IslandDivide - Autogenerated map

PauloMorfeo · Post by **PauloMorfeo** » 18 May 2006, 14:25

Essentially because of the time taken to create the map, nothing else.

SJ wrote:...
In all it should be possible to create a new map with 15-30 minutes of work and 6h of waiting on terragen.
...

And yes, most certainly, that would be awesome for tournaments and .. anything else. Just not having to wait 6+ hours for a map to be randomly made (not even counting the slower machines).

AF · Post by AF » 18 May 2006, 16:01

It would be good if we ahd fog of war for this so we really cannto see any of the map and have to explore it...

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 18 May 2006, 17:29

If you were using l3dt with a good climate system, this process could be cut down to about 2 hours of work total.

IceXuick · Post by **IceXuick** » 18 May 2006, 17:44

My opinion is that terragen looks quite better (top down anyway), and it still is 1 hour and 59 minutes too long. Zaphods map format could work perfect for this idea.

Standard textures should be send with Spring install (rocks/cliffs, seabed,riverbed, grass, snow, sand, bushed, (dry)dirt, steppe/tundra, mars, moon, etc) and that only the height, metal and featuremap needs to be generated. This could be fast, and the map size would probably be so small, that after generating it for some secs, all the other players can receive the gen-ed map (couple of 100 kbs?)

Zaphod, what do you think about this?

Tobi · Post by **Tobi** » 18 May 2006, 19:35

IceXuick wrote:Standard textures should be send with Spring install (rocks/cliffs, seabed,riverbed, grass, snow, sand, bushed, (dry)dirt, steppe/tundra, mars, moon, etc) and that only the height, metal and featuremap needs to be generated. This could be fast, and the map size would probably be so small, that after generating it for some secs, all the other players can receive the gen-ed map (couple of 100 kbs?

If you trim the time to generate it to a couple of seconds anyway, it doesn't make sense to send a couple of 100 kbs over the net: as it's randomly generated with a random number generator seeded to a certain value, the only thing you need to send over is the seed (4 bytes). Because the sequence of random numbers returned to the map generator is then known, it will build the same map on every client.

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 18 May 2006, 20:39

AF wrote:It would be good if we ahd fog of war for this so we really cannto see any of the map and have to explore it...

that is why I play with L on.

If they had just the shadow outside of your view as an option to be turned on that would be awesome.

Although there would need to be an option to turn that off for glamour shots.

mongus · Post by **mongus** » 18 May 2006, 21:30

hm..

using zaphod map format, its not needed to pass through terragen or anything. Just tell what zones use .. ground/mountain/cliff... etc textures and ready.

The very mapconv can do that.

not as nice or well done as terragen, but pretty fast to generate->play.

im mistaken?

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 18 May 2006, 23:22

if someone with half a brain makes a map in zaphods new system it will look like hawt sex.

Using baseprobs and gradcoeffs is quite effective, not to mention fast. If anything, good maps will require more skill.

Edit:

Terragen is ok, not definately not the greatest. Bryce is uber irritating when it comes to the sides of hills, because there is no different texture, just painted desert bands, and if you put a realistic looking texture in there it won't really look all that great.

IceXuick · Post by **IceXuick** » 19 May 2006, 01:11

yeah bryce basic/standard materials are kinda alike, and give more or less a very limited variety to the maps. It are the materials you create yourself. They don't need to have lines, and can have the slope effects from terra or l3dt just as good. Problem with bryce is that it can give a headache to configure this right. If you don't know what you're doing, you'll end up switching endlessly through all the menu's and settings.

Dragon45 · Post by **Dragon45** » 16 Jun 2006, 19:09

Just for a minute, lets all do the

BUMP

what happened to this?

mongus · Post by **mongus** » 16 Jun 2006, 21:57

maybe its in svn changelog?
e: i cant find it.

Gabba · Post by **Gabba** » 17 Jun 2006, 10:46

The map generated this way by SJ is very nice, by the way, I had a game on it not too long ago.

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 17 Jun 2006, 11:07

nice avatar gabba.

I to am wondering about the progress on this tool.

Fat Zombie · Post by **Fat Zombie** » 17 Jun 2006, 15:16

The map as a stand-alone thing is quite good. It looks nice, and it's got a a simple playing area.

FizWizz · Post by **FizWizz** » 17 Jun 2006, 22:01

I think that the map is nice too, I sure wouldn't mind it being added to the Spring installer.

But I'm more interested in seeing the map generator being finished and released

Post by SJ » 17 Jun 2006, 22:13

I havent really had time to work on this so its more or less unchanged since I created this map.

Gabba · Post by **Gabba** » 19 Jun 2006, 08:18

smoth wrote:nice avatar gabba

Yours is really cool too

MadRat · Post by **MadRat** » 06 Nov 2006, 13:52

Would it speed up map generation if somehow you made the pathfinding as you generate the map? Basically build the map around predetermined pathfinding. In this way you can balance out resources and distances to be fairly symmetrical, although you really can have build the whole layout asymmetrical.

Post by **jcnossen** » 06 Nov 2006, 18:43

Pathfinding or map generation is not the problem here, the problem is generating the tile textures, which takes too long to be acceptable for a user

Comp1337 · Post by **Comp1337** » 06 Nov 2006, 22:06

where is this shizz?
is it dead?
I wanted to try this for making some maps..

Spring RTS Engine

IslandDivide - Autogenerated map