Any interest in a RMG?
 

So I went and programmed a basic RMG for Dom3 (you can see I posted about it in Map Editing Question), and now I have to make a choice:
1) Improve it so that it will be usable (right now it only makes an ugly image, but with some work it would be able to make provinces, draw borders and output a .map file)
2) Abandon it. It was fun programming what I already did, but now it's time to entertain myself with other stuff (like playing dom3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif). I might pick it up again in the future for some more fun, but that's unlikely and in the distant future.

So to make my decision, I'm asking you guys what to do.
Here's what I'll have if I finish it:
* You can control the frequency of different terrain features.
* You can export maps to it's own map format. (Which is basically a gigantic table that lists the terrain flags for each pixel)
* You can define colors for each terrain type.
* You can define textures for each terrain type.
* You can define images for each terrain type, and their frequency/density. (For example, have 5 different images for trees and have the program throw them around in forests at different frequencies.)
* You can allow it to place random provinces on the map (though they'll probably be somewhat gridlike)
* You can place your own provinces and let it draw the borders and connect the provinces (or let it randomize and then connect 'em). Though I'm not good enough to make it guess connections based on drawn borders, so you'd have to make do with it making it's own borders.
* You can ask me to add features http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
It will probably be segmented into different programs, so it will be easy to only use certain features.
1) Generator - which will generate a terrain map and show you what it basically looks like (and will be able to export an image), this will probably be a pretty fast (though not amazingly fast) program, so you could regenerate the map several times until you find a shape you like.
2) Imager - which will turn that map into a more interesting map (add tree and mountain images, etc.)
I don't really plan on adding all sorts of filters to it (like anti aliasing or blurring to make it look better and less pixelated) as those could much more easily be applied with Photoshop/GIMP. Unless people really want them.
3) Random Province Placer - which will be a supremely basic program that places provinces in a somewhat gridlike fashion.
4) Border Drawer and .map maker - which will take the map from the generator, the image from imager (after having provinces added to it via the random province placer or by hand), and will draw borders and make a .map file. (or optionally, not do one of the two.)

So would you be interested in such a thing? Would you really use it?
I'm looking for honest answers, so "nah, the built-in RMG is good enough for me" is just fine, "I will use it if you add feature X" is good too. And don't be shy in posting negative answers, I won't mind, it would just save me some effort http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

(Thanks for any answers, and sorry for that long and somewhat presumptuous wall of text)

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Nah. I prefer hand-drawn maps when I can get them (RMGs tend to produce somewhat ugly and homogeneous maps in my opinion) but the built-in RMG does pretty okay when I want a fresh map.

-Max

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

I think there is already a RMG out.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

There are a few out already.

But one thing that would make ANY map generator worth looking at is if it can create wrappable maps. If you could work in a tiling routine to match the edges then everything else would just be gravy.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Creating wrappable maps would definitely be a plus, but first and foremost, only continue to work on it as long as it is enjoyable. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

It would actually be quite simple to make wrappable maps, since the algorithm in use lends itself well to that. It would take a bit of thought since I made some mistakes last time I tried it, but not much work.

I'm sure most programmers will agree that a lot of things are enjoyable to program, and yet have a lot of parts that aren't enjoyable. One commonly cited example is GUI work, which isn't a lot of fun, but is important if you want people to use what you made.
And of course, working with the "as long as it is enjoyable" system would mean the whole thing takes >x10 more time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif (if at all completed)

EDIT: thanks for the replies btw.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

If you can do wrappable maps I think it would be very useful.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Wrappable maps are in.
Since this was a longstanding bug with my code, I wanted to fix it regardless of whether it was going to be used for a RMG. (which turned out to be the result of a value being 1 more than it should have been http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif )
Attached is an example of a wrapping map. (I tiled it so it would be obvious that it does indeed wrap properly)

So how does this change things for people?
(Note, the algorithm can only generate square maps. This is not a problem if you want a none-wrappable map, since you can just cut out some of the square and you get a rectangle. But for wrappable maps, you will lose wrapping in one direction or another [or both, if you want to]
So basically, that means that the restriction is:
1) If want a map that wraps around both edges, it has to be square.
2) If want a map that wraps around one edge, it can be a rectangle, but will only wrap around the rectangle's shorter side)

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Interesting. The fact that a rectangle will only wrap one way is actually a plus. In some of the serious map conversations it was brought up that the wrapping isnt realistic to a globe. The most realistic "wrap" would be that west-west wrapped, all of the northern would connect to each other (polar) and all ofthe southern connect to each other. Your rectangle arrangement makes that really easy.

