Spring RTS Engine

G'day all,

I'm sorta new to the whole map making experience and have ventured forth into making my first map. everything seems okay but for some reason the hight map is ignored. Is this something to do with the min and max height?

Is there an example map with all the source and a script to execute the compile command so I can have a gander at a real example? The biggest battle I'm having is that there are so many tutorials and they all say slightly different things using different tools and a lot of them are very old (and possibly out of date). So i thought an example map with all the source and the params for the compiler would be the most beneficial.

/MetalSkin

MetalSkin wrote:G'day all,

I'm sorta new to the whole map making experience and have ventured forth into making my first map. everything seems okay but for some reason the hight map is ignored. Is this something to do with the min and max height?

Is there an example map with all the source and a script to execute the compile command so I can have a gander at a real example? The biggest battle I'm having is that there are so many tutorials and they all say slightly different things using different tools and a lot of them are very old (and possibly out of date). So i thought an example map with all the source and the params for the compiler would be the most beneficial.

/MetalSkin

Ignore others...

http://spring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=3941

Thanks FA for the link, though I had previously found that page.

The problem I have is that I can compile the map but when i run it's as though the hight map hasn't worked. I presume it's a setting with the compiler.

That's why I wondered if someone has ever posted a map in all it's individual components and instructions on how exactly to compile. That link doesn't quite go that far. Also with the addition of environment, features and use of L3DT it makes it a lot more complex and harder to compare.

If I had a simple example that is known to work then I could do it locally and compare to my custom first one and see where I have gone wrong.

Appreciate the help though FA, thanks for the response.

As linked in that tutorial....

http://spring.unknown-files.net/file/17 ... _Tools_V3/

Which has a sample batch file for mapconv.

I would imagine if it's ignoring your height fields you aren't telling it the max/min values, ie

mapconv.exe -i -l -x 440 -n -60 -m metal.bmp -a height.bmp -t map.bmp -f feature.bmp -o "some map.smf"

I've been using TASMapMaker, as linked to from the wiki...

Hmm it sets the default map min height to 100 and max height to 101, that i presume is my problem.

I take it -x and -n are the min/max height options... yeah I looked at the batch file from All Mapping Tools V3, and looked at the batch file. Looked at the help and it seemed to generate the map okay (left the options pretty much as was in the batch file) but I'll play with em.

I'll try doing it manually and see what happens...

ahh it was the problem.. the min and max height resulted in it being flat! go figure!

Well the map works, interesting, some minor problems, need to make the map bigger, which the tool i used to make the height map will cause me some grief, but i can play with it.

Thanks for the help guys.

The same thing happend to me when I was a mapping n00b.
We need a better tutorial...

I have to admit that 100 and 101 are very poor default values for the heights which I got from some mapconv-examples. I promise to change these values to proper ones in a future release.

Yeah the defaults could be better, the biggest problem i believe is that there is no doco that explains the implications of the settings. Though you could argue that a setting of 100 and 101 would be kinda obvious and i was being really noobish by not thinking of it.

However I love the tool, so much easier to work with than the command line.

The only prob i have now is that when i am trying a larger map that i get an error when it tries to load the texture, suspect its because the texture is too large. is there a max size? Mine is currently 786Meg. I've noticed that it displays in the tool when i first load it, but if i then view another of the maps (eg metal) and then try and press view back on the texture, it doesn't work.

:edit:

my size calculations are:

Height map is 128 per square + 1.

Thus a map of 16 x 16 will have:

* height map 2049 x 2049 24 bit
* texture map 16384 x 16384 24 bit

the other ones are based of the height map size (metal and feature map).

Are they correct?

no thats wrong

a 16 x 16 map has a heightfield of 1025 x 1025, metal 1025 x 1025, features 1024 x 1024, and texturemap of 8192 x 8192

No. Each map "square" is 512, so a 16x16 map has a height map of 1025 (16x512+1) and the texture map is 8192 (heightmap x8).

I have no idea in regards to the "too large" problem as I never make maps that big... maybe you won't need such a large file once your dimensions are right :p

edit: too slow!

The texture can only be a maximum of ~600mb. Fortunately, mapconv also reads .jpgs, so save your image as a .jpg with low compression when compiling large maps.

Thanks guys, the max size explains the error i got, but also thanks for the pickup on the wrong resolutions that i was using. All sorted now, just trying to get the height map to look half decent, not sure right now if its the min max options or the way i have created the height map. well its getting late now so hopefully will play with it tomorrow.

again, thanks for the help.