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[Dr. Melon]

Okay, I decided to make a guide to using the map editor, since so many people are asking.

At the main menu, choose "design new world with parameters" and then press (e), set your custom variables (if you want a custom world to work, nullify all "minimum" values) and then press (p) to get to the painting stage.

You'll see on the left: a big window with hills all over it.
The right: Various values and items.
The bottom: Little keybindings and how big the brush is.

The window is where you will be painting your new world. Left click to paint, right click to scroll.


At the right hand side are the various things you'll be changing;
Elevation, Rainfall, Temperature, Savagery, Drainage, and Volcanic Activity.

Switch them all to "Not painting" by clicking "currently painting". Then, choose one to paint with by making it "currently painting", choose a value by clicking on the number (its default is 50) and typing one in (YOU MUST PRESS ENTER TO USE THAT NUMBER) and then draw on the map. Tadaah!

Some things can be randomised; for instance you may want a constant temperature but everything else changed. To do this, click on the words "Will be saved" to have them randomise on gen.

When you're done making something really odd, press space twice, to take you back to the generation screen and press Enter to begin. Press 'y' if you don't want to save the changes.
Now the world will go crazy and try to generate. If it works, well done! If not, go back and make some changes that allow the world to be more livable (all mountain and desert with high savagery and temperature and no rain will not work. Then again, it might.).

You're done!

Perhaps somebody should put this in a sticky or on the wiki?

[Nonanonymous]

Could you explain more about elevation?

[Torak]

Perhaps somebody should put this in a sticky or on the wiki?

No doubt you put some thought into this guide, but saying 'someone should sticky this' is far too self righteous of an attitude to have.


There's also the fact that you threw on that little [GUIDE] tag. As if you were absolutely sure this would get stickied, once again, being your own advocate does little. Letting the community decide if a guide is useful works out much better than putting thoughts into their brain for them.

[Reasonableman]

Perhaps somebody should put this in a sticky or on the wiki?

No doubt you put some thought into this guide, but saying 'someone should sticky this' is far too self righteous of an attitude to have.

The thing is, threads are popping up everywhere asking "How do I done make me a map?!" and then they fill with people asking "But how do I do stuff once I done get to the map maker?!"

I myself found this guide quite helpful. Until seeing it I just decided to give up on the map maker. Now I'm making maps that defy all logic and reason. WOOHOO!

[umiman]

Thanks for the guide!

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

I want to make an area with a massive Plateau on it and a forest on top of that.  Then I'll use it for a fortress!  Can I do that, and if so how?

How can you tell you're doing anything?  I follow the instructions but when I try to paint something nothing seems to happen.

[Dr. Melon]

I want to make an area with a massive Plateau on it and a forest on top of that.  Then I'll use it for a fortress!  Can I do that, and if so how?

How can you tell you're doing anything?  I follow the instructions but when I try to paint something nothing seems to happen.

Elevation is really the only thing that shows up on the Biomes map. It seems that it won't show you a temperature thing. To see the changes to the other stuff, you can click on its name to view the specific details of that part. Don't forget to change "Not painting" to "Currently painting"!

Okay, a raised plateau? Hmm, set the elevation a little higher than normal (not too high, maybe 15-20 units higher?) and paint it on. Then add some rain, a touch of savagery perhaps, make the drainage poorer than normal, and you should have a foresty bit. Hopefully. Also, raise the temperature one or two units to counteract the temperature drop with height.

__________________________________

Elevation is basically the heightmap of the world. When you paint it, you're setting how high or low the terrain is (you probably know this already). Setting it fairly low will give you ocean, and higher gives you hills, peaks, and mountains. The middle gives you flat plains and small hillocks. Low but not too low can give valleys.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Oh wait, you're actually setting it as something?  I thought you clicked to increase or decrease something. :p  Ok, now I have to try it again.

But how do I set elevation exactly?  There are two numbers.  It reads 200/125 by default.

Also, how the heck do you make something that'll work?

[Toady One]

The elevation is currently a bit weird because of how the generator works.  Originally, the map just has numbers from 0 to 400, but then it squeezes the 100 to 300 range down into the 100 to 150 range.  This makes the mountains relatively steeper, but it also makes custom maps messier to deal with.  The second number is the one you should pay attention to, since it's the elevation in Z tiles after the compacting.  Eventually I'll change it so that this is the only number used, but it was faster to put it together this way.

[Dr. Melon]

To set the number, click on it, then type a value in and press enter.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Yay!  I made my own painted world!  It sucks because I completely forgot about the bottom part!

[Nonanonymous]

Okay, so I'm trying to make a map with polar caps and an equator, about where should I start and for how many rows should I make the temperature changes?  The size is 257x257.

[Dr. Melon]

Okay, so I'm trying to make a map with polar caps and an equator, about where should I start and for how many rows should I make the temperature changes?  The size is 257x257.

Right, you got a nice big world to start with.

I'd say make extreme temperatures of cold at the top and bottom (number 25) then, for each line, make it hotter until at the middle you have 75. Then fade to cold to the other side.

You should have a nice world, and if you randomise all the other aspects, you should have a playable world!

[Nonanonymous]

I was more hoping for math savy types to figure out how to fit that all into the map, even if you only increased by one digit from 25 to 75, that's really only 50 rows the first time.

[Reasonableman]

Well, each row will have to be either 2 or 3 thick (2*25 = 50, 3*25 = 75, 50+75 = 125, 257/2 =128.5) so you'll have an extra 7 rows, one extra on the equator, three on the caps.

Happy?