						TERRAIN MAKER 
						 Version 1.1   

				   Copyright 1994 Eric Jorgensen



					GENERAL DOCUMENTATION

- DISCLAIMER
	Terrain Maker is not a guranteed product.  It has been beta tested by
	about four dozen people, and no one has reported any damage, but there is
	no garuntee that it will not screw everything up and destroy
	someting important like your CPU. So basically,  
	
			*** USE THIS SOFTWARE AT YOUR OWN RISK ***

	There.  You have been warned.  I feel much better now.


- GENERAL INFORMATION
	- What is POV?
		POV stands for Persistance Of Vision.  That is the title of
		a very amazing freeware raytracer.

	- what is Terrain Maker?
		Terrain Maker is a landscape editor.  It offers 
		powerful tools for creating and editing all kinds of
		landscapes that can be used as heightfields
		in POV. 

	- picture formats and extensions
		Terrain Maker works only with gif (87a spec.) files.  Height
		fields saved by Terrain Maker have the extension .ghf 
		(Gif Heightfield). Terrain Maker can import any image as 
		long as it is in gif format.

	- Using the mouse with Terrain Maker.
		Terrain Maker is fully mouse driven.  To activate any
		button on the screen , simply move the mouse cursor 
		over it and click any mouse button once.

		To use any of the drawing tools on the heightfield, 
		simply hold down one of the mouse buttons while
		the cursor is in the heightfield work area.

	- using slider tools
		Slider tools look like the scrollbars used in many
		Windoze applications.  To use a slider, you can
		press a mouse button while the cursor is on the
		square in the middle of the tool and drag it around
		to change the particular value associated with
		tho tool, or you can click on one of the arrows to 
		change the value by one unit.

	- Hot keys.  
		If you see a yellow letter on a button, you can access that
		button by pressing that letter!  YAY!

	- Available functions and video memory.  
		Terrain Maker likes to use to two video pages at 800x600x256
		resolution.  This means that your video card
		should have at least 1 MEG of video ram.  Terrain Maker
		will still work on cards with only half that, but
		certain functions will be unavailable.  Specifically,
		these functions are:

			pseudo 3D
			undo
			remember
			lava

		Note: some video cards do not perform page flipping properly.
		See TROUBLE.TXT for details.

	- WINDOWS
		Terrain Maker does not behave well under Windows.  Exit
		to DOS before you use it.

- MAIN MENU
	The main menu is the springboard for all of Terrain Maker's
	functions.  These are the controls you will find on the main
	menu along with descriptions of what they do:

	- GENERATE
		This will be the starting place for most of your
		lanscape projects.  The generate button spawns
		the random landscape engine which will fill
		the entire buffer with a random landscape based
		on the parameters set from the main menu.
		(See "density" and "smoothness" sliders below)

	- TEST
		This functions exactly like "generate" except that
		it only uses 1/16 of the buffer.  This is so you
		can get an idea of what the generated terrain
		will look like without having to render the entire
		buffer.

	- LOAD
		This allows you to load a heightfield from the
		disk.  When you press this button, Terrain Maker searches
		for any heightfields (.ghf extension) in the current 
		directory, then creates an individual button for each one 
		of them. When you press a button, that particular heightfield
		will be loaded into memory.  When you have finished 
		choosing the one you want, simply click on the "done"
		button.  

	- SAVE
		This allows you to save the currently displayed
		height field.  You will be prompted for an 
		eight character (or less) filename.  Terrain Maker
		will automatically add a ".ghf" extension.

	- MODIFY
		This brings up the "modify heightfield" menu. (See
		next section.) This allows you to perform various
		editing features on the terrain.

	- PSEUDO 3D
		This function activates a menu which allows you to view
		a 3-D image of the current heightfield in color and from different
		angles.

	- IMPORT
		This button allows you to load any gif file into the
		heightfield buffer.  Terrain Maker looks for gif files
		(.gif extension) in the current directory and creates
		a button for each file.  When a button is pressed, 
		a frame pops up which you can move around on the screen.
		when you have picked the spot where you would like the     
		gif to be placed, click any mouse button once.  Terrain
		Maker will then place the image and convert intensity
		values to height values.  (Black = 0 altitude, White =
		Highhest altitude.   This can produce some interesting
		effects if you use photographs.)

	- COLOR MAP
		Many people use the heightfield gif for a texture map as
		well.  The color map editor allows you to change the
		colors of your heightfield to look like different 
		landscapes.  

	- QUIT
		Guess what happens when you press this button?

	- parameters
		There are three parameter sliders avaiable from
		the main menu.  These are used to affect some of the
		buttons on the main menu:

		- DESITY
			This parameter controls how close together
			The mountains are when the heightfield is
			generated.  A very low density will 
			cause a smooth transition from corner 
			to corner.  A Very high density will
			generate something that looks like a 
			satellite view of the Alps.

		- SMOOTHNESS
			This parmeter controls the point-to-point
			variation of the landscape generator.  A
			very low smoothness will cause the lanscape
			to have lots of bumps and wrinkles.  A very
			high smoothness generates an even,
			sloping Terrain Maker.  

			Because if the way the land generation algorythm is 
			set up, smoothness has a mild inverse relationship
			with density.  (ie: lowering smoothness tends to increase 
			density.)

