Import/Export and corrupt CAW saves

[PoisonFrog]

I like to build my worlds in Photoshop as much as possible. The first 10 days or so I laid everything out in PS, occasionally importing png files into CAW to evaluate my work and make Sims3packs so I can test my world in game. Things are going great.

Then I decide to learn the CAW tools and layout roads and bridges, doing some minor terrain changes in CAW. Now I go back into PS, with the exported heightmap. I work in PS a couple days, again making occasional Sims3packs to play my world...no problems.

Now this where everything goes bad. My world is an Island and the edges got a little sloppy and spiky when I started using the CAW export. So I trim the edges back on the CAW export and put a nice clean photoshop version of the Island on the layer below, flatten and save. I import this into my last(and other) CAW save.

Now I see a couple abnormal dark blue artifacts in the water in CAW.
When I play the world, the roads are suddenly corrupted with square and diamond shaped chunks missing...and the water artifacts are showing in game, also.

Now, I don't need any help fixing it, that's done. I eventually concluded that I had to eliminate all traces of of the CAW export. My world is clean and beautiful again, after 2 tedious days of damage control.

I'm just wondering if anyone has knowledge about this import/export problem and would care to share it. I would like to be able to exchange files between Photoshop and CAW without this happening again. :turtle:

Thanks

[armiel]

Maybe wrong bit rate on the .png? Or the .png is not grayscale.. (and I have no idea what is the correct one, I have these issues at times too :P)

I have never been able to make such a smooth heightmap in PS that I would not have to use terraintools in CAW at all.

Exporting world to game should have nothing to do with how the world acts in game, cause the only way to edit the exported world in caw again is fiddling with s3pe. Also, those water and road issues indicate that stuff is not smoothed enough. CAW can be quite a b**** when it comes to those at times. The tools in CAW do the job though.

[PoisonFrog]

All my images are 2048^2 16 bit grayscale.

I'm probably not explaining this well. Simply put, when I mix parts of a CAW heightmap with parts of a Photoshop heightmap and import it back into CAW, CAW corrupts data.

The only thing that changed in the height map was a 3 pixel wide ring surrounding the outer edge of the island. The area that contained the corrupted water and roads wasn't changed.

Thanks for helping...

[simsample]

Now this where everything goes bad. My world is an Island and the edges got a little sloppy and spiky when I started using the CAW export. So I trim the edges back on the CAW export and put a nice clean photoshop version of the Island on the layer below, flatten and save. I import this into my last(and other) CAW save.
What do you mean by 'put a nice clean photoshop version of the Island on the layer below'? Are you referring to terrain paint layers here? Or do you mean that you are duplicating object layers?

Now I see a couple abnormal dark blue artifacts in the water in CAW.
When I play the world, the roads are suddenly corrupted with square and diamond shaped chunks missing...and the water artifacts are showing in game, also.
If you amend a heighmap and then import that into a world which has objects, roads and lots in it, you run the risk that the objects and roads will not sit true on the terrain any more. Objects do not move when you amend the terrain- you have to do that manually. When roads show the terrain beneath you need to use the road smooth and terrain smooth tools to repair it.

If you work on a world, the water layer will not be redrawn until you save, import a heightmap or otherwise cause the waterplane to be re-rendered. The tearing of the water plane is a common glitch and can be fixed by smoothing or otherwise altering the surrounding terrain. The reason the water glitches probably just started showing up was most likely because something you did (reload the world, perhaps) caused the waterplane to be redrawn, so revealing the errors.

I eventually concluded that I had to eliminate all traces of of the CAW export.
Again, not sure exactly what you mean there- if you want to get rid of an export, you just delete the exported Sims3Pack.

[PoisonFrog]

By layers I mean Photoshop layers...I prefer to do most of my terrain work in PS. It's offer better functionality in most cases.
By CAW export I mean the heightmap which I made using the 'Export Height Map' function in CAW.

Unfortunately, I think I'm causing confusion. That wasn't my intent. I became aware of a corruption problem when using Photoshop in tandem with CAW. I'm sure that a problem exists, but I'm at a loss to describe it any better. I think I have Sims3packs of the world that demonstrate the problem better than anything else. If you want them before I trash them let me know.

[simsample]

Ah, okay- I understand now, I was being too complicated! Yes please, do upload a Sims3Pack, it may help me to see exactly what you mean. You could show a picture too, perhaps.

So what you're doing is to create a heighmap in Photoshop, import it to CAW, then edit the terrain more in CAW. Then, you place objects and roads in CAW. Then you export the heightmap again, open it in Photoshop, edit it some more and put it back into CAW?

If that is right, then your problem is possibly as I mentioned above- importing an amended heightmap into a world will not cause the objects to move with it. You will need to smooth roads and adjust the Y position of objects. If you have placed lots in the world they should snap to the terrain, but any roads that are near the lots may deform, causing the effect you mention. Even if you've only resculpted the very edge of the terrain, you'll still find that other parts of the terrain will move slightly (this is a known frustration for world creators, smoothing a beach on one side of a world can cause tears on the other).

The same with the sea- importing a heightmap will cause the water level to re-render, so exposing any 'tears' in the water plane. These tears are common and can be reduced by smoothing the terrain or perhaps resculpting it, but it's not something you can predict. It can happen whether you use photoshop to generate a heightmap or whether you purely sculpt in CAW. Possibly they were there before and you didn't notice, possibly you had caused them but the waterplane had not re-drawn or perhaps your photoshop work generated a heightmap which causes more water tears. But whichever way, you're not alone in experiencing this.

[PoisonFrog]

I'm kind of leery of giving out corrupt files, so here is my newest clean version. I included a couple screen shots although you already understand the problem. I just mainly wanted to know if there was a way to prevent it, but I guess there isn't.

About the included world:
It's somewhat crude as it exists mainly as a learning vehicle for me and is my first endeavor. I'm trying to develop a modular system centered around Photoshop but also encompassing World Machine, CAW, Texture Maker and 3DS Max or some other suitable mesh program...and of course S3PE. So, at the moment I'm long on studying and short on results...but here's what I have..

http://hotfile.com/dl/134493510/d753b05/PoisonFrog.rar.html

[PoisonFrog]

Okay, last one...those mountains were really bothering me so I constructed a new World Machine. I think this is much better...

http://hotfile.com/dl/134554017/62ea634/PoisonFrog_1.rar.html

...thanks everyone for the help

[simsample]

PoisonFrog, I'm interested here in the corruption in the world, if you want constructive feedback on the world then you should post here:
http://www.modthesims.info/fd.php?f=473

For the two images, they do appear to show road errors which could likely be resolved by smoothing the roads, although exactly why they are occurring I'm not sure. It likely has to do with the way CAW converts the heightmap- I've noticed that other people have had errors where an identical map imported twice gives slightly different results.