16-bit .png support~Found a free EASY conversion program
 

So, without thinking too much about it, I started fiddling around with an image on which I would base my town map. I had things humming along quite nicely, exported it as a .png, loaded it up in Create-a-World and discovered a very bizarre side-by-side map. After a while of scratching my head I realized that Paint Shop Pro 9 doesn't have an option for exporting .pngs in 16-bit.

So, the question is this: Does anyone know if there is a plug-in available somewhere to give PSP this support?

Yes, I know I can mold a fresh map from scratch, but in this case I really, really need my image so that I know exactly where things are supposed to be on the map.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

P.S. Yes, I have been searching the interwebz. The search engines aren't taking too kindly to me tonight.

ETA: After hours of searching, I have found a free program. Details below.

I have no idea how to do it in PSP, but to my understanding, it's possible in GIMP, which is free.

I have Photoshop, so I could do it for you, if you like.

I don't think it's possible in GIMP, because that's what I have and it won't do it. I couldn't find a plugin for it in GIMP, either. Paint.net, another free image editor, has a plugin that claims to save in 16 bit grayscale, but when I tried it it saved my image as 8 bit grayscale, which gives you a blank map in CAW.

As far as I can tell there aren't any plugins made for PSP that can save in 16 bit grayscale, but there do appear to be some for older versions of Photoshop. I remember there being a way to convert PS plugins for use in PSP, but I haven't used PSP since version 6 or 7, and don't remember the procedure.

This site http://www.barre.nom.fr/medical/dicom2/ claims to have a free utility that will let you convert an image to a 16 bit grayscale png, but I haven't tried it. It's a command-line type program, and might not be accessible to everyone.

I'm sorry it has taken me so long to reply--way too busy this past week with Christmas prep. Thank you both for your input!

Is1bel I took a look at the page there and at the moment can't even wrap my poor brain around it. I'll see if I can figure out what it's saying.

Lindley, if I can't figure out any other way to do it, I may just take you up on that offer. It's not much of an image, really, because I plan on doing most of the work from within C-A-W but know it would be way much easier if I import the image to use as a guide.

There's a free app called Irfanview that specializes in graphics file format conversions. You might try that. http://www.irfanview.com/

Thanks, Srikandi, I will give it a try! I am giving myself a day off today and if I could work on my map I'd be all kinds of ecstatic. :D

I just downloaded irfanview, but I don't see a 16bit greyscale option in it, sadly

Inge, I downloaded IrfanView as well plus the Plug-in for it with PngOut and just finally figured out how to find out if it does have that option, but I am not seeing 16-bit .png capabilities. It has 1-, 2-, 4-, and 8-bit support but no higher.

I figure I have two choices now: spend my entire "day off" looking for something that will work or go directly to C-A-W and beat my head against my desk for the rest of the day while I TRY to sculpt the map exactly as I want it. I'm not real keen on either option.

I have also tried Photobie and Paint.net. Damon has been trying MSPaint that he thought supported it. I am beginning to think only people with PhotoShop are really going to be able to enjoy making textures and maps for Sims3

Inge, it took me over two hours, but I finally actually did find a FREEWARE converter that is a real piece of software that will allow saving .png files in 16-bit format. I saved my image, took it into C-A-W and it worked beautifully!!

It's called RawTherapee and is available here!

After I started the program I found myself facing something very foreign looking, but it only took me a couple of minutes to figure it out, so even though it may look daunting, it isn't hard to figure out.

Ok... I need to find out a) how to open a png as it's only offering me jpgs and b) how to stop it crashing... :D

ETA: Ah... it's the pngs that are crashing it, that's why

EETTAA: I made a jpg as the basis and this time I was able to make a 16bit png from it and use it as a map. There is some interesting "noise" at the edge of each level of grey. I might have had anti-aliasing on or something when I made the original jpeg.

Inge, all I did was open my 8-bit .png image I had created in PSP and didn't suffer any crashes. Once I was finished with the image in PSP I exported it in .png format because that works better than simply saving as that format. The "noise" at the edges of the color changes would be the .jpg artifacts. I honestly don't know why .jpg compression has to cause artifacts in an image with so few colors but they do. Have you tried importing a .bmp? If you can successfully import a .bmp to save as a 16-bit .png, then the problem with the artifacts would be solved since .bmp files save as clearly as do .pngs.

I want to thank you for this thread, as I've been searching for several hours, now, to find a program to save as a 16-bit .png image. I have an old copy of PhotoShop, but my disc is evidently scratched so bad I can't use it, and I've been going NUTS trying to figure out how to make a heightmap for CAW.

I've just downloaded the program and haven't tried it yet, but am crossing my fingers!!! Thanks again!

Linda, you are very welcome! It always makes time way better spent when other people benefit as well.

Anyway, it makes 16 bit pngs. The rest is up to the user, as normal Thank you Misty!

You're welcome, Inge! I trust both you and Linda are better at making height maps than I am. Still, it allowed me to do what I wanted, which means all of my mountains, hills, and river are exactly where they're supposed to be. And of course there are things that can be done on a height map that will never be achieved with in-program sculpting, like how absolutely awesome the faces of some cliffs turned out without me having to do any extra sculpting.

Here is a picture of part of my mountain work. Anyone is welcome to point and laugh because I feel like I am not very good at sculpting realistic mountains. I could never have done that with height map alone, but by putting the base in the height map I could put in a foundation and build from that. (Of course there is much, much texture work to be done.)

Yknow, years ago I used to play around with a fun 3D world app called Bryce. Bryce specializes in very natural-looking terrains, based on a grayscale heightmap just like CAW. It has a ton of tools for doing different kinds of geologically accurate mountains, ridges, valleys etc, and the heightmaps can be imported and exported. It occurs to me that that would be a great tool for making CAW heightmaps, especially since you can preview the heightmap in 3D in Bryce and keep working on it till you get it just right.

Seems the program is still being developed: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/software/bryce

Lil late for my current project, but I bet you could make some spectacular terrain that way.

Srikandi, that would be awesome! I am bookmarking for future reference!

I'm using Bryce 6 to generate my terrain, but I've also played around with World Machine 2 Basic and that will actually save the PNG as 16 bit. I might be worth having a look as it's free.

World Machine 2

Terragen used to be free (I still have that version on my file server)
Terragen 2

Vue 8 also has a free version, the earlier versions used to be quite nice, but I've found this one to be complicated to use and I think the free version will generate the terrain, but you might need to push it through something like Bryce to actually get teh terrain as a PNG since that facility does not exist in the free version.
Vue 8 Pioneer

In GIMP, all you have to do to make any image grayscale is click Image > Mode and select grayscale. Save as png and you now have a 16-bit png for your project

Thanks for that, datette. When this thread was written (2009) there was no 16 bit support in GIMP, but it seems that this has since been implemented.

According to what I have read it's still not in gimp. Proposed for 2.10 but not yet in 2.8.2 which is the version currently offered for download.

I love sims3 and CAW.I hope more people will enjoy CAW more easily.This is free software . You can create a 16bit PNG file.The name of free software is swell. I wrote URL and HELP-URL here.

http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA033743/
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA03...option_png.html

Also this http://www.simlogical.com/ContentUp...e/uploads/1380/

When I wanted a height map for CAW recently I used Raw Therapee.