It also reminds me that I found a really cool utility that would make a spinning globe GIF out of a map. I was going to use it on the leading webpage for the next monstrous Dom3 game I setup.

Something else that comes up...
I take it that you plan the same limits? 1500 provinces? Smaller maps people can provide to the community but the really monstrous ones are usually generated. One thing that can be a problem is the "grouping" of terrains. People tend to want grouping to be water vs land (large continents and large bodies of water) but small grouping of all other terrains. In other words they want each nation to to have easy access to each of those terrains. Small chance of landing in mountains surrounded by mountains, or landing in waste surrounded by waste, etc. Is there a controllable variable for the "shotgun" effect of each terrain seperately?

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

I just noticed something in rereading your initial post. Keeping the segments of the program separate. Thats wonderful! Does this mean that it can be used to try to make logical provinces on a found image? Thats going to allow for some very interesting maps from people as lazy as I am. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Re: Limits.
The only limit is your patience in waiting for the thing to churn out such a gigantic image (Unless you want something like 512x512 for 1500 provinces, which doesn't sound brilliant to me).
You might also run out of RAM if you try and generate something like a 32768x32768 map http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif (Though that won't really stop you, unless you also run out of swap space http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif)
Summary: Limited only by processing power.

Re: Shotgunning.
Well, currently the program generates two "maps", one is for altitude, and one is for precipitation. The altitude map determines whether a pixel is deep ocean, ocean, land or mountain, and the precipitation map determines whether a pixel is waste,plains,farmlands,forest or swamp.
This means that you can control each set of data separately. If there was demand, it would be trivial to even make a single "map" for each terrain type, though I think that might end up looking terrible. (And imagine the possible outcomes, a mountain/forest/waste/swamp/farm province :S)
I suppose it might make sense to decouple mountains from altitude and make a "cragginess" map.
As for the shotgun effect, you can control how rough each map will be, and you can control what boundaries of precipitation (for example) will create each terrain type, but you will most likely end up with one terrain type surrounded by the other (wastes will always be surrounded by normal provinces [as in, not forest/farm/swamp], because to get from the precipitation required for a waste to that of a forest it must pass through "normal" first).
So in summation, yes you can create a shotgun effect, to certain limits, which can be changed by popular demand.

Re: Logical provinces on a found image.
Unless you generate the map with the generator, it won't be able to determine the terrain type of each pixel, so it won't be able to draw borders based on logical boundaries (such as the edges of mountains), but it will be able to draw borders between provinces based on distance (it might look something like this), and it also won't be able to write down province type to a .map file (though will be able to write down neighbours).
However, if when you made your map you started with a layer that describes the type of each pixel using one color (for example, if you started with something that looks like what my program outputs right now, but painted over it with effects/sprites/fluff/etc.), then it would be trivial for me to write a program that would take that base image and convert it into my own format, which would then enable you to pipe that into the province placer along with your finished image, and it will be able to work its magic.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

I'm all for more random maps, especially if you can generate really big (1200-1500 province) maps in which the oceans/waters always connect to each other, and that include good cave systems and chokepoints-also random maps that automatically added in better provinces (better independents, meaningful names, anything to make them more special) and stronger independent nations, if that's possible. I'm all for more images too, especially if they have in-game meaning.

Can you do semi-randoms? I wouldn't mind a feature that allowed me to take-for example-the maps that come with the game and add X amount of randomly generated cave provinces that link Province A to Province B.

Or maybe something that generated little tiny random maps?-say 1-16 province things-and then allowed me to jigsaw them all together, or just attach them to larger maps. I'm thinking caves, deep ocean, extra-dimensional spaces, etc. but I'm sure there are lots of uses for this.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Just remembered something I have missed from the days of DomMap in Dom2. Can you save the initial random number and refeed it to the program with new parameters? Its not a big deal but at this stage of development if it can be worked in it would be nice.

