG/ GGMAX a run for it's money. But people aren't paying much attention to it. Aside from they don't run near the marketing campaign TGC do, I think that the UI -- which comparatively is crude looking IMHO and won't produce flashy video demos. Also TGC include so many assets with GG. That doesn't mean the LW engine renders or some features aren't possibly better, and then there's LW 5.0/ (aka "Ultra Engine"-- interesting name battle here... ) that who knows, might come out just as GGMAX is finally released. Coincidental timing? So if it's possible to spawn entities via script in LW engine, it might be the better fit for scripters as you mentioned. But I'm a simplistic UI sort of user. Can we not just get the single perfect engine...

You got a bargain it cost me around £80 back in 2015
Leadwerks ( formally 3D World Studio ) is a great engine and graphically i think Max is very similar but its a totally different beast to Classic or Max and does require a lot of scripting even to the extent of creating a next level or a loading screen. There is a behaviour editor \ flowchart though which is quite brilliant but overall not as user friendly as classic or Max.

Leadwerks 5 ( Ultra Engine ) was announced around 4 years ago in 2017 so its not a new project and will be very similar to the Leadwerks UI and functions so I doubt Ultra engine will be to much of a concern to Max ... Ultra is aimed at a far more advanced user and when i asked the Price tag being considered was around £90 or even being a subscription based product.
Even so im keen to see it in action

leadwerks is much like how unreal was, it supplies basic things that allow for the creation of a FPS game without having to code or little to no code, so it will involve a hands on approach for any thing more.

I got the engine for some thing entirely different purpose at the time, it had a handy model/animation editor, which was quite useful at the time. But yeah you will need to get your hands dirty with leadwerks. So it is an entirely different beast.

I would consider S2HD engine about the closest thing to max, sadly at this point in time S2HD has gameguru classic and max beat, with just about every thing.However it's biggest drawback is the UI, which isn't nearly as user friendly as is max and classic, and that still requires some coding and scripting to get going. It is way better, it did have some stability issues at one point but has improved over the years.

There is always a but lol. Overly simplified UI isn't a good thing either, and I think classic/max missed the mark there a little and that is essentially what I use as the benchmark for max.Max is great, but I still think it is still over shadowed by overly simplified UI and tools.

That argument doesn't really apply, because one persons game thinks out of the box, doesn't detract from the fact that Max is in it's first priority (with other genres to be added at a later time) a first person shooter engine. AI is far more important to FPS than cosmetic huds (which can still be added manually with scripting) as it is a core aspect of the genre of games that are meant to be made with the product in it's fist iteration.

Only if you get the addon, Easy Game Pack, would S2 Engine HD be more MAX-like. But apart from that one addon, it's a lot more like using Unity or Unreal. It's quite the complex engine to use. Even digging into the visual scripting, Game Machine, can be daunting at times. I mean, it's an FSM! And unlike MAX, you can create any kind of game you like (first person, third person, 2D, 3D, strategy, puzzle, fighting games, full-on Skyrim-like games, etc.) because it is not limited like MAX is.

In most ways, MAX, like Classic, is in it's own category. At least when it comes to 3D games. Most are full-featured engines (Unreal, Unity, S2, Flax, Godot, Leadwerks, Lumberyard, Stride, etc.). There used to be a few of these "easier" 3D game engines back in the day (3D GameStudio, for example, but even that required scripting). Well, there are some newer ones emerging on the market. MANU Video Game Maker comes to mind. But it seems that the "easy" game makers have sort of stuck to the 2D market for the most part, like GameMaker Studio.



According to Fabio, the developer, S2 is due for a total UI overhaul that is due to take place in 2022. So, look for that to happen. I believe he said that should happen sooner rather than later, so perhaps the first half of 2022. It seems he's been listening to the complaints about the UI that S2's been getting. If that's the case, then things may get interesting over in S2 land.



The old scripting language in S2 isn't really supported any longer. Everything now is done via S2's visual scripting (Game Machine). I think the old scripting language was shelved (for the most part) a few iterations ago).

Leadwerks

That's a very cool engine, but as wizard of id pointed out, one where you need to dig deep and get your hands dirty. It's also an older engine that the designer, Josh (if I remember correctly) has done a lot to modernize over the years. The editor is similar to opening up the old school brush editors of an old BSP (binary space partition) level editor ... with similar limitations ... but with awesome lighting and some advanced materials (things that the old BSP engines didn't always have). It'll be interesting to see what Josh comes up with for LW5 (aka Ultra Engine or whatever he's calling it). But he's already said that he's done trying to cater, to any degree, to non-programmers. So, LW5 seems like it's intended for those who like to dig deep into code.

True enough, but that is about as close to engine like for like comparison you can get more or less. Of course it isn't anywhere near on perfect footing or comparison.For me it is the direction max should more or less move in, when concerning, visuals and texture streaming, settings and overall control of the feature sets in place.Water/weather effects is just about the best in the market you can get without having to write a single line of code.

Lol kinda makes you think why even bother in max with those effects, when compared to S2HD, I mean seriously, weather/ waters effects even the day/night cycle is top notch.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, I hope 2022 is a better Year for all of us



https://www.graphix.org.uk/downloads/xheightmaps.zip

Well ... yeah ... except that UI seriously gets in the way.

And you have to get through S2 first to get to Easy Game Pack ... sort of. S2 (again, due to its UI) can be extremely daunting. It exposes just about everything to the end-user, whether you need it or not ... whether its frequently used or not. It can be easy to be overwhelmed in S2.

But, yeah, the weather and day/night cycles ... and that water! Holy cow. Seriously. There are few engines out there, including AAA games I've played, that match S2's water and the level of control you have over it. Lee won't even let us swim in MAX's water. Fabio let's us become gods of S2's water.

@graphix
Very nice of you its a great, clean easy to use tool.

GRAPHIX

Thank you very much

And Merry Christmas to you too

Wow Graphix !!!!!
you really are a solution oriented guy,,,
MUCH appreciated effort...simple ....and yet Works Great.....WELL DONE !!

UNIRD12B

@Graphix,

Thank you and Merry Christmas to you

@Graphix
Thank you guy., great work!
Xmas for you as well.

Thanks Graphix.

Messing with values and got an error.

Again Graphix has already created a free Hud editor which caters for Max and Classic.
Download via the link below and Pm me if you want a key
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/223195#msg2645107

PS .. Keys are only given to Verified users.

Yeah i will fix that (my math not what it use to be ) in the mean time make sure the final is at least 10 less then the start

Math issue fixed LOL

if you get the above error please uninstall xHeightMaps from Programs & Features, download from the same link above and install the new version sorry for the inconvenience

I'm sure a lot of you know about this site, but https://tangrams.github.io/heightmapper/#6.58333/35.126/-81.202 works really well for heightmaps.
I made one from Mt. Fuji with minimal effort.