Maps available [Archive] - .com.unity Forums

Gandalf Parker

January 5th, 2004, 04:31 PM

Originally posted by Tiltowait:
Glad people like the maps, I drew em all from scratch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Excellent work.

They both change game play a bit due to numerous bottlenecks, but there should allways be choices of direction to expand.
Hard to do fairly for multiplay but very desireable for solo play. Thank you.

I can get to work on another map, if anyone has any requests? Would it be OK if I used one for randomized .maps? Or would you like to get together with me and design a randomizer. I will include it at my site.

Or if you could create a large map where no-one can get pinned down by an especially nasty province then let me use it as a base for lost of different random scenarios.

There is a thread here somewhere of maps we wish people would do or something like that.

Teraswaerto

January 5th, 2004, 05:57 PM

Originally posted by Tiltowait:

I can get to work on another map, if anyone has any requests? Something with an underground cave system. One third (or something like that) of the provinces would be underground, with just a few places where the caves reach the surface. It's a thought http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Might be a bit confusing though...

reverend

January 5th, 2004, 06:38 PM

Something with an underground cave system. One third (or something like that) of the provinces would be underground, with just a few places where the caves reach the surface. It's a thought Might be a bit confusing though... I think that could be done using something like the ringworld as a base. top and lower third are "space" right now, underground provinces would fit in there pretty well.

johan osterman

January 5th, 2004, 06:51 PM

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Tiltowait:

I can get to work on another map, if anyone has any requests? Something with an underground cave system. One third (or something like that) of the provinces would be underground, with just a few places where the caves reach the surface. It's a thought http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Might be a bit confusing though... <hr /></blockquote>Kristoffer made such map to dom1, it has an upper world as well. If you have dom 1 you can download it from the illwinter site and check it out. If you do not have dom 1 you can still download the picture and map file and take a look. The map is called the hollow world.

Link : http://www.illwinter.com/dom/maps.html

Fourth map from the top.

[ January 05, 2004, 16:52: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

Tiltowait

January 5th, 2004, 07:10 PM

G.P.> "large map where no-one can get pinned down by an especially nasty province then let me use it as a base for lost of different random scenarios."

That sounds worthwhile, I'll let ya know when I finish it! Feel free to use the others for randomized maps. As for designing a randomizer, 'fraid I dont have much time for that but I would be happy to offer loads of unsolicited advice http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Tera.> "Something with an underground cave system."

I was considering doing that.

Tera.>"just a few places where the caves reach the surface."

I think I would rather have every province connected to the one below/above. I know, it is seldom done in fantasy war games, but many of those games have free traveling while in Dom2 you usually have to expand straight through someone else...

Now, maybe if I make the underground a worthless (baren waste) no-start zone populated by baddies... But I think I like the first idea better, for smoother game play.

Teraswaerto

January 5th, 2004, 07:20 PM

Originally posted by johan osterman:
Kristoffer made such map to dom1, it has an upper world as well. If you have dom 1 you can download it from the illwinter site and check it out. If you do not have dom 1 you can still download the picture and map file and take a look. The map is called the hollow world.
Yeah, I know, that's where I got the idea from. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Gandalf Parker

January 5th, 2004, 09:05 PM

We could collaborate. I have tons of randomizer stuff at all levels from simple randomly selected AI's to extreme having every unit in the game given a randomly selected alteration.

On my site I have examples which are re-randomized every day and people seem to enjoy them. It was just getting old using the same maps over and over. For each one you provide I will gladly open up a new rash of randomly re-written .map files along the line of anything you feel approporiate.

LONG LIVE THE RANDOM MAP CULT!

Examples are the random opponents maps. One for each nation. Such as, if you wanted to play Man then download the Man.map everyday for a slightly new game. Just set Man to human and play it.
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/Man.map

Or the Poke in the Eye .map file which gives each province a randomly selected fully equiped commander with troops. They can be any of the 1010 units in the game including pretenders (which tend to be a BIG surprise). Rerolled fresh every morning.

http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/Poke_Eye.map

Wauthan

January 5th, 2004, 09:38 PM

Tiltowait: I already tried out the new maps and they are a lot of fun. The ringworld map really prods buttock!

