New Map: The Hunters (version 2b)

AlexMax · Post by **AlexMax** » 30 Dec 2005, 02:06

Currently, I have been considering creating a map. I've read the documentation, have a layout thought out in my head, and I think I want to go ahead and start to try and create it.

However, I'm running into a brick wall when it comes to the texture map. I want to make a medium sized map, 16x16 to start out. Now, I have what I would consider a fairly powerful computer, an Athlon 64 3000+ with a gig of RAM, but when I try and make an 8192x8192 texture map in GIMP it chokes under all the weight, takes forever to navigate, etc. Heck it takes a minute or two to fill it up with a 32x32 checkerboard pattern just so I can take a look at the heightmap without bothering with a texture.

So, I'm curious. How do YOU deal with your large texturemap?

Weaver · Post by **Weaver** » 30 Dec 2005, 02:40

A good CPU helps but RAM, swapfile the programs cache are more important. I have used PSP 9 and X to make a 24x28 map. When dealing with pictures that big you will probably have to be brave and turn off undo to save time and memory, also more than one layer is unmanageable.

I wrote a program called grout to put the BMP tiles output by L3DT back together, but it could be used with any square 24bit bmps. A couple of people have used it and I have a new version brewing. It will include support for many more tiles, the current versions falls over above 400 but the new will do more than 4000. If enough people want it I will remove the dependance on the MMF to make it useful for those not using L3DT.

Das Bruce · Post by **Das Bruce** » 30 Dec 2005, 04:03

Don't use gimp for an image that large for one thing. Personally I just try to get it perfect in terragen.

FizWizz · Post by **FizWizz** » 30 Dec 2005, 04:11

Das Bruce wrote:Don't use gimp for an image that large for one thing. Personally I just try to get it perfect in terragen.

Same. Actually what I have done in the past is render it at half resolution because I have the memory to do so, but it's less CPU intensive to blow-up a half-size image to full size than to render a full-size image. That might not work for everyone though, my advice is to find out what works for you and just go for it.

AlexMax · Post by **AlexMax** » 30 Dec 2005, 05:23

Weaver wrote:A good CPU helps but RAM, swapfile the programs cache are more important. I have used PSP 9 and X to make a 24x28 map. When dealing with pictures that big you will probably have to be brave and turn off undo to save time and memory, also more than one layer is unmanageable.

Wow, I changed the number of minimum undos to zero and my performance improved drasticly. I guess from here, I can use tiles as brushes and use a grid so the brushes snap to the grid.

EDIT: Unfortuniatly, doing things like flood fill still take forever....hrm....

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 30 Dec 2005, 05:34

I can render a 28x28 texture in l3dt in about 15 minutes...

athlon xp 2.2ghz
1.5 g or ram
8 gigs total swap space (2 hard drives)

plus believe it or not, your hard drive makes a difference.

both of mine are 7200 rpm and 8 mg cache. 1 is 80 gb space the other is 320gb

AlexMax · Post by **AlexMax** » 30 Dec 2005, 17:22

Forboding Angel wrote:I can render a 28x28 texture in l3dt in about 15 minutes...

athlon xp 2.2ghz
1.5 g or ram
8 gigs total swap space (2 hard drives)

plus believe it or not, your hard drive makes a difference.

both of mine are 7200 rpm and 8 mg cache. 1 is 80 gb space the other is 320gb

Wow, thanks for telling me about L3DT...adding it to the wiki

AlexMax · Post by **AlexMax** » 30 Dec 2005, 21:06

Well, a few hours later, and here is what I have to show for it

http://s60.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2GN0 ... CMNTY35RGQ

THe metal map didn't work for some reason, and it's awfully bland looking, and there's no water either, but at least I have something. Thanks for your help guys. :)

EDIT: Just to clarify, you might want to delete this map after you look at it because its not playable at the moment. :)

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 31 Dec 2005, 10:46

get us some screenshots..

AlexMax · Post by **AlexMax** » 31 Dec 2005, 20:26

NOiZE wrote:get us some screenshots..

Click for big

Here's one from a WIP version of the map. F_A was gracious enough to render the texturemap for me while I'm waiting on my registered copy of L3DT. The only potential problem I see with it is that the area you start in (behind each one of those big cylinder thingies), is much more cramped in the top than the bottom, but F_A gave the top a playtest and didn't see anything wrong with it.

Right now, my main conern is metal and feature placement. I might have a playable version in the next day or two.

