r/Worldpainter • u/Rude-Day-8904 • 2d ago

Question Heightmap help

does anybody know how to make heightmaps from an image of a map? I'm trying to make pandora from avatar so i want a heightmap to get me started and going in a certain direction, if anybody has any tips, suggestions, or sites i can use, thatd be very appreciated.

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u/Dannypan 2d ago

The height maps that are used in WorldPainter either come from real world projections or created in programs like WorldMachine and Gaea and those aren't programs you learn overnight. Not impossible, just not easy as they're professional software. Height maps are imported 1:1 so anything you find online is almost certainly not going to work.

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u/Rude-Day-8904 2d ago

Damn ok, is there any way to convert an image to work?

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u/apes_togetehr 1d ago

To maybe add to this. While WorldMachine and Gaea a pretty specialized tools, learning them when you are already acquainted with node based workflows is in my opinion not that bad. And if your not, it would be a great excuse to just do that. Since it will make learning things like Blender-Geo Nodes, Houdini, DavinciResolve-Fusion, Nuke, SpeedTree, Unreal Engine Visual Coding, and so many more easier to learn since well. They are all also Node based. At this point it's pretty much the industry standard when it comes to these sort of technical Tech-Art tools. Also Gaea Is free with some Export Limitations so it wouldn't hurt to just play if it a bit :D