Sea Level grayscale values in SC4mapper

[Djohaal 121]

So I'm working on making a new map for SimCity 4. So far the photoshop step of drawing it is OK, and I can map the above and underwater regions of the map to arbitrary grayscale values as needed, however I can't seem to find a table anywhere with what is the sea level 8-bit grayscale value for each of SC4mapper's height scaling factors. The map imports beautifully in 500m (I'm using a sea level of RGB-62), but I wanted higher mountains. Are those values available somewhere so I don't have trial and error this a million times? 

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

I'm sure what you're trying to do has been done in a few terrain mods to specifically allow greater mountain heights. As far as I can remember it has something to do with changing the sea level set in the game to something lower so you have more land proportionally in the scale to work over.

It should be noted I am not a modder myself (yet), just someone who has spent waaay too long on this forum. As such, I'm calling in the experts. @CorinaMarie?

[CorinaMarie 29,626]

My familiarity with 8 bit grayscale has always been rendering in the game.

With the Maxis default settings in the Terrain Properties exemplar the Sea Level is set at 250 meters and the ImageImportScaleFactor is at 3. (That means each change in the grayscale value is equal to 3 meters.) From that we can calculate that 83 is slightly below sea level (249 meters) and 84 is a wee bit above.

That IISF of 3 also means the tallest mountain you can render from 8 bit grayscale is 255 * 3 = 765 meters. As @Whte_rbt mentioned, lowering the sea level would give more visible height for the terrain, but the total would still be capped at 765. There are some old files somewhere that also list rendering heights in meters like 1000m and such, but they simply adjust that IISF number and pre-date all the improvements Terraformer and Mapper brought to the table.

 

4 hours ago, Djohaal said:

The map imports beautifully in 500m (I'm using a sea level of RGB-62)

SC4Mapper can completely bypass IISF since it writes the terrain height info directly to each city tile. However, this also means I have no clue what it then considers the right grayscale number for sea level. That fact that 62 is working for you with its 500m option leads me to believe it might also automatically compensate with the water height. (Just guessing tho.)

[Djohaal 121]

I think I wasn't clear in my question. I am rendering the 8bit terrain into cities trough sc4mapper, not SimCity. It has several options for the height factor, but I don't know what grayscale value is the sea level index for each scaling factor except the 500m. I'm not going to change the sea level in game or any other shenganians, I just want to use the extra vertical scale. I know it'll end up very choppy as each step will end up being way over 3 meters, but I'm expecting having to fix and smoothing the terrain in-game anyway. 

I couldn't get SC4 terraformer running on my computer, otherwise I assume I could do a global smooth from the choppy source data and use SC4M, but it is beyond the scope of my question.

[CorinaMarie 29,626]

5 minutes ago, Djohaal said:

I think I wasn't clear in my question. I am rendering the 8bit terrain into cities trough sc4mapper, not SimCity.

You were quite clear.

I prolly spent too much of my reply explaining that my experience was the opposite inasmuch as I rendered in the game. How that part works is the basis Mapper started with and then improved upon. It's the latter part for which I don't know the answer you need.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

This is the base grayscale I use in all my maps-

It is approximately .04m above game sea level, as close as you can possibly get. Using a hole digger between .02-.04 will strike water. You can copy this square and resize it, just don't change the color. To raise the land, trace out your shape and raise the mid-tone levels .1 degree which will raise the land about 7.5m. Obviously, white would be as high as you could possibly go, and black as deep as the water allows. Hope this helps.

[Djohaal 121]

Yeah so I ended brute-forcing it. Turns out the sea level change for 2500m import factor happens between 23 and 24.

An easy-ish way to figure it out is to make a gradient ramp from 0 - 255 in a very large file such as a 5000x5000 pixel region template and importing it with the desired scale factor in sc4mapper. It should due to the size have clear bands between terrain levels, then you count them starting from deep blue to the first land level. That number of bands -+ 3 is your grayscale value for the water cutoff in that scale factor. 

[Lucario Boricua 7,029]

Let me prepare the list of the 8-bit grayscale values defining sea level for the various terrain scaling factors used in SC4 Mapper:

• 100 m: 182 below, 183 above
   
• 250 m: 127 below, 128 above
   
• 500 m: 84 below, 85 above
   
• Maxis Default (770 m): 62 below, 63 above
   
• 1,000 m: 50 below, 51 above
   
• 1,250 m: 42 below, 43 above
   
• 1,500 m: 36 below, 37 above
   
• 2,000 m: 28 below, 29 above
   
• Import.dat:  no idea on this one, but I'll verify and edit it once I find out
   
• 2,500 m: 23 below, 24 above
   
• 3,000 m: 19 below, 20 above
   
• 3,500 m: 17 below, 18 above
   
• 4,000 m: 14 below, 15 above
   
• 4,500 m: 13 below, 14 above
   
• 5,000 m: 12 below, 13 above

 

Hopefully this'll be useful for any map-makers out there using the 8-bit grayscale values!     

[Dinocrates 3]

Lucario Boricua, your list is most useful. Thanks!