There seems to be something odd with the lake (#46) in Valhalla though. It's dry ground. Perhaps the battle takes place on the beach?

Gandalf: Your Poke in the Eye is also a lot of fun. Unfortunatly I rarely have the time to play on such large wraparound maps. Perchance to have the same randomized garrisons with Sundering and Returgaia maps?

On a different note. What can one screw up if one edits the graphics on a map? While all the maps available now are very functional they are a bit simplistic. Sort of hoped that I could repaint Aran when I find some free time. Red border and white dot is to be left alone I take it?

Kristoffer O

January 5th, 2004, 09:47 PM

As long as the size of the map and white dots are untouched nothing will upset the game. The border are only used to ease the making of the mapfile. Once the mapfile is ready the borders are just cosmetic.

Kristoffer O

January 6th, 2004, 02:08 AM

There is some kind of fan based LotR-mod project going on. There was two links to LotR maps IIRC in a thread regarding this matter. It is a rather ambitious project with plans on entirely new nations. As our modding tools are not yet available (patch is soon released) it will probably take a while before the scenario is ready.

The maps might be though. Search the forum for LotR and you should find two nice maps (not converted though).

For copyright reasons illwinter will not make LotR maps, but we gladly post player contributed maps and scenarios.

Tiltowait

January 7th, 2004, 10:30 PM

I've got a nice new map here ready for randomizing Gandalf!

I really like this one, it has 3 levels (all provinces have the option to move up or down, which opens things up a bit), 135 provinces (18 of them sea) and a boardgamish look.

NTJedi

January 7th, 2004, 10:36 PM

Any chance we'll be seeing a map or two with lots of provinces?? example= 400 provinces or more?

Gandalf Parker

January 7th, 2004, 11:01 PM

Originally posted by NTJedi:
Any chance we'll be seeing a map or two with lots of provinces?? example= 400 provinces or more? One of two things would need to happen for that in my opinion. Either the MapEditor gets improved, or the random map generator from Dom1 gets upgraded.

OR someone who is very very patient creates one. I can generate a world but manually assigning all the terrains and neighbors is out of the question.

Tiltowait

January 8th, 2004, 04:04 PM

"There seems to be something odd with the lake (#46) in Valhalla though. It's dry ground. Perhaps the battle takes place on the beach?"

Whoops, that was the first province on the first map and I checked 'fresh water' thinking it was a different type of sea http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Anyone who wants to correct this can open up valhalla.map with the map editor, right click on 46 (the lake) and check 'Sea', then save and play. Or just assume the name 'The Deep' is a joke and it is a seasonal pond... you know, like those lakes that dry up... err...

"400 provinces or more?"
Not from me, I get obsessed with details and it would take me forever (the current map I am sending to Gandalf took me about 12 hours and it is only 135 provinces), not to mention I enjoy play on smaller maps a lot more.

Teraswaerto

January 8th, 2004, 05:14 PM

Could you also make the new map available for download on the Illwinter site?

[ January 08, 2004, 15:15: Message edited by: Teraswaerto ]

Gandalf Parker

January 8th, 2004, 06:13 PM

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
Could you also make the new map available for download on the Illwinter site? I recommended it also. I think its really far too nice to be used for my random junk but he still wants one so we are going forward. *sigh* I wish somebody playing with C would look at the old DomMap code. Should be fairly easy to upgrade it

[ January 08, 2004, 17:36: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Tiltowait

January 8th, 2004, 10:09 PM

All right http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ! Gandalf has hosted my new map Miirunst on his site pending illwinter putting it up.

You need these 2 files:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/Miirunst.tga
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/Miirunst.map
Simply download them into your dominions2/maps
directory.

Additionally, Gandalf has randomized a .map if you like the map it but want a change of pace. Simply download this file to your maps directory:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/MiirunstX.map
and choose to play "Miirunst X." It will not overwrite the original Miirunst .map file.
Today the theme is 'poke in the eye' with powerful creatures inhabiting temples and fortresses spread across the land.

New random maps will be forthcoming, soon on a daily basis.

The .tga download is the big one (bout 30 megs) so here is a screenshot of it to peruse before you eat up Gandalf's bandwidth http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

http://www.ozbird.net/Miirunst.gif

General Tacticus

January 8th, 2004, 10:14 PM

Looks great, I must try it !

