Maps available

[Tiltowait]

Ive managed to compress Miirunst and Ringworld to 2.9 and 2.5 megs (zipped) respectivly and sent em off for hosting. There is noticable loss, but if you aint looking too close they look fine for playing on (and should be identical, so a network game will not care if one person has one, one person has another.. though you will have to update and use the Miirunst.map file (instead of the smallmiirunst.map file) if you wanna try this).

I went to work on the valhalla map, but got mad at all the little provinces, increased the size of the map... when I was done it was twice the download size

[mercurycs]

ok, about the size of maps,
SOME ARE HUGE!!!!
but what would be the difference in taking the map's tga file and converting it to jpg and post the jpg. people can download the jpg and then convert it to tga on their own computer so they can use it. there are freeware image converters out there that can be downloaded. I have been running tests on my computer and can see no loss in image quality between jpg and tga so that isn't an issue. a 35 meg tga file is just over 2 megs in jpg format.

[Teraswaerto]

If you do make compressed, lower quality maps, please make the high quality Versions available also. Lots of people can download large files with little difficulty, so it would be annoying to be stuck with the low quality Version when a better one exists.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by mercurycs:
ok, about the size of maps,
SOME ARE HUGE!!!!
but what would be the difference in taking the map's tga file and converting it to jpg and post the jpg. people can download the jpg and then convert it to tga on their own computer so they can use it. there are freeware image converters out there that can be downloaded. I have been running tests on my computer and can see no loss in image quality between jpg and tga so that isn't an issue. a 35 meg tga file is just over 2 megs in jpg format.

Interesting. Id never considered that. But it would be almost the same as zipping the files. On the one hand, more people probably have unzippers than have graphic converters. On the other hand, it would be easier to display the maps for download on a website. Hmmm no come to think of it making the maps viewable on a website isnt really a problem so ZIP would probably be better.

[Strages Sanctus]

Ello ello,

How does 'Dominions II' know where each province is? Does it look for the single white pixel and simply go from top left to bottom right scanline style. Numbering each pixel as a province, as it goes along?

Does this mean that the border-line graphic is just for human ease of use, rather than of any use data-wise to the software? In other words; there is no edge detection routine necessary.

Just trying to figure this out so I can make a map definition tool (it would not be pan-platform since I would be working in lingo). I want to put together a tool that will generate names based on racial themes, terrain etc... and provides for supplying an external name list. Also drop down terrain definitons and other applicable dropdowns for creating the .map file. It would be gui driven of course.


EDIT: The only place I can see borders being needed would be for auto-neighbour detection...

Thanks in advance.

[ January 09, 2004, 18:59: Message edited by: Strages Sanctus ]

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Strages Sanctus:
How does 'Dominions II' know where each province is? Does it look for the single white pixel and simply go from top left to bottom right scanline style. Numbering each pixel as a province, as it goes along?

Single white would be nice but its any white (255,255,255 RGB) so mapmakers need to avoid using total white for things like snowy mountaintops. The numbers was UpperLeft to LowerRihgt for Dom1 but seems to be LowerLaft to UpperRight for Dom2

Does this mean that the border-line graphic is just for human ease of use, rather than of any use data-wise to the software? In other words; there is no edge detection routine necessary.

Im not sure. I think Dom2 uses the boundarys less than Dom1 did. I think I also remember something about red being a good ingrediant in border lines for something. Maybe Kristoffer will jump in on that.

Just trying to figure this out so I can make a map definition tool (it would not be pan-platform since I would be working in lingo).

sorry for my ignorance but what platform would that be then?

I want to put together a tool that will generate names based on racial themes, terrain etc... and provides for supplying an external name list.

I did some work on that if you want to look at it. Nothing fancy but it was workable. Basic though. Look at the .bas files here http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/
and examples of the output are here.
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/maps/

Also drop down terrain definitons and other applicable dropdowns for creating the .map file.

That would be nice but if I could make a request I think that an option to automatically do things then offer editing would be helpful. Even if it did bad guessing as to terrain from colors used, bad guessing on neighbors, bad naming, anything. I just find it easier to see it and fix it than to tackle it manually. In fact, I think Id rather edit manually using notepad and paint than use an editor that didnt try to fill things in. Just IMHO.

It would be gui driven of course.

Oh rats. Even if it was linux I prefer my linux boxes GUI-less.

There is a map generator that was done for Dom1 and the source is available. But its in C. Would that be helpful?

[mercurycs]

Quote "Interesting. Id never considered that. But it would be almost the same as zipping the files. On the one hand, more people probably have unzippers than have graphic converters. On the other hand, it would be easier to display the maps for download on a website. Hmmm no come to think of it making the maps viewable on a website isnt really a problem so ZIP would probably be better."

Gandalf Parker, I have to disagree about it being almost the same. jpegs are around 1/4 the size of a zipped tga file. here is my findings:
tga 1: 26,065,978 compressed to 8,781,802 zip file
tga 1: 26,065,978 converted to jpg : 2,891,790

tga 2: 39,233,987 compressed to a 12,103,218 zip file
tga 2: 39,233,987 converted to a 4,785,664 jpg

Big difference for dial up people, and a free graphics converter can be found at
http://www.softpile.com/Multimedia/I...830_index.html
I have dsl and the map files arent a problem, but i do remember my dial-up days. anyway, food for thought