Im new to xna and map making and coding and everything and was wondering if there is any good terrain editing software for it?

I guess this might be a good place to get started. I'm still not sure if that is the best way to go though.

what do you mean by not the best way to go??

I mean if there is an easier way of doing it with out drawing all the verticies and load it like a model. In other words I don't know anything about xna and still exploring all the methods that are available. But in truespace 7.6 I found out that you can raise parts of an object by selecting it's color. So making grass, mountains and all that kind of stuff is pretty simple.

You can produce terrains with a myriad of outside software applications. Normally, this involves exporting a heightmap (and possibly a terrain texture map) for use in your program.

There is a fairly comprehensive list to browse on my site under Middleware->World Building->Comprehensive and Middleware->World Building->Terrain.

Good luck!

Well, for XNA since it isn't just an engine it doesn't have specific tools to do terrain because terrain can be implemented however the designers want to. That being said, the usual approach is that of using a heightmap which can be a 2d array or an image in an artists case. You can use a paint program to create a heightmap by simply starting with a black background and using highlights in black and white to define areas which are raised from the level "black" area. This is the fastest way I have done it and it works fine for terrain so long as you only want to define hills and valleys and nothing that overlaps other terrain like giant overhanging cliffs. If you use XSI you can use the GEM plugin to create a 3d mesh from a heightmap you have created. From that 3d mesh you can do whatever you want to make the terrain via 3d modeling. To get more interesting terrain without the extra work some people use noise like perlin noise or procedural mathematical functions to generate a heightmap and then to modify it artistically to match their needs.

 

a typical way to do it is with heightmaps.

they can be downloaded from several places as DRM files if you want to use a real landscape. however they are untextured and you have to look into converting them into .bmp's

or you can generate it from software such as bundysoft's L3DT. which i'd recomend. you may need to suplement it with some textures from allgorithmic mapzone (sp?) though IIRC it didnt used to ship with the highest quality textures...

when i went to a MS seminar for xna they did show me an example of generating terrain as it was needed... like a minigame with a blimp you controlled. hav'nt heard of it since mind.

hope it helps

Dead.Rabit

Kind of like a map editor farcry uses? Heightmaps are really easy I have learned. I just use gimp with a 256 x 256 square. Paint it black and add new layers of white and adjust the opacity until it's blended in and export as a bmp image. Plus you can add more stuff to it later like trees within xna.

=] or both, its just nice to pass in a vague image of where you want hills. set a few parameters and spit out a fully textured image/realistic heightmap. or there are probably filters available for GIMP/photoshop to make a heightmap more realistic.

you can add trees anyway surely?

either way will work though

D.R