With Mictlan of course... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Kristoffer O

January 8th, 2004, 10:46 PM

The maps are now also available at www.illwinter.com (http://www.illwinter.com)

Thanks Tiltowait and Gandalf!

Tiltowait

January 8th, 2004, 10:52 PM

mmmm, Mictlan. I got stuck with em as Last pick in a 3-turn a week game, so I decided to practice blood magic and ever since I am loving them! Nothing like watching those heavy calvery go down to a horde of imps on turn 5! Someday I may reveal my secred Mictlan recipe (can't now, got 16 spys on this form to worry about http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif )

I suggest 8-14 players for Miirunst, with 2 of those being the underwater races. I'm playing it solo with 12 right now and like that pace. And remember the middle province is not completly worthless, it has a lot more magical resources than the surface or the abyss... 'course with the random maps, could be very different.

licker

January 8th, 2004, 10:56 PM

I can't remember the answer to this question so I'll ask it again...

Why are the .tga files so fricking huge? 30mb is a hella big file for a damn map no? I mean not all of us have the broadband http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Gandalf Parker

January 8th, 2004, 11:06 PM

Kristoffer O

January 8th, 2004, 11:15 PM

Gandalf Parker

January 8th, 2004, 11:26 PM

OK now http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/ has a zipped file added for Miirunst if people have the ability to unzip files.

Kristoffer O

January 8th, 2004, 11:43 PM

The illwinter one is also zipped. 8 meg IIRC.

I have experimented with rescaling. At 1/4 much of the nice information on the map is lost. Also all capital dots disappear entirely (impossible to guess where they should be). For the mapfile to be consistent they must keep their actual position relative the other capitals. Thus they must be rezised so it is possible to see where they are. Then a new white dot may be placed on the smaller map. 1/2 might be better.

PhilD

January 8th, 2004, 11:44 PM

Originally posted by licker:
I can't remember the answer to this question so I'll ask it again...

Why are the .tga files so fricking huge? 30mb is a hella big file for a damn map no? I mean not all of us have the broadband http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif I read this and thought I'd do something useful for the community for once: load the various .tga files into Gimp, and do some scaling to make them easier to download for those without fast connections.

But it seems that, when doing this, the white dots that mark the centers of provinces tend to not remain white, which will most certainly mess the game up big time. So I'd have to convert said dots to white again, and that means it cannot be done quickly and with no effort...

Maybe the original authors could offer their maps (TGA files) in a variety of resolutions? I mean, the Ringworld map (just a random example) is nice, but with a 5000x1250, the .tga file is about 11Mb. A .5 scaling would reduce this by a factor of 4, and .25 would leave less than a Mb... unfortunately, I just checked, and doing it from the current file doesn't make it look too good, even without the white dot problem.

So, I'll suggest map makers try to provide a "smallish" Version of their files. Most likely you guys are working with some image manipulation software that would let you do it nicely, right?

Gandalf Parker

January 9th, 2004, 02:18 AM

What about dropping the colors. Do the TGA actually use alot of colors between the 256 and the 16 million territory? Thats one of the things I usually recommend for JPG's on peoples web pages. The view doesnt tend to change all that much. You need the 16 mill setting to do alot of fancy things in decent paint programs but usually once the image is done you can pull it back to 256 with a big save in size. I just dont know if TGA makes a difference in that plan

[ January 09, 2004, 00:23: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Tiltowait

January 9th, 2004, 03:27 PM

And here I thought everyone had unlimited bandwidth http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I made em big cause when you zoom in to the level of playability they look better in the higher resolutions. Least, I like em better.

Anyways, I would be happy to scale em down a bunch, I have enough mid-creation Versions of them that it should be no problem. I've been using Macromedia Fireworks and Gimp (I'd love to get gimp 2.0, but was slashdoted yesterday).

Arralen

January 9th, 2004, 05:03 PM

Actually, "Miirunst" uses ~270 000 colors (IIRC - checked yesterday) only. Reducing that to 256 makes especially the red gradients rather pixelated (sp?), but it's something I could live with.

File Size goes down significantly, but I'll have to check again when I'm at home. IIRC it was 16MB than.

One problem with the DOM2 maps is that they compress rather badly - thanks to .tga only beeing able to to RLE compression.