One of the main uses would be to generate the same map with different colors. A winterized one, or a destroyed one for creating multimap scenarios. Or a blank one with just the continents, waters, borders, and no images in order to do a game progress map for online viewing coloring each province with the color of the player who controls it. Or one with much less detail to create a thumbnail or icon from. Like I said, not a big deal since those can all be done manually.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Re: HoneyBadger, probably "no" for all of what you said.
It is possible technically to make provinces have random properties (like different guards/populations), but it would be hard to do properly (unless you don't mind having a province guarded by 50 tartarians, another by 100 arch druids, another by 30 princes of death, and another by 10 militia), and so I would rather not do it at all. And besides, doesn't SemiRandom do that already?
As for adding icons and names that would signify something in the province, it is possible to decide randomly that some provinces will have any of the additional province flags (manysites,firesite,holysite etc.) and symbolize that with some icon, image or other visual change, but significant names would require me inventing significant names, and any creativity from me is not a good idea http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
I could make a program that scans a .map file and a .tga file and slaps a few icons on the map according to stuff that appears in the map file (so provinces with predetermined sites would have a certain icon for example), but that doesn't seem very useful or interesting to me.
It is possible to generate small maps, but they would still be rectangular, so if you wanted to create a random link between two provinces on an existing map, you would have to generate a small map, erase some province on the maps outer rim (so the square edges won't be visible), and then hand glue them in the existing map.

Re: Gandalf Parker
Yeah, definitely possible.
Though if you want to create several versions of an identical map, your best bet would be to generate one map with the generator, and then use that map several times in the imager, each time producing a different image for the exact same map.


So far there seems to be little interest, so I'll just work on it whenever the mood strikes. Which would probably mean it will never be completed, or at least take a whole lot of time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
Thanks for your comments everyone.

Oh, and there's no reason to close the thread or stop responding, I'd still love to hear more opinions and ideas, especially the kind that would suggest new ideas for features, like Gandalf that reminded me I needed to fix my wrapping.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Does your RMG work on a Macintosh?

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Using the present form when calling it a RMG is somewhat misleading, since so far it generates only an image http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

But as to your question, the code is cross-platform compatible, so it will work on a mac if someone will compile it on a mac. (And obviously, same for linux)

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Excellent. I find that RMGs tend to die. People dont want to bother to learn how to use them. What lives is a web-based shopping mall.
Middle of the night generation of many maps in many sizes, colorations, settings. Offer a webpage of thumbnails, clicking a thumbnail takes you to a larger view with a link to download the zip file of the map.

Something like this although my better examples were on the server which is down.
http://game.dom3minions.com/RandomMaps/mids/Mids.htm

What I wanted eventually was to have daily offers of Dominions 3 generated maps like those shown. And DomMap rmg versions, and Harbringers rmg. And versions of maps with Ballbarians randomizer, and Leifs randomizers, and of course my own randomizers. If it can run on linux without a gui, from text parameters in a file or on the command line, then it will fit in easily. I can already automate the nightly run, the thumbnails, the zipping, the web pages, etc.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Well whether or not most people learn how to use them, a few of us can make some really good maps using it and get them widely used. Wraparound maps in particular are in very short supply.

Actually I think I might be making a similar point to Gandalf. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Re: Gandalf Parker
That's a good idea, and it might be a motivating thought that even if no one downloads my potential RMG, people will still enjoy maps made by it.
And there's no reason why it couldn't work without a GUI. I'm tending towards a config file more than command line, because it is much easier to assume that the config file is correct http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif (and much easier to mess around with).
One thing I'm not sure about, though, is if it will be possible to generate many maps every midnight, because going through the entire process of making a fully playable map might take a lot of time. (Especially that part where borders are calculated and drawn, because the algorithm I have in mind might be quite slow [it would go through each pixel on the map at least 4 or 5 times])
I'm also not very familiar with threading, so no taking advantage of multiple cores http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
And of course, sadly, you can't automate anything yet seeing as how the server is dead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
Re: Llamabeast
Are you sure you are making a point? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
And do you really think you could transform a random map into a really good map? Would you even need all the stages involved? (Or would you only need a base image to prettify and work on)

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Servers are perfect for such things. Projects which can take a full day of computing would be fine. Im not tying up my desktop or slowing my usual activities by having it do some major project in the background all day. Ive often wished that more projects actually took that into account. Generators often give up excellent actions because it makes the generation time too long for anyone to put up with. PbEM style games (like Dominions) often cut out some options because the devs feel that most players would not put up with the time it takes (such as extensive AI thinking). I cant really argue their logic but often I wish it stayed in at least as an option. After all its not like the community here NEEDS 30 maps daily in each of tiny, small, medium, large, huge, mega sizes. Even if I only generated ONE map a day it would be a huge boost.

