Seeking map or need advice on making it

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Psitticine:
Gandalf, can you generate one that uses just grayscale to represent height data? I was curious what might come out of it if I took something like that and made a real effort with it in Max instead of just goofing around for 10 minutes.

Not sure I follow. You mean doing a GIMP render with just a gray palette? I could try that.

[Psitticine]

Pretty much. I'd have to play with it and see if any other special settings would be useful. The more of a spread in the colors, the better. Pure white and pure black and all shades in between. That gives a much more gradiated landscape.

I did something like this once for a project and it came out rather well. What I need to do here is alter things so that the texture is mapped in more than one (blended) layer. That shouldn't be any kind of big deal though, even if I just end up nesting textures.

Once I get it right, though, it won't take any more than popping a new map in place to "raise" a new 3D image.

I'm not sure it'll be of fantastic value to anyone, but it'll be fun to play with and I'll be happy to share the results.

Just thinking out loud here . . . I may eventually experiment with something that'd spawn trees as part of a particle system at designated areas on the map. That might require a seperate map being painted but that, again, shouldn't take much. Just slap a new layer on over the altitude map and paint in pure white where you want forest. Replace the underlayer with black then set up the script to spawn according to that. Hmm . . .

[Targa]

Quick update to the map:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/webmap.jpg

Currently at 88 layers. I've already had several Messages to the effect, "Not enough system resources, close any open programs and retry" when attempting to multitask with Photoshop having the map loaded.

I'm hoping to have it finished in about a week, but don't hold me to that. I think the next one will be a nice small 2-4 player map.

[Gandalf Parker]

Seeing some interesting things there. That line of cliffs in the upper right will be uncrossable? Nice.

You might have to do a few merges in order to free up some ram. I thought my machine was more than enough for anything until I started playing with GIMP

[Argitoth]

Targa, if it's going to be a wraparound map, you will need to change some of the map to make it look normal as a wraparaound.

Also, if it's not going to be wraparound, you can't have that big lake just cut off like that, although it doesn't really matter. just making suggestions for improvement.

Edit: or is it an ocean?

[ February 04, 2004, 23:50: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Targa:
Quick update to the map:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/webmap.jpg

This map is gorgeous! I can hardly wait to see the end result ...

[Targa]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Seeing some interesting things there. That line of cliffs in the upper right will be uncrossable? Nice.

You might have to do a few merges in order to free up some ram. I thought my machine was more than enough for anything until I started playing with GIMP

Yeah, I spoke with Kristoffer about the possibility of making some cliffs/rifts/and plateau's and he helped me out a bit. Hopefully there'll be more in the next map. You're right about merging layers, which I dislike doing because it limits the tweaking...that said, I should merge a bunch that I think are done, then save the file under a different name so I have the original just in case. Thanks.

Originally posted by Argitoth:
Targa, if it's going to be a wraparound map, you will need to change some of the map to make it look normal as a wraparaound.

Also, if it's not going to be wraparound, you can't have that big lake just cut off like that, although it doesn't really matter. just making suggestions for improvement.

Edit: or is it an ocean?

It's an ocean/sea. As for wrap/non-wrap, the graphics near the edges are on separate layers, so they're easily hidden/removed in order to modify it to be a wraparound. First Version will be non-wrap though. The wrap Version will only wrap horizontally, so the water at the bottom won't matter.

Arryn: Thanks! I'm not fishing for compliments, but as everyone knows, positive feedback is the fuel that keeps the fire burning for those who are working on mods, maps, guides, etc... I imagine that if no one showed any interest, this project would die off rather quickly.

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Seeing some interesting things there. That line of cliffs in the upper right will be uncrossable?

Actually, all of the mountain ranges will be uncrossable (the very long vertical one in the middle has a gap in the center). This is to create choke points and limit access. Do you think this would be a mistake?