From the Maxis BBS:

Author: Region1
Date: Feb-11-03 10:43 AM PST
Subject: Re: Just bought SC4 - no random terrain?

I sure miss the days when EA was still going by EOA. Lords of Conquest! Racing Destruction Set! The games were pretty simple but they were usually *great*! :sigh: Now we get games that more often than not require a patch in order to work properly.
Anyway, I've started using Fractint (available from http://spanky.triumf.ca/http://www/fractint/getting.html ) to create random regions. Here's how:

*Open Fractint.
*Change fractal type to Plasma.
*Optional: change color map to a monocrhome one. The grey map works best.
*Save your fractal.
*Open your favorite photo editor.
*Load the fractal you just saved.
*Resize picture to 1025 1025, which is the default region size.
*Change image mode to Greyscale if you didn't load the grey map (see above). Black areas will be water and white areas will be mountains.
*Optional: darken picture.
*Save picture as BMP.
*Optional: close both Fractint and your photo editor so SC4 will run smoother.
*Open SC4.
*Start new region.
*Press alt-control-shift-r to load your greyscale fractal bitmap. SC4 will tell you if your bitmap is the wrong size. If so, you'll need your photo editor again to set it to the correct size.
*Wait for the new information to be processed.