One example is that the DomMap generator was forever without a blur routine even though it made the maps much easier on the eyes. I wrote a script to take the generated maps, save the white pixels, blur the map, restore the white pixels, and resave. It was very time intensive but added a nice new optional group to the maps.

Oh and only one of my servers went down. The main one. The old one (which originally housed Dom2minions) is still up and still running games. I could shift everything to it but I dont expect the main server to be down that much longer.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

The RMG that went the furthest so far is the one from paradoxharbinger, who hasn't posted about it since a long time, half a year at least. So ongoing development is unclear.

Which is why I'm not really interested in anything where the source isn't being released. Projects die because people commit their time to other things, that's normal. But it would be good if somebody who wants to tackle the problem can have a look at how it was done before, even if just as a reference, instead of re-inventing the wheel yet again. This seems to happen rather often with things here, though.

What I'm putting my money on right now is the announced map generator from Snoddasmannen. As I wrote before, I have some code bits and pieces myself, but I lack the time and commitment to come up with a finished end product, so I'd rather code dive into finished work from somebody else.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

He might mean that many of the maps being offered were generated by something. Altho I did my best to offer as complete maps as I could, I still always made a point to say that people could feel free to take one that had a lay-out they liked and make it better, then make it available for download under their name.

Just my opinion, but people seem to like generators that can give them something to work with more than a completely finished product. The map-makers all have some part of the map they feel they can improve on, but not necessarily all of the map.

Something along the line of....
"I generated 100 maps. One was a continent surrounded by water with good choke points. So I edited the map to give it decent province names, changed a couple of badly placed provinces, scattered some interesting graphics that fit what was in the province, added a few special story provinces such as the Valley of Dragons and the WereWolf Town. Finally I added Ermor as a forced AI player in a heavily defendable location with a specially designed immortal."

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Yes he was just getting to the point of it being extremely useful. He had licked the biggest complaints. He had just made colors fully selectable, and added the ability to scatter icons as the Dom3 generator does. A user-created icons file would be a big addition.

He also had incorporated requests of mine to include data in the .map output that the map generator "knew" which map modifiers had trouble digging up later. Like this..
-- #37, {1642,82}
-- neighbor 32, 49, 65, 879, 897
-- medium
-- swamp
-- forest
and we were working on adding recognition of penninsula, lake, island, etc. Also a breakdown of the bit-code to make it easier for math-incapable people like me to make changes. Altho it was beginning to look like extensive documentation of a map file might be better done as a seperate info file or maybe even a seperate program entirely.

Yes, the DomMap for Dom2 went thru 5 major revisions at least by different people since it was readily available source code (and still is). Even I was able to make some changes in it without knowing C.

I tried to get someone to put it up as an official SourceForge project and it probably would have but Johan's announcement that Dom3 would have a generator kindof killed it. Too bad since it was moving in directions that were diffrent than the Dom3 one ended up doing.

Hmm I have to catch up. I havent looked into that one yet.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

If I make a RMG, I'll definitely release the source.
Though I'm not sure how easy it would be to dive into it, what with no comments, and no programming skill on my part http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
Maybe you can drown in it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I meant to write this RMG because I wanted to contribute to the whole community, so releasing the source seems obvious to me (otherwise, how would maccers and linuxers enjoy this? And what if someone wanted to do something with it after I'm gone?)

Re: Gandalf's last post
I see what you mean, this is partly why I wanted to make the thing in several pieces, so that you could use only as much of it as you wanted.

Re: Gandalf's previous post
That's an interesting point, though I was thinking it might take hours (not days) if you plan on making many maps with many options.
The reason being that there might be a whole lot of different settings to mess with*, on the generation part and on the image creation part. (as well as the border drawing part, though that's just an on/off thing).
Which is also why I wanted to separate the different stages, so that if you find a map you really like from the generator, but don't like the textures used, you could just rerender the map without generating a whole new map, or maybe you don't like how I draw the borders, so you want a borderless version.

