New mapping utility - Spring Metal

[RogerN]

Download Spring Metal

Screenshot on the download page.

This is a utility for mappers to quickly add metal patches to their maps. It also creates a corresponding metal map. You must provide your map texture, height map, and one or more images containing tiles to be used as metal patches.

Adding metal patches is as simple as clicking on the map. The selected metal patch can also be randomized after every click, so that the same patch is never added twice in a row. All metal patches can be moved around by dragging, until you save the final texture.

This tool is written in C#, so you must have the .NET Framework 2.0 installed to use it. Also, please note that it will likely eat all your RAM. The source code is included for anyone who wants to tinker.

This 1.0 version just covers the basics, but I hope to add some more tools and features soon. My next goal is a lasso tool to be used with a "Fill metal" command, which creates X amount of random metal spots evenly distributed in the selected area. Other tools that I may add include a quick utility for creating trees and grass on a feature map, and a tool for generating slope maps.

Credits:
- Two metal patch images are included, by hrmph

[LOrDo]

2.5 bugs:

(1)It wont import jpg texture files, which spring supports and are a lot easier to handle.
(2)Instead of importing my metal patch picture as one patch, it splits it up into like 13 pieces and uses those as patches.
(2.5)Gives me an error that I dont have enough ram when I try to import my hugeass texturemap for the map Im working on. Not really a bug, since every program without hard drive paging does this anyways, and the ones that do run it at impossibly slow speeds. Guess theres just no way I can apply metal patches to my texture...

Good idea for a program. I would use it if I happen to be working on a map size that my ram can handle... Metal patch placing has always been such a hassle before.

For a feature suggestion, mabye it could import an existing metalmap and automaticly apply metal patches on the texture map in coordination with the metalmap? Not sure if this is even possible, but it would be cool.

[RogerN]

(1)It wont import jpg texture files, which spring supports and are a lot easier to handle.

I'll try adding jpg support - it shouldn't be a problem. I just didn't know that anybody preferred that format. Note, however, that you'll lose some texture quality by opening the texture as a jpg and then resaving it.

Instead of importing my metal patch picture as one patch, it splits it up into like 13 pieces and uses those as patches.

What does your metal patch look like? My program tries to identify separate patches by looking for contiguous opaque regions. To work around the issue for now, just make sure that all regions are connected by an alpha value of at least 1. That's still more than 99% transparent, so it shouldn't make a visible difference.

(2.5)Gives me an error that I dont have enough ram when I try to import my hugeass texturemap for the map Im working on.

Just out of curiosity, what size is your map? It's possible to modify the program so that it works with a reduced-size texture map, so you don't have to load the whole thing while you're working. It would have to be a .BMP file, though, because when saving the final image I'd need to do it chunks. It would take too much work to process a .JPG in chunks like that.

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Other things I forgot to mention:

- Drag the image with the middle mouse button in order to scroll without using the scrollbars.
- You can delete a metal spot by pressing Delete while it's selected

[RogerN]

New version uploaded to unknown-files. The download link at the top of the thread has been changed.

* Added support for JPG textures
* The memory usage has been significantly reduced IF you are working with .BMP textures. For .JPG the program must still load the entire image into memory at once.

Basically, I now default to loading .BMP textures at 25% resolution. I also save the final image in "chunks" so that the entire bitmap does not need to be loaded into memory. This means that Spring Metal uses significantly less RAM when working with .BMP textures, so it should comfortably work with huge maps.

For JPG textures, however, I do not currently have a method of loading or saving the texture in chunks. This means that the memory usage is still huge.

[LOrDo]

To answer your questions:
(1)This is my metal patch :


(2)My map is 24x24, so thats 12288x12288 in pixels for the texturemap.

I like the new changes, Ill try it out later.

[RogerN]

Use this image instead:


1) GDI+ is lame... when you tell it to draw an image at coordinates X,Y it prefers to use the DPI of the image instead of the pixel resolution in order to determine the width of the destination rectangle. Future versions of my program will use the pixel resolution, but for now I had to change the DPI of your image from 72 to 96.

2) I made sure that every part of your metal spot was connected by an alpha value of at least 1.

[Forboding Angel]

Roger, you have just saved me a shitload of time. THANK YOU!

[ralphie]

I assumed this would be slow and cumbersome so didn't bother until now... I was pleasantly suprised. Works really nicely, and certainly cuts out a lot of tedious copy and pasting. Nice work

[url_00]

Could this get mirrored? I'm working on a map, and I'd like to have this.

[Gota]

Is there anyway to define the size of the metal patches in the program

[RogerN]

Could this get mirrored? I'm working on a map, and I'd like to have this.

SpringMetal mirror is here.

Is there anyway to define the size of the metal patches in the program

Not at the moment. There's an assumed 1-to-1 ratio between the pixel size of your metal patches and the pixel size of your map texture. If you want the metal patches to appear smaller on the final map texture then you would need to resize the patch images.

[Gota]

so wth..
I gave it a bmp of a 50x50 patch but it made it smaller only showing a prt of it as if it can only accept 30x0 patches.

[RogerN]

I gave it a bmp of a 50x50 patch but it made it smaller only showing a prt of it as if it can only accept 30x0 patches.

Can you post a link to the patch image?

[Gota]

I dont have it anymore but i can assure you it was a 60x60 or a 50x50 patch cause i only se those sizes.
It was in the right format and the prog accepted it only it cut making a what i think was a 30x30 or maybe even a 20x20 patch.

[hunterw]

oh sweet baby jesus i wish i had this when i was making spring maps

[Gota]

Lol atm i just scale and copy paste te metal map over the texture map..very frustratng for bigger maps since i only have a sibgle core and it all takes ages..

[LOrDo]

I havent produced much with this thing, but I like what I see. Get a few errors when scaling though, forget what they are. Ill say how it all goes when I actually make somthing with it.

[caldera]

i put it on spring-portal. call me if you dont it to be published there.
http://spring-portal.com/index.php/docman/doc_details/241-springmetal