My Huge, beautiful creation

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 11 Dec 2005, 23:16

noize, yes it does use tiles..

tiles that are 512 x 512 to be specific.

Weaver · Post by **Weaver** » 12 Dec 2005, 00:02

Forboding Angel wrote:noize, yes it does use tiles..

tiles that are 512 x 512 to be specific.

Yes, but for many terrain types it will mix 2 tiles, one at high res and one at low res. You can change this in the climate file to make new ones.

e.g.

#TypeID: 11
#TypeName: "rock slope"
#TexName: "rock\rock1b.jpg"
#HiTexName: "rock\rock2b.jpg" <-- comment out this line
#HiTexBlend: 0.3
#ColourRGB: 120, 120, 120
#BaseProb: 0.55
#GradCoeff: 0.75

Removing either one of the textures used will help the map compression so you will be able to get the file size down to something people will be happy with. To get a new climate to work in L3DT options>climates>register new climate , then after each edit reload climates.

mufdvr222 · Post by **mufdvr222** » 12 Dec 2005, 00:05

I for one think L3dt is a wonderfull tool for those of us who don`t have the skills with photoshop, Those who have used L3DT know it takes a lot of time patience and fucking around to get a decent result ZWZSG I don`t want to get into a pissing match with you or anyone for that matter we need all the mapping tools we can get our hands on and for the last time IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO HAVE L3DT SPIT OUT A MAP WITHOUT ANY THOUGHT OUT IMPUT FROM A HUMAN BEING, L3DT is not a random map gererator it is a rendering program with a walk through kind of wizard interface, or can be done manually from start to finish. Everyone stop the pissing contest about what methods make the best maps, and finally there do exist some complex map textures that CANNOT BE TILED you cannot reproduce some RANDOM textures with a repeating tile it just cannot be done without ruining the feel and look of some maps and we should make the allowance for that on occasion, thats not to say tiling is useless it is essential for most maps but we should make room in our minds for the occasional hi res beughtifull map thats a large download,, whats the point in Spring`s wonderfull render engine if we say that ALL MAPS should be a quick download first but looking great Must take a back seat.

Nobody has put a gun to anyone`s head and said you MUST download this large map, if its too big then leave it well alone,,, simple, for fucks sake your all happy to download large game downloads and whatever else is on the net I swear in my fourty years I have never encountered a bigger bunch of pussies.

Perhaps its time to get a separate map server up for large maps, hmm we shall see.

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 12 Dec 2005, 01:19

Mufdvr, and weaver, thank you so much for your comments!

I'm not sure about the rest of you, but a lot of times what I will do is have l3dt render a heightmap for me (usually quite a few times before I start to get an idea for a map), then I export it and photoshop it for somewhere areound 5 or 6 hours till I'm happy with the finished render, then I spend 3 hours rendering a high res texture. After that is all done I do some editing to the texture and the heightmap.

Usually it takes me somwhere around 40 some odd hours to make a good map.

I prolly spent somewhere around 100 on foothills. I had to redraw the heightmap by hand and every feature on there is EXACTLY like it was in OTA (except the pathways, his pathways didn't make any sense) -I redrew every fucking one of them- , and BTW, the paths on foothills are the texture that was in ota for the paths.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 12 Dec 2005, 01:21

Forboding Angel wrote:noize, yes it does use tiles..

tiles that are 512 x 512 to be specific.

See, 512x512 is 16 map tiles the compiler is creating. You can cut alot of size off by making 5 or so different 32x32 tiles and tiling them randomly. Doing that makes it look like you haven't tiled at all, but at the same time you get 1/3rd the ammout of tiles that you used.

mufdvr: yes it can. It's not even that hard to take an original image and make it a perfect tile in photoshop or gimp. At the same time however It would be alot easier to just be able to go "hey I think a grass texture would be nice here" then download 5-6 premade and perfectly tiling grass tiles to apply to your field.

mufdvr222 · Post by **mufdvr222** » 12 Dec 2005, 01:40

I use tiling a lot but it cannot always solve a maps size problems,, thats all, but people cannot seem to just let a person make a map and accept it and download it or reject it and DON`T DOWNLOAD IT like someone else said if you didn`t make it and its for free and someone spent days weeks or even months making it and you think its ugly or the file size is too big, then shut up piss off and make your own map or version of the map or find a different game or go kick your Cat,, whatever floats ya boat but hands off those people who are spending their own VALUABLE time creating maps, that comment from ZWZSG is appalling who gives a fuck if he hates the map who appointed him and the few others who are obsessed with map file sizes judge and jury,, pull ya heads in and shut the fuck up. ZWZSG most of your maps depict aftificially made structures which are a piece of piss to tile,, Tell ya what I am going to make the terain texture for my latest map available for download and lets see how well you tile it.

