After running several trials on creating height maps from free hand drawings, I finally figured out the formula for estimating the RT3 elevation based on the shade of blue used on the map. By free hand drawing I mean using Microsoft Paint or some other software which allows you to draw and color. By the shade of blue, I mean using pure blue (red and green set at zero) to shade the elevations with blue=1 as the lowest elevation above sea level and blue=255 as the highest elevation above sea level.
An important thing I found out is that the map must have an ocean or water body at sea level somewhere on the map. If it does not, then the blue shades are meaningless. It comes out a perfectly flat map. If you want a perfectly flat map, then is much easier to create a new map ‘From Scratch’ using the RT3 editor than to use a free hand drawing.
Here is the formula from which to calculate the RT3 elevation on a new map based on the shade of pure blue:
RT3 Elevation = [(176/255) x BLUE] – [((255 – BLUE)/255) x 2]
For example, if your blue shade is 75, then the formula would be [(176/255) x 75] – [((255 – 75)/255) x 2] which would equal an RT3 elevation of 50 units on the map.
If your blue shade is 240, then the formula would be [(176/255) x 240] – [((255 – 240)/255) x 2] which would equal an RT3 elevation of 166 units.
176 is the maximum elevation possible on a map - at the default modifier settings.
The table below shows the blue shade to use to create each RT3 elevation (red and green set at zero) on a new map. These are the elevations created when the height map is created with all modifiers set at 1.0. To calculate any RT3 elevation on a new map, use the formula above.
Shade of Blue_______RT3 Elevation on Map
17...........................10
39...........................25
75...........................50
110..........................75
146..........................100
182..........................125
218..........................150
253..........................175