Now Miirunst and the Illwinter maps have lots of microstuctures. These look good, but compress very badly, especially with RLE. ...

STefan

Tiltowait

January 9th, 2004, 06:09 PM

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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

mercurycs

January 9th, 2004, 07:11 PM

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

January 9th, 2004, 07:37 PM

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

January 9th, 2004, 08:03 PM

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

January 9th, 2004, 08:51 PM

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

January 9th, 2004, 09:23 PM

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

January 9th, 2004, 09:27 PM

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/Image_Editors/Review_13830_index.html
I have dsl and the map files arent a problem, but i do remember my dial-up days. anyway, food for thought

Strages Sanctus

January 9th, 2004, 09:43 PM

Lingo is Director's internal development language.

It runs on mac and windows, shockwave is the web product created from it. It also creates stand-alone executables for mac and windows.

It would be easy enough if there are only single white pixels (as being the only pure white in the image) defining each province ALONG WITH true red borders defining each province area. (the borders could be removed once the map data file was generated).

This would enable the code to find a single white pixel and then find the entire area around it that is within in the confines of a true red border (I have fill code similar to this).

It could then look at the color of the pixels in that area to define the territory or multiple-territory types (like mountain/forest or mountain/waste). It could then look at a set of teerain lists and generate a name for that province(your bas files is exactly the type of thing I am talking about.)

Even without the red borders it could expand out in its detection process only a certain range and generate its data that way. But then neighbour detection would be very haphazard since it would have no way of knowing its relationship to other provinces except for proximity to the other province indicating white pixels.

Edge detection for both the above process and the process of determing adjacent neighbours is much easier when you have a set of defined points from which to 'expand' from out to a definied color border(in this case the single pixels of true white and a border of true red.)

I think for the first run I would do this, and then see if it is possible to incoporate some kind of ability to automate blocked off borders (the double thick borders in current maps).

The automated process could of course all be done gui-less. The gui would come in for doing things manually.

It would be also be neat to consider it being able to look at other graphic data to do more complex automation of things (a graduated color overlay indicating neutral areas, racial make-up of neutral provinces, strength etc...) this would work really well with something like your randomizing routines.

Edit: it's and its (grammar is evil)

[ January 09, 2004, 19:48: Message edited by: Strages Sanctus ]

Tiltowait

January 9th, 2004, 09:44 PM

"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."

In my experience, when you convert to jpg (or gif, or any format) if you degrade the picture in any way then when you expand it back to tga size the single-pixel captials can change color and sometimes expand to 2 pixels. 2 pixels means you have 2 provinces basicly on top of each other, a bad thing.

"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?"

Yes, but bottom left to top right scanline. Borders are just eye candy (maybe they are used for guessing provinces, but guessing does not work well). When I make a map, all that counts are where the single pixel 255 255 255 capitals are, I then rename some other .map file, delete all the #neighboors, point it to the right .tga and use the Load Map command on it and manually set the borders.

When making a map, place the captials Last, right after you filter the image to remove all other pure white (I use Filter > adjust color > levels and set output level maxing at 254, which works fine.)

BTW, since borders do not matter, you should be able to open up Dominions I maps, remove the single white pixel hidden in the top left corrner, copy another .map file and edit it to point to the dom1 tga, set the borders and be done.

Saber Cherry

January 9th, 2004, 09:52 PM

You can use lossless formats, like lossless JPG or PNG. But never use lossy compression on an image where non-visual data is stored in the image file. Lossless formats do not compress nearly as well as lossy ones, of course.

The freeware program IrfanView can interconvert all common graphics formats, and you can specify quality on lossy formats. It is the best freeware program I have ever used.

-Cherry

PhilD

January 10th, 2004, 01:17 AM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
You can use lossless formats, like lossless JPG or PNG. But never use lossy compression on an image where non-visual data is stored in the image file. Lossless formats do not compress nearly as well as lossy ones, of course.
Will Dom2 accept to load non-TGA image files? I was assuming not...

One solution (to excessive download size) would be to offer the .tga files in a variety of resolution - the person making up the map should be able to do that with little hassle.

