Spring RTS Engine

Hey, I'm pretty new to the Spring, the forums, and especially mapping. I wanted to tell you mappers about the program I am making to convert OTA maps into Spring maps and to ask how you feel about this and to get help if I need it.

Its far from done right now, here are some screenshots.

Viewing an OTA map: http://www.geocities.com/breathfire2001 ... ushya2.png

Greyscale Heightmap: http://www.geocities.com/breathfire2001 ... ghtmap.png

From what I have gathered, I need to be able to generate 24-bit BMPs of the textures, heights, and metal patches. Unfortunately, for now, I have been unable to extract map features/metal locations from the OTA maps. If someone knew the format for those that would help a lot.

So far I am working on saving the BMPs via binary stream.

Viewing an OTA map: http://www.geocities.com/breathfire2001 ... ushya2.png

Greyscale Heightmap: http://www.geocities.com/breathfire2001 ... ghtmap.png

Perhaps instead of implementing a convertor, direct OTA map support in spring would be better? It would be far better support for OTA maps than a converter would ever be.

Take a look at the TA3D project, they have OTA map support in their engine

Map features, metal patches, geovents, starting locations and preplaced units of OTA maps are stored in a text file inside the map archive (I forgot which file it is, haven't touched OTA for too long). Once you find them, the format is quite clear (as usual, a tdf file).

I know the file you are talking about.. It usually has the map name and ends in the extension .ota.. It contains metal features, start locations, map schemas, but it doesn't seem to contain geovent or metal patch locations. I heard those were stored in the terrain data file (.tnt) somehow but I have yet to debunk the format. If I do debunk it, I could have the program generate a basic feature map with some stuff on it.

As of right now, I (finally) got a working BMP saving algorithm, but it takes a while . I was thinking of incorporating a metal map and feature map editor into the program but I'm not sure about that one.

Also for OTA maps what are good values (metal and nonmetal maps) for MaxMetal and ExtractorRadius?

Direct ports of OTA maps look like arse. They just weren't made for it; from top down view they were fine, but they were simply rendered for a certain perspective, and not intended to be distorted over a heightmap.

You'd be much better off working with Sm3 stuff. Seriously.

Warlord Zsinj wrote:You'd be much better off working with Sm3 stuff. Seriously.

Didn't you get the memo?
sm3 is broken in various places, including a terrible crashbug on gf8's.

here let me get you a copy of the memo..

Alright, the program is ready for Alpha testing and it needs a place for me to upload it. I also need someone to run the BMPs through MapConv and give me screenshots or something.. The heighmap may be offcenter a bit >_>.

EDIT: I uploaded it on my friend's geocities because I am too lazy to put it on Unknown-Files. I guess someone else can do that? I hope this works, not tested on a PC as of yet.

EDIT EDIT: Oops I forgot to give the link <_< http://www.geocities.com/breathfire2001 ... amcv06.zip . Also, I just fixed some graphical glitches that were happening on the PC side. I heard it doesn't work well in Vista..

I added another link where I uploaded it on Rapidshare. It seems if the geocities low bandwidth is exceded it says the file doesn't exist.
http://rapidshare.com/files/46807027/tamcv06.zip.html

Moop wrote:Alright, the program is ready for Alpha testing and it needs a place for me to upload it. I also need someone to run the BMPs through MapConv and give me screenshots or something.. The heighmap may be offcenter a bit >_>. Anyway, PM me and I can directly send it to you and when I get a place to upload it I will post the link

use Unknown-Files

Hi!
The program have a timer for 5 min (thats really about 3 min.) and close before finished the operation
VonGratz

Oops. I guess thats what I get for not buying the full version of the compiler; should be fixed now though.

Moop wrote:Oops. I guess thats what I get for not buying the full version of the compiler; should be fixed now though.

what did you write it in?

Regrettably in REALBasic. I am most comfortable in Basic and Java, as for C++... eek. I'm still trying to get a handle on it. Anyway, is it working >_>? I think I hammered out most of the graphical glitched my friends found.. I really want to see how certain OTA maps look under Spring

Moop wrote:Regrettably in REALBasic. I am most comfortable in Basic and Java, as for C++... eek. I'm still trying to get a handle on it. Anyway, is it working >_>? I think I hammered out most of the graphical glitched my friends found.. I really want to see how certain OTA maps look under Spring

i pulled teh bmp for Steel Jungle out of OTA, but i cant open it because apparantly 1GB of ram isnt enough >_< (the texture it generated was HUGE like 10000x5000, is there a way to reduce it?)

Depends. I haven't tried pulling the Terrain textures from any epic class maps yet. I'll have to work on further optimizing my BMP saving code. I am sure if you tried to grab the terrain for someting like Emperor Dracula's Real Earth you would need a ton of ram...2xPixel Width*Pixel height*3 bytes I think to be exact.

Also the textures it generates are real-size. I thought MapConv needed realsized textures.. doesn't it? >_>

Moop wrote:Depends. I haven't tried pulling the Terrain textures from any epic class maps yet. I'll have to work on further optimizing my BMP saving code. I am sure if you tried to grab the terrain for someting like Emperor Dracula's Real Earth you would need a ton of ram...2xPixel Width*Pixel height*3 bytes I think to be exact.

Also the textures it generates are real-size. I thought MapConv needed realsized textures.. doesn't it? >_>

steel jungle is big, but not that big. i was just playing around, might pass this onto my girlfriend, since she is interested in mapping

I was wondering if someone could convert this map (http://www.planetannihilation.com/tamec ... NEW&id=245 , linked off of TAMEC) into Spring format and post some pictures here.

Pressure Line wrote: steel jungle is big, but not that big. i was just playing around, might pass this onto my girlfriend, since she is interested in mapping

What sort of twisted world is it were someone has a girlfriend intrested in mapping...

aGorm

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