Creating Terrain Map - sh4rkman/SquadCalc GitHub Wiki

⬅️ Previous: Extracting Map & Heightmap    •    Next: Creating Topographic Map ➡️

Squad minimaps are cruelly lacking in visibility and understanding of the terrain. Let's fix that my extracting from the heightmap file a "bumpmap" or "terrainmap" that we will merge into the existing basemap.

You'll need to install QGIS for this guide, head over to https://qgis.org/download/ first.

Add the SquadSDK heightmap into the project, and open the layer styling Panel :

Now switch the styling from Singleband grey to Hillshade.

Lets tweak the hillshading a bit :

• reduce Z Factor to a smaller value, usually 0.01/0.02, until it look nice (it's surely possible to deduce the z-factor from the SquadSDK but i do it manually until i'm pleased with the result. If you understand how to match this Z Factor with SquadSDK z-scaling, come tell me)
• tick Multidirectional if you feel the shading looks better when light is coming from every direction
• set zoomed in/out resampling to Cubic 4x4
• tick Early resampling

Project > Import/Export > Export Map to Image

Calculate the coordinates to export by selecting the current layer, and enter a high enough DPI so that the exported image is at least 4096x4096.

Save as .wepb

Now that we have our bumpmap, jump on your favorite photo editor to merge it into the base minimap. I use paint.net here but feel free to use gimp/ps if you prefere.

Resize the bumpmap to 4096x4096 :

Now that minimap & bumpmap have the same size we can add them on top of eachothers and use an "overlay" blending mode :

As discussed in the Deducing Altitude section, bridges and buildings are not part of the heightmap, thus it can create bumpmap shadow where these assets are located and can give ugly results.

If you are perfectionist, you can manually spot and erase it :

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Voila.

⬅️ Previous: Extracting Map & Heightmap    •    Next: Creating Topographic Map ➡️