Arralen

January 10th, 2004, 08:30 AM

what will not work with DOM2:
 using any other format than .tga, at least unless the developer add support for it with a patch. I#m not shure, but I think the SDL library supports other formats as well, but than there's still the problem that other routines have to read the graphic file as well. compressing/resampling/resizing the map pics with any paiting programm, unless doing lots of work by hand or maybe someone could write a script for Gimp http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
This is because provinces are detected (and flag graphics shown) by pure white pixels (255,255,255/1x1). Making a .jpg from the .tga will result in artifacts, which will shurely kill some of these pure white dots here and produce some more there .. provinces screwed up badly. Resizing/resampling will do basically the same .. changing the resolution. In fact, the resolution set in the graphics file doesn't matter at all. (You may set it to 72 dpi or 305 dpi, however you wish. DOM works based on pixels, not graphic size in mm. Changing the number of pixels is [i]resizing/-sampling[/] and will screw up the map. (see above)
What will work is :
 using sufficient size (in pixels) for each province so that everything on the map is displayed where it belongs, and leaving out any non-map/province areas from the file using few (256) colours when making the map. Using big, flat single-color areas doesn't look that neat, but keeps the file size very low, especially as the RLE compression works better the more uniform an image is.
I resized and modified my old DOM1 map, so I have gone through all this hassle before. BTw., did anyone check this map out? Despite being 1600 pixels wide, it's only 1,6 MB big ... . I'm working on an extended Version at the moment, I'll post it (link) when it's finished.

A.

Arralen

January 10th, 2004, 08:31 AM

what will not work with DOM2:
 using any other format than .tga, at least unless the developer add support for it with a patch. I#m not shure, but I think the SDL library supports other formats as well, but than there's still the problem that other routines have to read the graphic file as well. compressing/resampling/resizing the map pics with any paiting programm, unless doing lots of work by hand or maybe someone could write a script for Gimp http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
This is because provinces are detected (and flag graphics shown) by pure white pixels (255,255,255/1x1). Making a .jpg from the .tga will result in artifacts, which will shurely kill some of these pure white dots here and produce some more there .. provinces screwed up badly. Resizing/resampling will do basically the same .. changing the resolution. In fact, the resolution set in the graphics file doesn't matter at all. (You may set it to 72 dpi or 305 dpi, however you wish. DOM works based on pixels, not graphic size in mm. Changing the number of pixels is resizing/-sampling and will screw up the map. (see above)
What will work is :
 using just sufficient size (in pixels) for each province so that everything on the map is displayed where it belongs, and leaving out any non-map/province areas from the file using few (256) colours when making the map. Using big, flat single-color areas doesn't look that neat, but keeps the file size very low, especially as the RLE compression works better the more uniform an image is.

I resized and modified my old DOM1 map, so I have gone through all this hassle before. BTw., did anyone check this map out? Despite being 1600 pixels wide, it's only 1,6 MB big ... . I'm working on an extended Version at the moment, I'll post it (link) when it's finished.

A.

edited: code & spelling, but it doesn't help much..

[ January 10, 2004, 06:36: Message edited by: Arralen ]

Kristoffer O

January 10th, 2004, 01:43 PM

Kristoffer O

January 10th, 2004, 01:52 PM

It is only the white dots that are important. Border colour is only used to ease up neighbor-guessing.

The white dots are scanned right-left bottom-top or something. Size of provinces and terrain must be given by you (in mapedit) or an external application. The game itself don't do this.

I'll try to find something on province stats.

Kristoffer O

January 10th, 2004, 01:59 PM

OK here's a list of terrains. Add the numbers to get multiple terrains.

nothing 0
small 1
large 2
sea 4
fresh water 8
mountain 16
swamp 32
waste 64
forest 128
farm 256
nostart 512 - for islands and special provinces
manysites 1024 - increased site frequency

Example: Large forest - 2+128=130

* Edit: now the smaller Versions of ringworld and miirunst are available. *

[ January 10, 2004, 12:01: Message edited by: Kristoffer O ]

Gandalf Parker

January 10th, 2004, 05:30 PM

I was able to hack the DomMap code to do things like add the required headers to the map file. And remove the 8 dots of color in the upper left of the tga file which Dom1 required and Dom2 hates. And I vastly increased the size of the tga. I gave up n trying to find the routine that numbered the provinces in Dom1 order instead of Dom2 order. And I see he started on the terrain thing but he was using the terrain discussion that we had in the strategy newsGroups while Illwinter went with a different suggestion. (I think Im the one that mentioned it but now I have to go back and find all my old bit-math notes)

I would be VERY appreciative of a fast and dirty upgrade even if it made the old ugly maps.