*-for example, per request, you might be able to:
1) Change the amount of "maps" generated (and by that I mean the precipitation and height map I previously exlained)
2) Change the correlation between each terrain type and maps (so you could decide map3 governs mountains.
3) Change the different thresholds for each terrain type (increase the range of heights that correspond to mountains to make a more hilly map)
4) Change the roughness of each map (for a more "shotgun" look, or a more smooth look)
5) Change the colors of each combination of terrain types
6) Change the textures of each terrain type (like different images for mountains)
So if you want a truly varied array of maps, you are going to conjure up a lot of maps. (even if each previously listed example was just a binary choice, you would still end up with 2^6 = 64 maps for each size category.)

EDIT: I was writing this while the very latest post from Gandalf wasn't there yet :S
EDIT 2: Yeah, I don't remember an announcement from Snoddasmannen either :S

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

By the way, the reason for the press on .map file rewriters giving data on provinces was so that they would work with scripts like mine for yet another .map re-writer to add things like reasonable province names (woodland names, swamp names, mountain names, island and lake names, etc). Also placement of natives such as rewriting a map to fit a theme such as all mounted nations in plains, or all vampires in towns, or nations of hobbits and flyers and monsters. (things later worked into Ballbarians excellent program)

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Adding some metadata to the .map files isn't hard, though any information written could be simply gotten from actually interpreting the .map file (For example, instead of checking "if (province_string.contains_string("wood")" you could just check "if (terrain_mask.to_int() & 128)"

Since I don't really remember that randomizer, I'm curious about it. What "cool stuff" did it really have? What do you mean by "scatter icons"? (Do you mean using images of trees in forest provinces, mountains in mountains etc., or are we talking about crowns for VPs and volcanoes for sites?)
(Adding custom colors and images for trees and stuff would be easy, and definitely part of the plan.)

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Yeah, I've seen that code. It is horribly inefficient at some places. Since it definitely looks like what the Dom3 map generator produces, I fear that some of the inefficient things went verbatim into the Dom3 one. But I haven't really checked on that. Just a hunch that it might be right. Try creating a 10 provinces map in resolutions 100x100 and 2000x2000, for example, and then time how long the different steps during map creation take to complete. In theory, there shouldn't be that much of a difference, but there is.

Not so much killed it, but rather absorbed it. And since the Dom3 map gen did generate better / prettier output, people dropped it. It's still there, people can still pick it up.

As I said, announced. Nothing visible yet. Let's wait.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

I'd really separate those things into a good, fast, efficient map generator and a .map interpreter / commenter. No need for yet another complex unhandy bloat program.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

It's a well-known rule that implementing something from scratch is probably to be better for yourself and the program than to take stuff from somebody else and then try to understand how it works and patch it in places to add functionality. But having a reference is good in any case. Comments are optional as long as function names and variables are sensibly chosen and there's clear indentation.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Here is the thread on that generator..
New Map Generator
And a later thread on my efforts to make the maps available the public.
Wrapped Maps Available!

Here are some examples from various rmg's:
DomMap
MapGen wrappable
MapGen 1500 provinces wrappable

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Another example. This is a Tower map.
Tower_1
I found some interest in this as a different type of game. Generating 1500 provinces only wide enough for the game to place one nation at a time stacked. Each player only had to concern themselves (mostly) with the nation on top or below them. There were also pipeline maps which were the same concept but running sideways instead of up and down. Maps like this would be great if they would wrap top-bottom for Tower and left-right for Pipeline.

Which reminds me. Does your generator mark off bad starting locations? Is that configurable as to the number of neighbors for consideration? Does it not mix land and sea neighbors in that count?

Feel free to turn me off anytime you want. This is one of my attributes (pro or con) that I store and generate lots of "and this too" ideas. By the way, seperate parameter files will be great. It will make it easy for me to script randomization within acceptable parameters between runs.

Community Map?
 

This thread makes me wonder if anyone's ever thought of a community effort map? We could take a 1500 province map-maybe Agrajag could make us a set to choose from? Gandalf could set the perimeters, and everyone could pick a portion of it to design provinces, do supplimentary artwork, write background for it, etc. I'd be willing to volunteer to coordinate the effort, as my time allows, as long as I was exempt from doing any heavy computer lifting-all I've got is my work computer and 3 busted up laptops.

Re: Community Map?
 

a couple of variations on that idea, yes.
But by all means, please feel free to try again. Start a thread.

Re: Community Map?
 

I'll do just that.

Re: Community Map?
 

