Create-A-World Tips, Tricks, and Annoyances

[Rolfy]

You might have better luck exporting the terrain to a graphics editor and making changes there.  If you copy a slice of the circle that works, you can rotate/paste until the whole circle is uniform and then import the terrain (making a new save first).  Gradients made in Photoshop don't transfer as smooth terrain, but copying a part that you have already smoothed should work better.

I would love to utilize your suggestion, but unfortunately I'm a noob in that department. I don't really understand how to import terrains to a graphic editor, and that whole process you explained. If you can maybe explain it in a bit more detail, I might be able to understand and try that. But anyway, I have uploaded the world for anyone to test out and see if they can get it to work.

http://www.mediafire.com/?7p8464c2cj9z9p9

In CAW, look under the Terrain menu tab and choose Export Height Map.  You can edit the height map in the graphics editor and then import it back into the game, preferably into a fresh save in case the new map knocks around items you have already placed.  Bridges may need to be clicked to reconnect them to roads after a new map is imported.

If you're not experienced with a graphics editor, it's worth learning.  Lifehacker has a great Night School series on Photoshop.  For the time being, if you want to post your exported height map, I'll give it a whirl and see if my suggestion actually works.

Hand-holding may not be encouraged here, but it's nice to see signs of life in this thread.  It's disappointing that MATY hasn't shown much interest in CAW as we have a shortage of creatively nefarious worlds.  Not that it matters much for the time being, because Skyrim.

Ah, it finally clicked for me when you explain it that way. I know my way a bit around graphic editors but I just couldn't connect that to CAW, couldn't figure out how to get my world into GIMP or Paint. But I got what you were saying now, and I will try and test that out, but since your more of an expert then me here's the world (updated version) and the height map, you can have a go at it. Thanks.
World: http://www.mediafire.com/?5jjv17uum988cp3
Map: http://www.mediafire.com/i/?5pxhx42gs2ep5v8
Also, I agree on your other point, this thread has been very useful to me in my CAW experience, as there is such a collective of brains here.

You might want to consider taking this over to MTS, there's plenty of tutorials and threads there to help you. They also love to hold hands and walk people through each and every step. Not that you've met the MATY welcoming committee yet, but it's bound to happen sooner or later.

Duly noted. And I think I have met the "committee" before... but that's alright, I don't mind the low tolerance attitude, it's MATY's pond, I can't tell them how to swim in it.

Update 12-28-11: Still trying to get this fixed, I know a lot of people might be busy for the holiday's, but anyone check it out yet? I'll probably check it out more thoroughly after the New Years festivities. Happy New Year to all.

Update 1-2-12: Okay! Well I have been testing out all sorts of things and finally got it to work. Here's the process of what I did; I opened up CAW and flattened all of the land that surrounded the area I was working on, except a few mountains, saved, re-loaded, (still the same). Exported the height map, saved, opened it in a graphics editor, did nothing there, saved it there, imported the height map back onto the current world, it messed up the whole land mass, did not save. opened the height map in a new empty map, the whole land mass was mushed together, so saved it under a new name, went back to the old problem world, (still the same). Next, I flattened (again) the entire ground that is under the water shaving off the edges of the land (that was deforming) in the process, until everything on land (except the mountains) and under water, was an even level, saved, reload, re-created the islands and zoomed out, and presto! it no longer deforms.

Some where in the blur of saving and reloading it was fixed, but that was yesterday.... now when I opened CAW it's back to the same thing, I thought that the flattening of the seaboard is what fixed it, but apparently not.

Drawing over the landmass on a graphics editor is a bit much for me, maybe if Rosess is still up for it, he\she can try that.
So still in progress...

[Rolfy]

BUMP  (sorry in advance for the double post)

Alright, just want to kind of close this off.
So I've found a work around solution to my problem, if any one has the same problem that I had, and can't fix it, here's something that you can do.
So with my current problem world with the deformed land mass, all I did was to open CAW, open the world, save it, then export my height map and close the world. Next open a graphics editor (in this case I'm using http://rawtherapee.com/) open my height maps folder (Documents\Electronic Arts\CAW\UserToolData\Height Maps) and open the height map I just exported (make sure the height map is greyscale) and save it as PNG 16 bits. Lastly, open a new world in CAW, browse and find the new height map and open it. The new world should open perfectly with no deformed edges. And if the problem happens to reoccur throughout the process of creating your world, this fix can be repeated endlessly. The only warning is that all objects will be destroyed in the creation of a new map, if you didn't happen to know that. So Pescado was right in the first place, as usual, not that I ever thought he was wrong... Thanks to JMP, and roses for the help.   ...and kissing_toast for sliding me to MTS which did give a lot of help.