View source for Terrain (Content Creation)

Currently OpenSimulator terrains consists of heightmap and textures for different directions and heights. OpenSimulator terrain can be imported in raw terrain format from several terrain editor tools.

== Links ==

=== Guides ===
Articles on this wiki:
* [[Tips#Terrain Tidbits|Terrain Tips]]
* [[Using L3DT]]
* [[Using Leveller]]
* [[Terrain making]]
* [[Detailed cross-region terrain making]]

=== Tools ===

==== Blender ====
* Link: http://www.blender.org/ (confirmed 2023-05-25)
* Use: Mesh models, Materials, Terrain, Animations 
* OS: Windows, Mac, Linux
* License: Open source (GNU GPL)
* Price: Free
Although Blender doesn't have a specific function for generating terrain maps from meshes, it is possible to do so. The process is a bit complicated and the result will never match the mesh perfectly but since there are so few other alternatives for converting mesh to terrain it can still be a useful tool.

==== Daylon Leveller ====
* Link: https://www.daylongraphics.com/products/leveller.php/ (Confirmed 2023-05-26)
* Functions: Terrain editor
* OS: Windows
* Price USD 49.95 (Confirmed 2023-05-26) 
Windows-only tool for producing terrains from from a variety of sources (including Second Life, Terragen, and terrain.painter), and using painting-like tools and filters to create features. Imports and exports region(s) from/to Opensimulator, either as a tileset of one or more terragen files, or via PNG/RAW formats.

==== Kayker Magic's Terrain Generators ====
* Links:
** https://www.kitely.com/market/product/14672916/Smooth-Terrain-Generator
** https://www.kitely.com/market/product/14428761/Fractal-Master-Terrain-Generator
** https://www.kitely.com/market/product/14086555/Fractal-Island-Terrain
** https://www.kitely.com/market/product/14293349/Smooth-Island-Terrain 
* Functions: Terrain generators
* OS: Any (in-world tools)
* Price: USD 3.00-USD 20.00 
OSSL scripts for generating terrains in-world.

==== L3DT ====
* Link: http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/ (Confirmed 2023-05-26)
* Functions: Generate and edit height maps
* OS: Windows
* Price: free (see description below) 
An old but powerful and user friendly tool for creating and editing terrain files. Terrains generated can be based on fractals, perlin noise or a combination of both.

It used to come in two variants, a free one and a commercial one with some added functions. The commercial variant is no longer available but there is a free beta version (v. 18.05) with all all functions enabled.

One interesting feature of L3DT is that it has a special Opensimulator export function. Apparently this is simply a shortcut to the program's regular r32 export option but it's still a nice touch.

==== Second Life Terrain Import and Export for The Gimp ====
* Link: http://dominodesigns.info/project/gimpterrain/ (Confirmed 2023-05-26)
* Function: Manually create height maps
* OS: Windows, Mac, Linux
* Price: Free 
A Gimp plugin for importing and exporting images in Second Life's RAW heightmap format.

==== Terrain.Party ====
* Link: https://terrain.party/ (Confirmed 2023-05-26)
* Function: Generate height maps from RL terrains
* OS: Online tool
* Price: Free 
Web-based tool for turning terrain from a real life world map into a height map which can be imported into Opensim using "terrain load <texture_name>.png". Note that the textures require resizing, since they are exported as 1081x1081 png files

==== TerreSculptor ====
* Link: http://www.demenzunmedia.com/home/terresculptor/ (Confirmed 2023-05-26)
* Function: Generate height maps
* OS: Windows
* Price:
** v. 2.0: Free
** v. 3.0: CAD 109 (c. USD 79) 
A great tool for auto-generating fractal terrains. The editing functions are rather limited though and it's hard to set a good height range so it's best used in conjunction with a good editor such as L3DT. TerreSculptor was free until v. 2.0 and the latest free version is still available at the website's support page (http://www.demenzunmedia.com/home/support/). Most of the changes since then are about texturing and the textures can't be uploaded or used in opensim anyway.

== Content Libraries ==
Links to sites with terrain files either in one of the heightmap formats supported by Opensim or as empty OAR files. Sites with OAR files with content are not included here.

=== Free Terrains ===
* Link: [[Free Terrains]]
* Format: r32
* License: CC0
This wiki's own collection of public domain terrain files.

==== Zadaroo ====
* Link: https://legacy.zadaroo.com/index.html (Confirmed 2023-05-25)
* Format: OAR
* License: CC0
Zadaroo is perhaps best known for hosting all of Linda Kellie's works after Kellie took down her own website but there is also some good classic content by the siteowner there. Please note that everything from Zadaroo has already been uploaded several times to the hypergrid and it is recommended to use existing uploads whenever possible - there's no need to load the grid servers with more duplicates than necessary.