Interlopers.net Forum - Half-Life 2 News & Tutorials

Hey guys, I totally understand the idea behind Height Maps and have made a few of them on my own. I just can not seem to remember what the default zero point is. If white is the highest point and black is the lowest point, It would make sense that a 50% gray would be the middle point thus making it what I am referring to as the zero point. However, for some reason I seem to remember someone telling me that it is 80% gray that is the middle point.

So which is it?

While it really depends on how the end product is interpreting it, Source handles it with Black as the furthest (lowest) and White as the Closest (highest).
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Heightmap


In any case though just experiment if your not sure.

Maybe this will help, the middle box on the bottom row is the default zero colour.