		- SEA LEVEL
			This slider simply controls where the pseudo
			3D function clips the heighfield for a 
			simulated ocean effect.  When you use this 
			slider, Terrain Maker highlights the heightfield
			to show you exactly where the cut will take place.

	- Locating coordinates
		While in the main menu, you can click on the height field
		buffer to locate specific coordinates.  Terrain Maker
		shows two sets of coordinates on the bottom of the screen:
		The first set are absolute coordinates- X,Y,Altitude.
		The second set are coordinates that POV uses for heigtfields.

- MODIFICATION MENU
	The modification menu provides access to all of the landscape 
	modification tools in Terrain Maker.  

	- tools
		The upper left grouping of buttons on the modification 
		menu are the tools that you can use.  To select a tool,
		simply press the button with it's name.  Terrain Maker
		higlights te tool to indicate that it is in use. 
		
		All tools are affected in some way by the four parameters 
		(see below) that are represented by sliders on the lower 
		half of the modify menu.

		All tools are available in paint mode, but only some are
		available in "do all" mode.  Thhe tool descriptions below
		will indicate which ones these are.

		Here is a listing of available tools and what they do:
		
		- smooth
			This tool smooths out altitude variations in the
			heightfield.

		- raise
			This tool raises the altittude of eightfield points.

		- lower
			Opposite of Raise.

		- erode
			This tool simulates erosion by moving a point "downill"
			and subtracting altitude as it goes.  These "raindrops"
			are spawing randomly withing the circle define by the 
			brush shape. This function does not work in "do all" mode.

		- level
			This function pushes altitude values toward the level
			indicated by the level slider.  (ie:  if the level in the
			level slider is 100, values below 100 will be raised
			and values above 100 will be lowered.)

		- rough
			This function randomly displaces the altitude of points 
			in the heigtfield.

		- lava
			This creates long blobby shapes that go downhill. Does not
			work in "do all" mode.

		- dirt
			This works like the erode function, except that Terrain
			Maker randomly sprinkles "dirt" instead of "raindrops".
			The dirt particles roll downhill and generally come to rest in
			pits and crevices.  Doesn't work all that swell.  Doesn't 
			work in "do all" mode.

		- paint
			Quick and dirty altitude adjustment.  Paints whatever
			level is indicated by the level slider onto the
			heightfield.  Use this tool in "do all" mode to clear 
			the landscape.

		- expand
			opposite of level.

	- using tools
		Using tools is very simple.  Once you have selected a tool,
		you can use it in paint mode simply by pressing and holding
		down the mouse button wile the cursor is in the heightfield
		buffer.

		Or you can press the "do all" button and apply the tool to
		the entire landscape.  (Some tools do not work in "do all"
		mode. See tool descriptions above.)

	- undo
		Terrain Maker keeps a copy of te current heightfield on the second
		video page. (If it exists)  Pressing the undo button copies
		the heightfield from the second page to the first page, 
		effectively undoing any changes to the image. Your video card 
		must support page flipping in order use this function.

	- remember
		Remember is the opposite of undo:  it copies te heigtfield from
		the first (visible) page to the second page.  This will make
		permanent any changes you have made to the image.

	- do all
		As explained above in [using tools], the "do all" button applies
		the current tool to the entire landscape.

	- invert
		Destruction of biblical proportions.  Mountains become valleys
		and valleys become mountains.  That kind of stuff.

	- parameters
		There are four parameters available to you that allow you to
		alter the behavior of the modification tools.  Only a few
		tools are sensitive to all four parameters.

		- brush size
			This is basically the area of affect for the tool when
			used in paint mode.  The graphic next to this tool
			indicates the exact size the brush will be.

		- brush intensity
			This controls the magnitude of the effect  of most tools.

		- brush rate
			This controls how rapidly the tool is applied when in paint
			mode.  Setting the brush rate to 1 puts the current tool in
			single step mode.

		- level
			This is the numerical value used by tools that need to
			refernce a particular altitude. (ie:  paint and level)

-THE COLOR EDITOR
	When you select the color editor, you will see the windows with 
	graphs idicating the intensities of Red, Green, and Blue 
	component colors in the palette, plus some miscellaneous buttons. 
	
	- Editing component colors
		To edit a color, simply click the mouse on one of
		the graphs and "paint" new values.

	- Smooth button
		Pressing this button averages colors locally to smooth
		any steps in the palette.

	- Save button
		Pressing this button lets you save the current colormap
		rgb values in a text file.  (extension .rgb

	- Load button
		This lets you import a colormap from an rgb file, gif, or 
		heigtfield.  To select the import source, click the 
		appropriate radio button: RGB, GIF, or GHF.

-PSEUDO 3D MENU
	- View From:
		Each of these four buttons will generate a 3D rendering
		of the heightfield buffer.  The placement of the "camera" 
		depends o which button you push: To the TOP, BOTTOM, LEFT
		or RIGHT.

	- Sea Level
		This slider allows you to control the altitude where the
		heightfield is "clipped" and turned into water.

	- Height Scaling
		This slider controls the verticle scaling that the "View From" 
		buttons use to render the heightfield. 0 = flat. 100 = pointy.

- TROUBLESHOOTING
	Please see the file TROUBLE.TXT for information on troubleshooting.