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 12 Dec 2005, 09:07

I would love to see someone tile one of my heightmaps. COnsidering that I render them at 4096x4096 then resize. THey tend to be very detailed, which is why the texture looks so good.

BTW I am keeping the file at 29 megs because larger compression ruins the detail. After talking to mother and many other people about it I am reaffirmed in my decision.

Plus, the people that had the 29 meg version refused to play the smaller file size version cause it did not look near as good.

SO, I'm saying it now:

If you have 56k and are upset about my map file sizes, PISS off and fuck yourself. No one asked you to download my map. I make them for my own enjoyment. Not yours. For that matter, all of you should be happy that us mappers release our maps for you to play on. We are the ones that spent 40+ hours on them, so if you don't like it, Fuck off!

Whew, god that felt good.

Also, you can blame verizon for not letting everyone have free broadband internet via WiMax. Considering they are suing cities left and right that want to put free internet in their town and rural areas.

The havn't sued google yet because they are afraid to. Google, in case you don't know, is putting up free WiMax in san francisco. THe funny thing is that no one is contesting them because google has grown into a small giant lately.

GOOGLE FTW!!!!

mufdvr222 · Post by **mufdvr222** » 12 Dec 2005, 10:10

Thought I might post a few spiffy screens with all the bells and whistles.

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 12 Dec 2005, 10:29

oh wow

I had no idea it looksed THAT good.

Fuck me twice, that looks good!

Liam · Post by **Liam** » 12 Dec 2005, 10:36

http://www.answers.com/modesty

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 12 Dec 2005, 11:55

Tiled maps can hav just the same quality as a non-tiled map. But probaly you don't got the time to learn how to tile correctly.

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 12 Dec 2005, 12:38

It does look very good. But it would be VERY possible to tile that. By looking at the very first screenshot, there appears to be a very large, flat grassy area. The texture here could be tiled very easily. Even if you use like 10 256x256 tiles and fill the area with them, you would sigificantly reduce the file size, and basically no one would noticed the difference. It would then keep everyone happy. It would look good, and be atleast slightly smaller. Cause 30 meg is a little excessive when we have such a good way of compressing things. And no, im not a whining 56k'er. I have a 1.5mb connection.

Underwater grass doesnt really do it for me personally, and neither does visible contures. Having different texture for hillsides is fine, and definatley a good thing. Butlook at the second screenshot. The rings around the bottom of the hills near the cursor just do not look good. You dont need to see a hill there. You know it will be on a slope, cause its on a hill.

Other than that, it does look to be a good map.

mufdvr222 · Post by **mufdvr222** » 12 Dec 2005, 13:30

Its interesting, those "contour lines" are actually represented in the heightmap, in fact they are small terraces not contour lines, they do however look like contour lines, it depends weather your looking at it from a cartographic point of view or a terrain feature point of view, those terraces are terrain features not just an artifact in the texture image and do occur naturally let alone on a fictitional alien world

Dragon45 · Post by **Dragon45** » 12 Dec 2005, 16:04

I like those lines, they're not heightmap lines, they're natural controu lines; look at pictures of something like the Grand Canyon to see how they can happen in real life.

I love how the map looks, but it just needs features to really add more environment and realism

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 13 Dec 2005, 23:37

hehehe
A Comm stature on the top of all the hills?

(for all those who take me too literally and seriously... That was a joke)

Dragon45 · Post by **Dragon45** » 14 Dec 2005, 00:57

Maybe mossy rocks on the plains, and boulders at the base of the mountain? :)

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 14 Dec 2005, 01:33

oooooo I like it!!

Me wishes some modeler that is really kind is listening :D

Buggi · Post by **Buggi** » 14 Dec 2005, 18:38

My goal is to have the new Sharp Map done within the next two weeks. Sort of a Christmas present for everyone. :D

Then you have literally no limit on map size.

-Buggi

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 14 Dec 2005, 21:51

You're my new hero :D

Hey I had an idea that I don't know if it's possible or not... But would it be possible to create a program that generated heightmaps from texture images?

zwzsg · Post by **zwzsg** » 14 Dec 2005, 23:03

Buggi wrote:My goal is to have the new Sharp Map done within the next two weeks. Sort of a Christmas present for everyone.

Just make sure to base it on mother's mapconv which allow complete control over tree, grass, and 4th party features. And the non-optimised one please!

Spring RTS Engine

My Huge, beautiful creation