New Mapping Tool - "SpringMapEdit" - r321

[imbaczek]

any progress on that external dds thingie?

[Frostregen]

Interesting, I was just about to write something about my progress, about 60 minutes ago
But I got a surprise visit here now, so no progress tonight anymore. Sry.

(Expect something along this week)

If you want to help:
upload a very small texturemap for me.
2x2 spring units. -> 1024*1024 image as a .dds file with mipmaps.

-Frostregen

[imbaczek]

here it is.

[SpikedHelmet]

Another feature request...

Prompt on exiting which would close an unsaved map... or just simple prompt on exit (Yes/No). Accidently lost a handful of work because I hit the X on the render window when trying to hit File to save on the UI window... <_<

[KaiserJ]

to those who didn't have the GUI appear, i've had a similar problem; if i close SME with the 3d viewing window maximized, then start it up again, the user interface never appears (although the process exists, as does a tab at the bottom... using windows XP here.)

resizing the window, closing and starting SME again generally makes the user interface appear; perhaps this problem could be avoided (at least for me on windows) by adding a minimize / maximize button to the control panel.

another strange bug (not really a bug, just me being a nub) occurs when you have your texgen brush selected, and click on the pane of the 3d window while another window is active... seems to run the texgen brush script like 20 times in a row for me; perhaps you could make it so that if you click the window and it's not active, your click always counts as a "single" click rather than as your mouse being held down; i have a feeling this may be caused by my laggy computer, and is not really all that big of a deal once you get used to it... along the same lines; i've noticed that when i load a texgen script, the 3d window lags to 1fps for just a few seconds, and if i try to do anything before it catches up, SME hangs and will not recover.

now to rant about some ideas!

have you considered handling metal spots as features? i can think of a few advantages to this... applying the spots accurately and quickly is pretty tough within SME compared with some of the other tasks, it involves a lot of view toggling and doublechecking, as well as changing your metal texture quite often so that all of the spots dont look the same... not to mention if you find out after having laid them all out, that your metal spots are too small / too big / too saturated / too dark. if it were possible to place them as features (or something akin to features) and have a script or a control panel to play with the effect... set up the spot size and intensity, pick a list of metal spot textures so that there is variation in the graphics, and have an "apply" button that would automatically alter the metal map / texture map...

like many of my ideas, this is not necessary, and the request is motivated mainly by my own laziness... but at the same time; it could be very useful to people making large maps with many metal spots (*cough* such as myself ^^)... would save a lot of boring grunt work IMO.

btw i had a solution to my "multiple vertical textures" problem from a friend who was learning to use SME, and a good solution it was too...

step 1 : make the primary texture with the main script, save.
step 2 : make the secondary texture with a simple script (using a single height tolerance) and save again.
step 3 : replace the textures in the second script with solid black & white textures, in order to get a mask image ...
step 4 : load the primary in photoshop, load the secondary on a layer above, and use the third image (the black and white) to mask the secondary image over the first.
step 5 : ???
step 6 : profit

probably could do that over and over again in order to get the look of different climates or complicated vertical surfaces, maybe someone will read that and find it useful. unfortunately my computer is too fail right now to actually use that technique.

cheers!

[Frostregen]

@imbaczek: thx

@SpikedHelmet: Done.

@KaiserJ & maybe Otherside:
Problem was:
Dialogs were positioned to the right of Renderwindow.
Maximized Renderwindow -> GUI out of screen
Dialogs are now placed to the right upper screen border.
(I will comment on your other ideas later)

Also added an AlwaysOnTop option for the GUI.
(Useful with maximized renderwindow)

[Guessmyname]

When editing the heightmode with it set to 'smooth', the edges of the map do not flatten out - quite bad if you're trying to smooth out a slightly jagged part of the map extending to the borders

[Frostregen]

@Guessmyname:
changed. map borders are included now.

Small video showing map erosion at work:
http://frostregen.darkstars.co.uk/erosion.avi
There is an alternative hydraulic algorithm in place now,
which gives a different look, but is as fast as thermic erosion.
I'm still experimenting with some noise patterns for more diversity in erosion.

Next release will be when I've finished this dds exporting stuff.

