heightmaps and channel confusion

Unity Engine
1

Hi!
I am having somewhat of a success importing and exporting heightmaps to unity, but I cant really see the use for two alpha channels.

I am a noob when it comes to graphics formats, but it seems to me that the height information is always stored in the alpha channel(s)

if you use 8 bit you will only need one 8 bit alpha channel.

if you choose 16 bit format it will take 2*8 bit channels and the end result will use some function(multiplying?) to merge the two channels together.

is this correct?

thanks

2

no it will not multiply anything. But it squares the amount of possible height values.

it will just use those 16bit (short instead of byte = 8bit) to store the values. Actually 65536 variations of height (where byte only is able to store 256 which does not offer many possibilities for steep and smoother terrains)

so in short: its just a matter of the number format used.
8bit is byte, where as 16bit is short

3

Actually no, alpha channels are not used at all for height. Height is pure raw data, either 8 or 16 bits.

–Eric

4

Hi!
thanks for the clarifications, however when i open a heightmap in ps, it (ps) has put the data into the alpha channels. I think I have it figured out enough to do what I want to do now anyways.