Ok, I have a few questions about mapping.
1. How long does compiling take - the map is 20x20 so the texture file is about 300mb.
2. How does this tile thing work? using a 10240* texture is slowing down my PC to a halt.
3. How high is the water? (what colour on the greyscale)
4. Is minimap a resized version of the texture, or is it generated independantly. Just making the shoreline in my texture is near impossible as my computer is dying having to work with such a huge image, and I don't want my minimap to be a big square of texture. :/
5. How bumpy can terrain be but still allowing buildings?
Large BMPs, compile time, minimap generation?
Moderator: Moderators
2. The mapconv tries to make as few tiles as possible of the large texture you use, the tiles Spring then use are 32x32 in size. So if you for example make a texture map using a single tile that is the size of 32x32, mapconv will simply make a single tile of it and repeat it over the entire map.
3. There isn't any certain colour in the greyscale where the water is, it is entirely dependent on the values you use when compiling the map. For example, if the height values when you compile it are on the plus side, then there isn't any water at all, even though parts of your heightmap is 0, 0, 0 (pure black).
4. The minimap is simply a resized version of the texture.
5. This depends on the building, but I'm guessing you mean the factories/fusions etc in XTA. Well, the answer is simple, the ground can't be very bumpy at all.
3. There isn't any certain colour in the greyscale where the water is, it is entirely dependent on the values you use when compiling the map. For example, if the height values when you compile it are on the plus side, then there isn't any water at all, even though parts of your heightmap is 0, 0, 0 (pure black).
4. The minimap is simply a resized version of the texture.
5. This depends on the building, but I'm guessing you mean the factories/fusions etc in XTA. Well, the answer is simple, the ground can't be very bumpy at all.
Re: Large BMPs, compile time, minimap generation?
1. will take like 1 to 30 minstooleh wrote:Ok, I have a few questions about mapping.
1. How long does compiling take - the map is 20x20 so the texture file is about 300mb.
2. How does this tile thing work? using a 10240* texture is slowing down my PC to a halt.
3. How high is the water? (what colour on the greyscale)
4. Is minimap a resized version of the texture, or is it generated independantly. Just making the shoreline in my texture is near impossible as my computer is dying having to work with such a huge image, and I don't want my minimap to be a big square of texture. :/
5. How bumpy can terrain be but still allowing buildings?
2 u probaly don't got enough memory
3 try mapconv -help or soething like that (i use sharpmap for determining the waterheight)
4 i think it's just a resized version
Sorry i was Harsh, hope this helps you
Re: Large BMPs, compile time, minimap generation?
Whoops
Last edited by NOiZE on 01 Nov 2005, 19:50, edited 1 time in total.
3. So to get water my min value would have to be like...-20? or +20 :SSecurE wrote:2. The mapconv tries to make as few tiles as possible of the large texture you use, the tiles Spring then use are 32x32 in size. So if you for example make a texture map using a single tile that is the size of 32x32, mapconv will simply make a single tile of it and repeat it over the entire map.
3. There isn't any certain colour in the greyscale where the water is, it is entirely dependent on the values you use when compiling the map. For example, if the height values when you compile it are on the plus side, then there isn't any water at all, even though parts of your heightmap is 0, 0, 0 (pure black).
4. The minimap is simply a resized version of the texture.
5. This depends on the building, but I'm guessing you mean the factories/fusions etc in XTA. Well, the answer is simple, the ground can't be very bumpy at all.
4. Eep.
5. Damn :/
Okies, thanks for clearing that up.
Creating tiles 91586/92160 90%
^compiler has been sitting here for ages.
3. So to get water my min value would have to be like...-20? or +20 :S
-20 is not deep water, it will be wadeable. Go for at least -100 for a sea capable of supporting shipyards and ships.
If you want tall mountains over 500 for max height is a good start.
Creating tiles 91586/92160 90%
91586 is a lot of tiles which may mean your map is beautiful with no repeating textures, but it will result in very big download. Aim for less than 25000 to get under 10Meg final size.
^compiler has been sitting here for ages
Dunno, it hasn't started creating features there, so it not won't be a black and white metal map...
Only other tip would be start small, making 127x127 heightmaps and 1024x1024 textures is much faster for experiments.
-20 is not deep water, it will be wadeable. Go for at least -100 for a sea capable of supporting shipyards and ships.
If you want tall mountains over 500 for max height is a good start.
Creating tiles 91586/92160 90%
91586 is a lot of tiles which may mean your map is beautiful with no repeating textures, but it will result in very big download. Aim for less than 25000 to get under 10Meg final size.
^compiler has been sitting here for ages
Dunno, it hasn't started creating features there, so it not won't be a black and white metal map...
Only other tip would be start small, making 127x127 heightmaps and 1024x1024 textures is much faster for experiments.
1. How long does compiling take - the map is 20x20 so the texture file is about 300mb.
2. How does this tile thing work? using a 10240* texture is slowing down my PC to a halt.
3. How high is the water? (what colour on the greyscale)
Question 1 = The compiling time depends on CPU and memory.
I have a AMD64 3500+ with 2GB DDR 400 in my
system. On small maps on a few minutes. If I do
do 16 x 16 or 20 x 20, its 14 or16 minutes to
compile.
Question 2 = On the tiling issue, that depends on your texture
map. I've been using PS Pro for a few weeks now
so I can get my texture maps from 300 or 400 MB
files to something around 40 or 80 MBs. Basically
the more you do it the better you get at it.
Question 3 = When determining the water, it starts out white is
the highest and black is the lowest. So you might
have something like this:
EXAMPLE:
mapconv.exe -i -l -x 199 -n -52
-x 199 is your high point of the map.
-n -52 is your low point of your map. This is
where you water is going to be.
I hope this helps you out.
I have a question for y'all...
if I have a -x 255 -n 0 my highest point A (full wite) is in theory 255 arbitrary height units (AHU) higher then my lowest point B (full black)...
if I want A and B to be 255 AHU apart and for the shorelin/water height to be halfway between A and B (128 AHU) would I set:
-x 255 -n -127
or
-x 128 -n -127
if I have a -x 255 -n 0 my highest point A (full wite) is in theory 255 arbitrary height units (AHU) higher then my lowest point B (full black)...
if I want A and B to be 255 AHU apart and for the shorelin/water height to be halfway between A and B (128 AHU) would I set:
-x 255 -n -127
or
-x 128 -n -127
-
TARevenger
- Posts: 111
- Joined: 23 Jan 2005, 00:09
For those either without sharpmap, or to stuborn to download it, I made a stand alnoe program that you can choose height values in. Nothing special, but it works.
http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=1726
Enjoy
http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=1726
Enjoy
SinbadEV wrote:I have a question for y'all...
if I have a -x 255 -n 0 my highest point A (full wite) is in theory 255 arbitrary height units (AHU) higher then my lowest point B (full black)...
if I want A and B to be 255 AHU apart and for the shorelin/water height to be halfway between A and B (128 AHU) would I set:
-x 255 -n -127
or
-x 128 -n -127
You want -x 128 -n -127 to retain the desired 255 total height for that map.
If you had,, say a map with high mountains and you want to flood all but the very tops you would have something like -x 20 -n -235 so of the total 255 height units for this particular map its flooded to a depth of 235 leaving the balance of 20 points above water.