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[Squirrelloid]

Searching for a giant waterfall.  Yeah, its hard to find one.  The best i ever did was in .40d (iirc) and was a 60 tile wide waterfall with 13 z-levels.  At some point my .40d install got corrupted though, so i can't even figure out what worldgen parameters i used.

Required:
Must be at least 20 tiles wide and 20 z-levels tall.

Bonus:
Taller and/or wider
Likely access to copper, gold, silver (there's something appealing about a purple fortress)

Also welcome:
world gen parameter discussion on tuning worldgen to create such a thing.

[Squirrelloid]

bump.  Any ideas anyone?

[Patchy]

You can try the world gen cookbook thread.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=64032.0

I remember there was a few waterfall sites listed.

[Lord Aldrich]

This wiki article covers some basic techniques for finding a good waterfall. In general, I've found that larger rivers result in larger drops, as does finding a spot where rivers merge across biomes. So if you can find a spot where a river coming out of the mountains meets a major river on plains, that should do the trick.

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Waterfall#Locating_a_natural_waterfall

[Squirrelloid]

This wiki article covers some basic techniques for finding a good waterfall. In general, I've found that larger rivers result in larger drops, as does finding a spot where rivers merge across biomes. So if you can find a spot where a river coming out of the mountains meets a major river on plains, that should do the trick.

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Waterfall#Locating_a_natural_waterfall

I know where to look.  The issue is that having the larger river be the one that's falling is really rare.

I just don't want some 4-tile river falling 20 z-levels.  I'm looking for the DF equivalent of Niagra Falls.  This is a <<1 per world frequency event, probably even with ideal world gen parameters.  Which is why i'm looking for help.

[Squirrelloid]

bump

[Necro910]

Make there be a lot of rivers, and turn off erosion. That might help a little bit.

[noodle0117]

no erosion, massive elevation deviation, lots of rainfall maybe and very little drainage?

[Lord Aldrich]

This wiki article covers some basic techniques for finding a good waterfall. In general, I've found that larger rivers result in larger drops, as does finding a spot where rivers merge across biomes. So if you can find a spot where a river coming out of the mountains meets a major river on plains, that should do the trick.

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Waterfall#Locating_a_natural_waterfall

I know where to look.  The issue is that having the larger river be the one that's falling is really rare.

I just don't want some 4-tile river falling 20 z-levels.  I'm looking for the DF equivalent of Niagra Falls.  This is a <<1 per world frequency event, probably even with ideal world gen parameters.  Which is why i'm looking for help.

Ahhhh, gotcha. In that case in addition to what the people above said, set the mesh brush sizes as small as you can so as to get maximum elevation deviation.

[Squirrelloid]

Ok, world building doesn't lay rivers in any predictable fashion.  Rivers do not seem to flow towards progressively lower elevation.  Rather, they seem to choose an acceptable ending point (glacier, lake, ocean) for each source and random-walk their way until they hit it, another ending point, or another river (and merge).  This is rather frustrating if you're trying to build a geography conducive to particular river features, because that geography is completely irrelevant.

[CapnUrist]

I dig waterfalls myself, though I'm not so exacting. My latest fort has two waterfalls, one 4 wide and the other 30 wide, both 15z tall. I don't have an original save of the start, but world gen info should be possible, if you want it.

One point I feel is both obvious and easily overlooked, is that the depth of a river canyon depends directly on how long the river has been flowing through it. If the DF World Gen mimics this properly, you're probably much more likely to get a good deep river canyon if you let it sit and pump though at least a millenia.

[Squirrelloid]

One point I feel is both obvious and easily overlooked, is that the depth of a river canyon depends directly on how long the river has been flowing through it. If the DF World Gen mimics this properly, you're probably much more likely to get a good deep river canyon if you let it sit and pump though at least a millenia.

I'm not actually sure that's true. 