Im thinking that a color smoothing routine might make those old maps look better. Like saving the borders and capital dots and running a "glass" function, then pasting the borders and capital dots back.

Then we can talk improvements. GIMP has 3 rather nice world generator scripts which can be batch processed. Ive created a new palette for GIMP that makes one of them work alittle better (less water). Im messing around trying to learn how to do layers since I think doing borders and capital dots on a layer would have great advantages.

Im still surprised that I havent located some really old world generator that creates worlds with the trees, mountains, swamps type of images I remember from old EGA days. Or even a decent set of icons for use in map making.

[ January 10, 2004, 15:32: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

PhilD

January 11th, 2004, 02:07 AM

I had a look at the code for the dommap generator. It isn't too hard to read, and changing the way it works would be fairly easy - in fact, I'm seriously thinking of adapting it so it at least works with dom2.

Still - it's mainly building a random elevation/richness map, and cutting it up into small provinces. I'm not sure I like the way it handles province capital placement, but it seems to work fine, so let's not mess too much with that...

But, the maps it produces don't have the nice feel that the original dom2 maps have: pixel color in dom1 is supposed to indicate terrain, while in dom2 it's totally irrelevant (except the white dots), so I'm not sure what to do about it. In fact, I believe the right thing to do would be to have Gimp do the final touches, but if Gimp can be batch-programmed, I don't know how, and I'm NOT rewriting dommap in scheme as a Gimp plugin from scratch (which, anyway, wouldn't be as portable as C).

I'll try to add my pet feature, which would be to make it able to produce the same map at various resolutions. It should be reasonably easy (as it is now, if you make two maps with different sizes, but the same width/height ratio and the same random seed, you get two different maps, but the coastlines (and, in fact, elevations) are essentially the same).

PhilD

January 11th, 2004, 03:03 PM

I hacked the original dommap program so that it creates files that can be used "as is" with dom2. It seems to work fine, within limits (not very pretty); at least the neighbours are correct, from what I've seen.

Now, with sizes in the 600 range and 90 land provinces (the dommap default), what I get seems very crowded: the flag symbols are way too large compared to the provinces. Is there a way to change that, or is the size of symbols always going to be the same compared to the map size? I tried fooling around with the #defaultzoom command in the .map file, but it doesn't seem to have any effect.

If anybody's interested in getting this gem of a software http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif just email me; I already sent it to Gandalf, as he seemed very eager, and I'll try to get some web page created so I can leave it there, but in the meantime, I can email the zip file.

Gandalf Parker

January 11th, 2004, 06:52 PM

Well for those interested in things so far the zip is available at
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/RandomMaps/dommap-1.90.zip

There is also a run of maps in tga, jpg, map, and a zipped file with tga and map together
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/RandomMaps/

This is a project in progress. And for those who dont know what DomMap is these maps will seem huge and ugly. They are coming out with pretty good neighbor assignments but no terrains (everything is plains, even the water). Feel free to grab any if you want to use it as a starting point for a manually created map

PhilD

January 14th, 2004, 12:09 AM

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Well for those interested in things so far the zip is available at
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/RandomMaps/dommap-1.90.zip

I created a new Version (1.91) that tries to assign a terrain type to each province (based on number of pixels of each color - an ugly hack). It can be found at my lousy Web page (http://duchon.philippe.free.fr/dom2/index.html). Feel free to copy and redistribute, or even to use the stupid thing.

Edit: the maps provided by Illwinter seem to be around 1600x1200, so that's the kind of size that seems to display correctly in the game. Unfortunately, the program's default size is much smaller. But if you use this size with the default amount of water and land provinces (10 and 90), you will see some small and some large provinces. Well, I did.

Edit again: the Version I posted yesterday had some stupid Last-minute bug where it crashed most of the time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Should be fixed now.

[ January 14, 2004, 06:53: Message edited by: PhilD ]

Kristoffer O

January 14th, 2004, 05:53 PM

New map avalable in our map gallery.

