What is the purpose of the main_map_flow_splat

[FoozleMcDoozle]

It was reference in the basic world mapping document but it's purpose was never explained, from the look of it it seems the small erosion channels represented in the red channel of the image, but I cant really tell what the green channel is.

 

[NPC99]

It was reference in the basic world mapping document but it's purpose was never explained, from the look of it it seems the small erosion channels represented in the red channel of the image, but I cant really tell what the green channel is.

Flowmaps are standard outputs from external terrain software such as World Machine and presumably Houdini. The area map section of a paint layer allows you to add splatting textures, but I believe this only relates to small terrain textures to help randomise close-up blending and visuals. I suspect main_map_flow_splat was used for:

1. The base for the dirt1 materialmap after masking out the sea, snow and sand, and
2. It may also have been used to add faint erosion detail to the main_map_area vista texture.

However, I just guessing as the vista textures used by Main_map are locked in a worldmap tileset that I can't peer inside.