# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Software Discussion >  Greenfish Relief Map Generator

## RobA

Someone on the Dungeonforge forum posted about this little program:

http://greenfish.extra.hu/downloads.php

It has a incredibly simple interface:


And with one click on the [?] button you get a new map, complete with random names pulled from a flat text file.

Here are some examples (I had to convert them from bitmaps, 'cause that is all it saves in):








-Rob A>

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## Sigurd

Pretty amazing program. Nice sensibilities behind the basic map structure.


I'm glad I never saw this when I was just getting into mapping. I might not have pursued it so earnestly.


Sigurd

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## Sirith

Nice little program! I can see myself using it to create a base for my handdrawn maps. Thanks for posting this  :Smile:

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## ravells

I was thinking the same, Siguard. This is a lovely little program - the coastlines look really credible. Not sure I like the colours on the land, though.

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## SpamValiant

with the colours set to a greyscale it produces a handy image. can anyone figure out how to turn off the grid??

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## Redrobes

Can it output the height map because you could get your own gradient remap in there and make your own color scheme for the land if you dont like the one it gives you.

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## su_liam

I like the Hungarian town names! I thought it was Turkish at first...

I actually kind of like the altitude gradient. It's fairly clear and unobtrusive. I may add its distinctiveness to my collective of gradients.  :Wink: 

As a heightfield generator it seems weak. There's a fairly bad orthoganal banding artifact(squares). Even against the paltry selection of terrain generation software on the mac it's not all that great. If your on a PC anyway, there are oodles of greatly superior HF generators. Many of them free.

Still, those town names...

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## Sigurd

Its small and its minimalist. Elegant piece of software.



*Removing the Grid* in photoshop etc...

Just a little Eureka thought for those trying to remove the grids. I started with the standard:

1) Make the grid an original colour (pink for me) then delete all the instances of that colour. (fyi the grid seems to be an overlay in that it takes up some of the lower colours.

2) Go back and try to fix all the problems.


What quickly became apparent to me is that in this case there is a much simpler way of fixing things.

1) Copy the bmp onto 3+ layers. Hide the lower 2

2) Erase all the grid from the first layer. Reveal the first lower layer.

3) Nudge the lower layer left or right a bit. Merge top 2 layers. You've just removed the vertical grid.

4) Repeat grid erasing on top. Reveal and nudge lower layer up or down. Merge top and second layer. You've removed the horizontal grid.


Now I'm sure this is no surprise to many of you but it made me smile.

So I thought I'd share.


Sigurd

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## RobA

The program is still in active development.  Email the author and ask for a "no grid option".  And if someone were to volunteer up the code for a different (better) noise generation algorithm...

-Rob A>

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## su_liam

Their message system berates me for being a spammer. I gave up.

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## SpamValiant

Which I guess means that they'd have me shot on sight :Very Happy:

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## su_liam

Balázs Szalkai contacted me by email later. I sent him links to a variety of noise engine implementations.

Friendly enough. It was just the anti-spam engine that was a bit, "overzealous."

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## Pete Tyjewski

the link given is dead 
version 1.4 will remove the grid lines using 0 as the grid size

i have a file of English town names

Greenfish Software Blog: Greenfish Relief Map Generator 1.4

 Version history:

    1.4
        Added feature: higher map size limit (5000x5000)
        Added feature: typing 0 as grid size hides the grid
        Added feature: further style settings, e.g. automatic caption
    1.3
        Added feature: saving random seeds in a combined listbox
    1.2
        Added feature: now one can select a text file as a database of possible town names
    1.1
        Optimized: Speeded up map generation
        Added feature: loading/saving presets
        Added feature: editing style (colors, etc.)
    1.0
        First release

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