Hmm, Pardox's RMG looks pretty sweet. Probably sweeter than what I could finish before being drafted into the military http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
And it doesn't look like there's anything specific for me to do that he didn't already. (Since he has wrap around maps, and you said he has icons)
So perhaps I should just work on my RMG for fun when I feel like it?


I agree. (Which is why if I had done that, I would have made it as another program)

That's true to some extent, but not universal law.
For example, if you picked up my code, you could have "stolen" fractal.cpp and fractal.hpp and used them as-is on any program, since they provide a pretty much self-contained "package" for generating fractal heightmaps.

If paradox's generator can generate wrap-around maps (which it can according to what you've shown me), then I'm guessing that it would be trivial to generate wrap-around towers and pipes.

Of course, it does nothing yet, but it would be fairly easy to do such a thing, as it will be forced to generate a map of neighbours to generate a .map file, so just counting the number of same-terrain neighbours is easy.

I think the best solution would be taking one command line parameter as the name of the config file (and default to something if there is no parameter given), don't you think?
Though thinking about it thoroughly, I have to give a "warning", to be as customizable as possible will also give pretty big config files. (for example, if you wanted to control the color of every possible combination of terrain tags you'd have to manually define colors for ~70 different combinations. [theoretically you'd have 8388607 combinations, but most of them don't really make sense together, or don't really deserver their own color. nor would they be possible.] )
Or are you talking about separate files for separate parts of the data? (like a file for colors, a file for thresholds, a file for heightmap settings etc.)

Re: Honeybadger
Your community map thread doesn't seem to jive well with my random maps, since you have people predefine what their provinces are like, and you aren't guaranteed to get a map that fits their desires. A more sensible approach for using a random map would be to select one map and then give sections of it to certain people.
(This applies to any random map, not just my own)

Re: Community Map?
 

Oh please dont make me guilty of blowing you away. The other rmg appears to have stopped in development and you were on such a roll. But on the other hand I would be the last person to recommend that anyone not pursue the parts they feel are fun.


Well it works for me anyway you want to do it. As for the colors.. Old Dom 1, and DomMap, both went with speckling the province with color. So one possible choice would be assigning a color to each basic terrain, and a setting for variation. Such as brown to mountain, and yellow to waste, then have the program speckle the two colors together for provinces which were mountain-waste. If the variation variable is set to 3 then the game could randomly use -3/+3 of the brown for each mountain pixel and -3/+3 of yellow for each waste. That would give a nicely blurred effect. Not so stark. And provide some effect provinces which are entirely mountain or entirely waste.

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Don't panic, I have been working on it. One of my modus operandi is getting stuck in tiny details which aren't very important. Right now I'm struggling with province borders around coastal areas. One of the things I'm sure somebody like lch would fix up in five minutes if I released the source http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Tell you what, I'll try to focus on getting something which compiles, runs and generates a map. Then all of us who feel like it can work on the fun stuff together.

I'm away from home for the weekend visiting with my gf's family, but I will see if I can post a thread with a screenshot when I get back. I don't want to hijack another thread http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

So far I'm still having fun with it, and I'd dare say I'm not at all far from getting it to a usable beta state.
It can currently generate maps, place provinces and draw borders. It still needs some improvement on the last two until they are correct. After that there's actually generating the .map files (which shouldn't be hard, as I already store information of all neighbours and the terrain bitmask.).
After that, all that's left is making everything customizable rather than having almost all values hard-coded, and making the maps look graphically prettier.
Then I can release version 1.00 and start improving it based on suggestions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Oh, and if you feel like blowing new wind into my sails, then you are doing so with your inclination to host some maps generated with this RMG on your site.
This is because I'm about to add a few things which will be quite computationally expensive http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

I saw it and I didn't really like it. I'm more inclined to have a single color per basic terrain and have the resulting color just be an average of all colors that apply (that's what it's like right now, except all values are hard-coded). The real variation should come by also assigning an image (or images) to each terrain type (like little mountains and trees) and have the program spread all applicable images on the terrain.
(Of course, there's always the option of providing more than one option http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)

I'm actually quite interested in what you have, since in a way you are a competitor http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Any interest in a RMG?
 

Oh, don't get your hopes up too high - I'm usually suffering from the "too many things at the same time" syndrome. But yes, somebody might help and improve the code for you. At least everybody would have the chance to do so, then.