Map A little artisanal map... with 1225 provinces

Agrajag · #1 December 13th, 2006, 11:09 AM

Wow, this is pretty awesome!
I think I'll try it today

By the way, Opening up the image in Photoshop and applying a Smart Blur (2[or maybe 3?] pixels, 45 threshold, high quality, normal mode) smooths most (though not all) of the more troublesome over-pixelated areas, with only mild damage to the image (swamp bushes of a specific kind got blurred). It keeps mountains/castles and the like the same way they were before, but makes most of the terrain easier on the eye.

Also, Edi, 666 Posts

EDIT: Forgot to mention you should first copy-paste all your white pixels to a new layer, then do the blurring, then make sure no new white pixels were added, then past the white pixels back.

calmon · #2 December 13th, 2006, 12:54 PM

Great map, i'll try it out in a very big sp game and hopefully in some mp games later!

In addition to #knownfeature "Volcano" you could also add the new dom3 sites:

#knownfeature "Desert" (+death/heat scale)
#knownfeature "Rain Forest" (+growth/heat scale)
#knownfeature "Tundra" (+cold scale)

for the deserts, jungles and tundras. That would be some nice features and provide some natural heat and cold in the provinces.

Some little bugs i found:
987 seems to be a forest but the map means its farmland.
382 should've farmland
461+481 have 2 mountain symbols, maybe this is intended!?

Edi · #3 December 13th, 2006, 03:09 PM

Agrajag, yes, I know I'm evil.

Do you by any chance have the possibility to post the smoothed map? Or do you know how to do the same in GIMP?

Because as soon as I'm done with the bulk of the DB work, this map is going to get a spin.

Edi

Agrajag · #4 December 13th, 2006, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Edi said:
Agrajag, yes, I know I'm evil.

Do you by any chance have the possibility to post the smoothed map? Or do you know how to do the same in GIMP?

Because as soon as I'm done with the bulk of the DB work, this map is going to get a spin.

Edi

I'm not sure how you would do that in GIMP.
I will however try and upload a zipped version of the smoothed map.

The problem is that the last time I smoothed the map I missed some white pixels (got my technique wrong), so now I have to redo it. Only since its a 150 megabyte map, Photoshop now claims it can't save it as .tga because there isn't enough space in the scratch disks (??).
I'm now trying some stuff to force it to save it, and if I'm successful, I'll upload it to one of those servers Twan initially used and see how that works.

And will edit accordingly

EDIT: GAH! The most compression I can get is an unwieldy 33.7 megabytes, unlike Twan's magical 10 megabyte file :\
I'm not sure where I can upload such a massive file, nor do I know if my internet connection will handle it :X

Twan · #5 December 13th, 2006, 05:00 PM

Mine was zipped with ALzip, a very good freeware (it takes 1 or 2 minutes to zip big files but really reduce the size to a minimum, not like the official Winzip). But even a 10MB file is too much for the forum (3 MB max IIRC).

As I haven't photoshop and Xnview offer no way to save the white pixels if I use filters (I've tried to reduce the pixelisation effect before releasing the map but abandonned as I had 600 white pixels to recreate) I'm interested by your blurred version too.

Daynarr · #6 December 13th, 2006, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Edi said:
Or do you know how to do the same in GIMP?

Just load the map, go to filters-blur and select blur. It does job fine. However, I still have to check if it messes up white pixels.

Agrajag · #7 December 14th, 2006, 04:25 AM

Smart Blur is different from regular blur, I'm not sure about the precise algorithm, but as far as I can see, it only blends adjacent elements if they are already sufficiently close in color. That means that different shades of grass blend together well, but mountains won't blend.
Like I said, it isn't perfect, a few buildings got blended, and a few spots that needed some blurring were left as in the original, but I like what I got.
I'm going to set the map to upload and leave the computer while I go about my day, I'll see how things worked out when I get back home.
EDIT: http://rapidshare.com/files/7419784/oe2.rar.html
Its not a miraculous change, but its pretty nice

Daynarr · #8 December 14th, 2006, 12:18 PM

Ok, tested it and normal blur in Gimp really messes up white pixels. If you use it you won't be able to play on that map. Unfortunately there is no smart blur in Gimp.

Agrajag, thanks for the file.

Agrajag · #9 December 14th, 2006, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Daynarr said:
Ok, tested it and normal blur in Gimp really messes up white pixels. If you use it you won't be able to play on that map. Unfortunately there is no smart blur in Gimp.

Agrajag, thanks for the file.

You are welcome

And the white pixel problem isn't solved thanks to the smart blur, all the smart blur does is blend things in a way that is less likely to blur things that you want to remain focused.

For the white pixels I just used the magic selection tool (allows you to select all instances of a certain color [or color range] on the image) to copy all the white pixels to a new layer, then blurred the original layer, then made sure there are no new white pixels (by using the magic selection tool again on a white pixel, and then making every white pixel into a 250,250,250 pixel), then put the white pixels back.