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Choosing the Right Relief Exaggeration for Your Map
Every terrain map makes a deal with the viewer: real mountains are dramatic on the ground but often read as flat on a screen or a print. Relief exaggeration is the dial that resolves that tension — and in the terrain app it runs from 0 to 20 percent, defaults to 8, and applies live as you drag. No re-render, no waiting: drag until it looks right.
What the slider actually changes
Relief controls how strongly the elevation grid displaces the surface. Zero gives you a flat map with shading only — useful for hillshade purists. Higher values stretch every valley and ridge vertically. The underlying data never changes; the legend, the elevation readout on hover, and the exported heightmap all stay truthful to the real metres. Only the presentation stretches.
That is also why relief is safe to experiment with: share links carry the exact value you chose (anything other than the 8 percent default is written into the link), so the view you liked is the view other people get.
Values that work, by terrain
| Terrain type | Suggested relief | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Flat coast or polder | 12–18 % | Almost no vertical data — exaggeration is the only way relief shows at all |
| Rolling farmland | 10–14 % | Gentle hills need a nudge to read as form, not noise |
| Foothills | 8–10 % | The default zone; real shape carries itself |
| Alpine terrain | 5–8 % | Big vertical data argues against stretching it — the Matterhorn needs no help |
| Deep canyons | 4–6 % | Canyon walls are near-vertical already; more looks rubbery |
These are starting points, not laws. The right value is the one where a friend who knows the place says "yes, that's it" rather than "why does it look spiky?"
Two pairing rules
Pair relief with the export, not the screen. A value that looks modest on a 27-inch monitor can print emotionally flat, because print is held in the hand and invites touch. If a map is destined for the printer, nudge 2–3 points above your screen pick — the tactile read wants more drama than the optical read.
Pair it with the band, not against it. Relief shapes the form; the colour band shapes the read. If you stretch relief high on a region with strong colours, the two effects fight. Calmer ramps (greyscale hillshade, the celadon scroll) leave room for higher relief values.
The connection to real metres
Relief is presentation; the numbers underneath stay real. The legend on every export shows the region's true elevation range, and a 16-bit heightmap export of the same view gives you the grid with its exact linear mapping:
height = min + fraction × (max − min)So if you fall in love with an exaggerated view, the heightmap still exports true elevations — your game engine or Blender scene gets real metres regardless of how dramatic the preview looked.
One drag, many views
Because the slider responds instantly, the practical workflow is: set your region, drag relief across its whole range once and watch the character of the terrain change, then settle where the landform reads truest. Alpinists gravitate low, coastal mappers gravitate high, and both are right. The slider only asks what you want the map to say.
Try it while it's fresh
The whole tool runs in your browser — pick a region, shape the relief, export. No account, nothing to install.
Open the terrain app