Consider the following river: it starts in a really deep canyon, hits level with the surrounding land, and then enters another really deep canyon.  At no point along its path does it fall down a waterfall.  That second deep canyon basically means it would have had to go *uphill* originally to pass over that land and dig that canyon.  The level with surrounding land part means the river couldn't previously have been higher because there was no land there for it to be higher (and its upstream of one canyon, so the downstream part couldn't have been higher).

I just genned that major river.  That was the moment i realized that river placement had nothing to do with natural waterflow.

[GhostDwemer]

Ok, world building doesn't lay rivers in any predictable fashion.  Rivers do not seem to flow towards progressively lower elevation.  Rather, they seem to choose an acceptable ending point (glacier, lake, ocean) for each source and random-walk their way until they hit it, another ending point, or another river (and merge).  This is rather frustrating if you're trying to build a geography conducive to particular river features, because that geography is completely irrelevant.

Try pre eroding your bit maps and see what happens with rivers. It is a bit random, but generally I can make a river go wherever I want it on a map. After you import your bitmap, don't use Perfect World's elevation generation AT ALL, turn both noise sliders down to zero so there is no randomness from Perfect World's side of things. There still will be some randomization from DF's world gen, generating the same world off the same map will yield slightly different results, but if you pre-erode your river system into the landscape as deep valleys using Wilbur, the randomization from DF won't change the course of your rivers much. Like I said, it makes very realistic looking worlds, with hills in between the rivers, forest surrounding the smaller ones, and marshes and swamps surrounding the larger ones. Mountains ranges look more realistic, too, with spurs and valleys that look, well, eroded, with many branching valleys.

It takes a bit of work, I spend about half an hour drawing, eroding and tweaking my bitmaps before I even import them into Perfect World, but you absolutely CAN get the terrain features you want that way. Just make sure you are working with the full range of contrast in your graphics editor or paint program, oceans should be pure black and mountain peaks should be pure white.

(EDITED) My latest bitmap for use in Perfect world. I edited it at 4x size, 1028x1028, then shrunk it down to 257x257

You aren't going to get great big waterfalls off of this one directly, but there are several points you could easily edit to create some really big ones.

[Squirrelloid]

Ok, world building doesn't lay rivers in any predictable fashion.  Rivers do not seem to flow towards progressively lower elevation.  Rather, they seem to choose an acceptable ending point (glacier, lake, ocean) for each source and random-walk their way until they hit it, another ending point, or another river (and merge).  This is rather frustrating if you're trying to build a geography conducive to particular river features, because that geography is completely irrelevant.

Try pre eroding your bit maps and see what happens with rivers. It is a bit random, but generally I can make a river go wherever I want it on a map. After you import your bitmap, don't use Perfect World's elevation generation AT ALL, turn both noise sliders down to zero so there is no randomness from Perfect World's side of things. There still will be some randomization from DF's world gen, generating the same world off the same map will yield slightly different results, but if you pre-erode your river system into the landscape as deep valleys using Wilbur, the randomization from DF won't change the course of your rivers much. Like I said, it makes very realistic looking worlds, with hills in between the rivers, forest surrounding the smaller ones, and marshes and swamps surrounding the larger ones. Mountains ranges look more realistic, too, with spurs and valleys that look, well, eroded, with many branching valleys.

It takes a bit of work, I spend about half an hour drawing, eroding and tweaking my bitmaps before I even import them into Perfect World, but you absolutely CAN get the terrain features you want that way. Just make sure you are working with the full range of contrast in your graphics editor or paint program, oceans should be pure black and mountain peaks should be pure white.

(EDITED) My latest bitmap for use in Perfect world. I edited it at 4x size, 1028x1028, then shrunk it down to 257x257

You aren't going to get great big waterfalls off of this one directly, but there are several points you could easily edit to create some really big ones.

Ok, you're like 4 steps beyond me.  How are you generating your initial map and in what? (Is there a tutorial?) =P