EDIT: Man, why does this have the edit bug where I can't edit my post so soon after I post it?

mystiq · Post by **mystiq** » 01 Jan 2006, 20:08

@Weaver

I could use the functionality for "non-l3dt". Actually, id like some command line option too, sinve ive got everything else done "half-automatically" via batch files already.

I did find something similar but its some Java thing. Thought, doesnt work with bmp.
http://www.cs.uta.fi/~vt72556/software/largemontage/

AlexMax · Post by **AlexMax** » 01 Jan 2006, 20:56

As an exercize with working with heightmaps made with photoshop, I'm now seeing if I can convert The Hunters from Starcraft to Spring. Through some trickery, I've managed to do it in a basic way. Also, I have been fiddling around with the fog and cloud and sun settings with some success. However, my texturemap looks like ass, and I need some variation in the terrain, enough to have it not be boring when looking at it, but not so much that you can't build on parts.

Also, I've gotten grass in the featuremap, but attempting to put any green 200-215 (trees) in the featuremap makes mapconv crash. Any idea why this might be happening?

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 01 Jan 2006, 22:55

you can't have trees at the very edge of the feature map. This will map mapconv crash

AlexMax · Post by **AlexMax** » 02 Jan 2006, 00:59

Forboding Angel wrote:you can't have trees at the very edge of the feature map. This will map mapconv crash

I removed everything from the edges of the map, and mapconv still crashed.

It also doesnt compile if I put grass (blue) and trees (200-215 green) together, like one pixel that's 210 green and 128 blue. It also doesnt compile if I seporate grass from trees (no blue where there is green, and vice versa)

It compiles just fine with grass only.

This is a copy of my feature map. Have a looksee at it and tell me if I screwed anything up.

http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0ARJ ... JZ99P77N8J

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 02 Jan 2006, 02:20

That feature map still ha trees on the edge. Try leaving a gap of about 10 pixels between the edge of the map and the trees. Might help.

Also, having trees that close together isnt good. It shouldnt make map conv crash, but it will probably make spring crash. Try having atleast 5-10 pixels between trees to get a dense forest, 10-20 for a normal forest, and 20+ for a really spacious forerst.

To make the terrain look better, try applying a Noise filter on the height, then blurring the hell out of it. You could also try geting a very transperant brush and painting some small hills on it.

FizWizz · Post by **FizWizz** » 02 Jan 2006, 04:50

mapconv crashes for me if I have 2 pixels between my trees and my edge. Try 5 to be safe, or if trees that close are not really necessary, do 10 pixels to be sure.

AlexMax · Post by **AlexMax** » 02 Jan 2006, 04:53

Thanks for that advice. I finally got a playable version done...

Download links. I know the texture map looks low-res, but I didn't even notice it, to be honest, and i think it kinda fits

http://rapidshare.de/files/10234264/TheHunters.sd7.html
http://s61.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2OX8 ... HG06TECSOR

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 02 Jan 2006, 07:36

Now do lost temple :D

AlexMax · Post by **AlexMax** » 02 Jan 2006, 07:52

Augh, now i made a few modifications to the heightmap and now my texturemap doesnt show up ingame....blah....

EDIT: Apprently, it's beacuse of my features map somehow...replacing it with a blank one fixed it...

mystiq · Post by **mystiq** » 02 Jan 2006, 13:54

Found something that might have some interest to someone. :)

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/comma ... -tools.php
actual download:
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/binary-releases.php

Its free, open source under GPL.

Tested with the simple method of using fixed tile size (1024x1024) when "montaging", which worked nicely. As far as i can tell, you can do as big "montages" with it as you want. Biggest i tested was 16384x16384, which was done from 16x16 tiles of 1024x1024 bmp images. Thought, it did eat all my memory (1gb) and did hd swapping which took about 2 mins, resulting in ~750mb bmp. Note that i used the "Q16" version, which is slower than the "Q8" one... at least thats what the page was suggesting. :)

batch (.bat) file i used...

Code: Select all

set width=1024
set height=1024
set tilerows=4
set tilecols=4
montage +frame +shadow +label -tile %tilecols%x%tilerows% -geometry %width%x%height%+0+0 -borderwidth 0x0 texture*.bmp joined.bmp
pause

Note that theres the "conjure" option which is actually scripting based on xml.

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/conjure.php

Also the mosaic command line option looks interesting, since you can "locate" images within a mosaic. Havent really tested it yet though...

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/comma ... php#mosaic

Spring RTS Engine

New Map: The Hunters (version 2b)

New Map: The Hunters (version 2b)