[imbaczek]

Next release will be when I've finished this dds exporting stuff.

wub <3

[Frostregen]

New Release: r644

Changes:
-added 2048 MB startup scripts
-added quit confirmation dialog (may be switched off)
-relocate GUI to right screen border, instead of right renderwindow border
(fixes missing GUI)
-added always-on-top option for GUI
-added option to specify DDS files for minimap and texturemap when exporting to SM2 (Settings->SM2 Compile Options)
-increased max brush size to 1000 (possible because of better pattern scaling. May be slow for some operations though)
-added GUI for Wet and Dry Erosion (was only accessible through E and T before). More parameters changeable now.
-added alternative (faster) Wet Erosion algorithm
-added load/save for Erosion settings
-added GUI for LOD settings. (Simple slider...)
-faster map smoothing + borders now smoothed too


Have fun :)

[Frostregen]

New Release: r653

Changes:
-options for specifying what should be quicksaved (heightmap? texturemap? etc...)
Useful if you are just editing the heightmap, so it will not save&restore everything else. (Saves RAM, and faster save/load times)
-added better random map generation at startup
-added GUI for random map generation (seed/displacement/regression/skip)

If you set "Skip" to something higher than 0, it will preserve the current terrain to a certain degree. Higher values preserve the given terrain more.
May be used to add detail to a rough sketch you created.
(Roughly paint the hills&valleys, then generate with skip set to 4+)

New Release: r656
-changed tile-hashing from Adler32 to CRC32
-check for hash-collision by comparing tile content. Should fix some rare occasions where different tiles were taken as identical.

[KaiserJ]

If you set "Skip" to something higher than 0, it will preserve the current terrain to a certain degree. Higher values preserve the given terrain more.
May be used to add detail to a rough sketch you created.
(Roughly paint the hills&valleys, then generate with skip set to 4+)

this will do for my maps what gastric bypasses do for middle aged women.

<3

[Frostregen]

lol

I should note:
It currently works like intended only on 2^X square sized maps.
This is 2x2, 4x4, 8x8, 16x16 and 32x32.

But this will be changed soon

EDIT:
New Release: r658

-Issue above fixed.

[Guessmyname]

Have I mentioned that you're awesome and I love you?

[Doleo]

This is a nice start to a program, with huge potential to rock. I hope development of this continues.

[Frostregen]

First:
Thx for appreciating this tool

Second:
I recently installed Linux (Gentoo) at my main PC.

Somehow it does not perform very good in respect to SME:
Graphic glitches:
-Z-Buffer issues (far away terrain shows through nearer terrain. Waterplane always shows through...)
-Speed issues (only about half as fast, as under windows: 800 -> 1500fps. Strange short pause every second.)
Currently searching a way to limit an applications processor core usage to one core... (Could be the dualcore timer issue)
Even glxgears only has around 2000fps + small pause/hickup every second.

My system:
amd x2 6000, 2GB ram, nv gf8800 GT (512mb)
Gentoo Kernel: linux-2.6.27-gentoo-r8
xorg-x11 + xfce4.4
nvidia-drivers 180.29

Anyone here with a similar config(ask about more detail - xorg.conf etc...), and without those problems?
Since I'm new to Desktop-Linux I really could use some help


EDIT: Disabling "compositing" gave it some speedup, but still not satisfactory.

[Neuralize]

When I export and then import a heightmap bmp. (513x513) for a 16x16 map, I get weird edge stuff in SME. Like at the very very edge, every other little square is raised up, and then there is like a very small trench on the other side.. checked my heightmap and it doesn't have any bogus data.. did it twice two with two separate heightmaps and the same type of weird shit on the edges happened. Other than that pretty cool tool.

[Beherith]

Neuralize, check your map dimensions, a 16*16 maps needs a heightmap of 1025*1025.

[Frostregen]

Hm, If the dimension is wrong, it should not load at all.

What image format did you use?
Maybe you could upload your heightmap file here for me to check.

[Neuralize]

Well.. SME exported a heightmap bmp (not a raw, could this be it?) for a 16x16 at 1025x1025.. I opened it in photoshop, change it a little and then save, and I still get weird jagging at 2 corners corners that also shows up in spring.



If I erode the terrain at all it disappears pretty immediately however..