Seeking map or need advice on making it

[Targa]

Originally posted by Zen:
Maybe the game doesn't like your borders. Without a clear defining line it doesn't think the provinces are seperate?

Thought about that, but if you look at Aran and Orania, the water province borders aren't even solid and completely enclosing the provinces. I thought (and this is what I've read here in the forums), province borders are merely for human convenience, and all the game looks for are the white dots. I can't even explain why it appears to be trying to find neighbors, since you're supposed to set that manually. "Guess neighbors" doesn't come into play until you select it in the map editor.

EDIT: Saber Cherry's all unit view uses a totally black map with 2 white dots, now that I think about it, so it's not borders.

[ February 06, 2004, 03:46: Message edited by: Targa ]

[Saber Cherry]

Yeah, the game only cares about white dots, and does not understand anything else. Are you trying to load the map with a .map file, or trying to run a map editor?

BTW, the first province should be 1, not 0... can you post your .map file contents?

[Targa]

There isn't any .map file. I'm just trying to load the .tga into Dom's map editor.

It appears that there's a map editor bug related to the placement of the white dots. I moved a few around and came up with a different error.

Edit: As you can see below from my printout, it finds the 155 capitals w/o a problem. Then it gets caught in an infinite loop while trying to figure out who's neighboring who. So the 155 white dots are there, and being seen. I pasted sections of my map to a new file, and they can be loaded. But not very many. If I had to guess (and I may be way off base here), I'd almost say that there has to be a certain number of pixels both horizontally and vertically between white pixels. If they're....say, within 2 rows horizontally or 2 columns vertically, the game locks up.

[ February 06, 2004, 04:47: Message edited by: Targa ]

[Gandalf Parker]

I thought maybe there was a problem with an array size on its comparisons. Maybe moving the dots so that not so many appear on the same vertical or horizontal line clears the problem up. That or maybe it prefers them on the same grid-line. I suppose a test might be possible of both gridded capital dots and completely ungridded ones.

[Targa]

Unwise: That's not it, thanks for the suggestion though. I already tried that, making the map very dark, but it still wouldn't work. That gave me an idea though...which I'm going to test right now. I suspect Gandalf is closer to the truth...brb, will edit with the results. Meanwhile I'm sending the map to JK to look at.

Edit:
OK, I copied the dots to a pure black map and it still locks up, so it's a problem with the placement of the dots. It's not a problem with the edges (like being too close), as I just erased all capitals within about 100 or more pixels of the edges...

Edit+
Alright, it appears to be a coding bug related to where the dots are. Here's what I did: Took the black map with the dots on it and copied only the top half to a new file. That locked up the game. I copied half of the half to a new file, game loaded it fine, so I figure "Aha! The problem is in that other 1/4 of the map...right?" Went back to Photoshop and selected inverse, to copy the opposite half....and Dom loaded it fine! So it took both halves, but not the whole. Looking at the division between the halves reveals that there are not dots even remotely close to the border.

And just to be thorough, I went thru the pic and deleted any capitals that were on the same horizontal or vertical lines, which doesn't help.

On the brighter side: I can now get away from Photoshop and actually play the game!

[ February 06, 2004, 16:13: Message edited by: Targa ]

[Targa]

Being extremely bummed out that the map editor choked on my map, I decided to throw together a small map so I would feel better.

E-mailed to Illwinter, should be appearing there in a day or two. Here's a picture:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/cot.jpg

Desc:

Clash of the Titans
41 provinces, 5 of which are sea.
2 player only. Fixed starting positions. No water races.

I've temporarily put it up for download here:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/cot.zip

If anyone feels like playing it. Enjoy.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Targa:
E-mailed to Illwinter, should be appearing there in a day or two. Here's a picture:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/cot.jpg

Very nice. Thank you. There does seem to be a desire out there for few-player maps.

Do you want to setup something for a nightly randomizing on the .map file such as the Miirunst map has?

Ive got your blanks running on automatic now. Is that of any use? Should the variables be tweaked? I was thinking that making the .sh files into .txt would be you could view them thru the browser. WOuld that help?

[Targa]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Do you want to setup something for a nightly randomizing on the .map file such as the Miirunst map has?

AFAIK Miirunst is a map you can d/l from Illwinter. I've seen you mention this randomizing in a diff thread, but have no clue what you're talking about. (keep in mind that I've played about a dozen games, all on easy AI and Aran map) Haven't had time for anything else. I don't think I've played once since I started the map.

Ive got your blanks running on automatic now. Is that of any use? Should the variables be tweaked? I was thinking that making the .sh files into .txt would be you could view them thru the browser. Would that help?

I can see the .sh files fine. Just had to tell Windows to use Wordpad to open them. I think the way you have it setup is fine the way it is. The only downside is having to load each large pic individually rather than having a thumbnail page, but that's no biggie. Can't do much until JK figures out what's wrong with the map editor. If that turns out to be a huge project for him, then there's no point in starting on other maps.

Although CoT map is working now, the editor choked on it also. I had to remove all the capitals and play around with positioning in order to keep Dom from locking up. Now that I see how time-consuming it is to use the map editor, I'm not even sure I want to do that with large maps. I may have to pass that burden to a friend of mine.

[Unwise]

I had a similar problem when putzing around with my first map. I solved it thus:

If you're using photoshop, use the color/hue option to slightly darken all the layers except for the one containing your dots (if you don't have a layer just for the dots, make one).

The theory is that there are several white pixels very close to one another that is confusing the routine. By darkening the "eye candy" layers an infintesimal amount, you disqualify these from consideration.

[Buzzbomb]

Nice work Targa, please dont get discouraged, your making beautiful maps. Why dont ya play some and take a break from map making for a few days, play some games to remember what your making them for. Id hate to see you give up.