This time it's an old favourite: Cirlani remade for Dominions II by Tiltowait.

Saber Cherry

January 14th, 2004, 06:41 PM

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
New map avalable in our map gallery.

This time it's an old favourite: Cirlani remade for Dominions II by Tiltowait. Wow! It looks good! Even has the "cloth effect" =)

Ski Anderson

January 14th, 2004, 10:09 PM

I have created and tested a new map, but I'd rather have a few more eyes take a look at it before I submit it to Illwinter for posting. It's 101 provinces, no wraparound, and a good mix of water and land.

Farthing Map (.ZIP file) - approx. 2.2 megs (http://idleminds.no-ip.com/~ski/farthing.zip)

Let me know if you catch any mistakes. I'd also like feedback on the look of the map before I do any more. I used a program called Campaign Cartographer 2, exported it to a big JPG file, dumped that into Photoshop, got rid of all the white pixels, made a few layers, drew in the borders, added the capitals, saved it as a TGA, etc.

It seems ok to me. I found a few problems during my tests but nothing major. I'm just hoping I didn't screw up anything like marking a mountain province as seas or linking provinces on opposite sides of the map.

If you have some time, please check it out and let me know how it is. It's the first "real" map that I've made for this (or any other game) and I would appreciate some honest feedback.

Oh, and I'm the person responsible for the bland United States map that was posted to the Illwinter site so blame me for mistakes on that as well (like the fact that the name is "48 provinces" instead of something useful). I created that as a test before starting on this map and wanted to make it available to people who might use it. I realize that it's nothing fancy but it does seem functional for smaller games, test games, etc.

Thanks a ton,
Ski

Gandalf Parker

January 14th, 2004, 10:27 PM

Very nice. Did Cartographer generate the map with all those trees and mountains? Or is it more like a paint program with terrain-type brushes?

The colors are alittle painful for me. I would pastel it abit. Lighter water and less bright grasslands. Make everything kindof meet closer to the middle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

January 14th, 2004, 10:50 PM

Cirlani looks great. Good province number and water provinces too!

Way to go Tilt http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

On Farthing I agree with Gandalf, the Grasslands are too vibrant in my mind, makes it hard to look at. Maybe put some shallow looking water near the coastlines if you like your 'deep water' effect.

Also your Borders are hard to see sometimes, make them more black?

[ January 14, 2004, 20:56: Message edited by: Zen ]

Ski Anderson

January 14th, 2004, 11:10 PM

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Very nice. Did Cartographer generate the map with all those trees and mountains? Or is it more like a paint program with terrain-type brushes?

The colors are alittle painful for me. I would pastel it abit. Lighter water and less bright grasslands. Make everything kindof meet closer to the middle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif It's more of the latter than the former. CC2 doesn't really do any of the work for you, but it makes some of the drawing aspects easier. It has a range of built in "decorations" like the trees, mountains, and so on. It can make your coastlines more jagged, which is helpful too.

I definitely agree with the suggestion about colors. Most of those colors in the map are the defaults for CC2. The actual default ocean color they use is a bright cyan. I darkened up the water (sounds like I darkened it too much) but didn't darken up the grassy color enough.

I don't know if I'll go back and change the colors on this particular map, but I'll work on it for any future maps. I sincerely apologize for anyone that gets blinded by the Farthing map.

On another note, are there particular map styles that players are wanting people to make? Are there gaps in the available maps that need filled? For example, I think I'm going to try to make a small map suitable for just 2 people because I just don't know how many small maps are available right now. What other kind of maps do people want?

licker

January 14th, 2004, 11:37 PM

I prefer maps that have more land barriers than most of the existing ones do. The stratigic importance of provinces isn't really there a lot of the time. The economic importance dominates.

Things like bigger impassable mountain ranges (through several provinces) impassable forests, huge wastes... you can do it for any terrain type other than plains or farm land I suppose. Just some map (size doesn't matter [snigger] http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) where the land terrain is broken up a bit would be interesting.

Arralen

January 15th, 2004, 12:11 AM

Originally posted by Ski Anderson:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Very nice. Did Cartographer generate the map with all those trees and mountains? Or is it more like a paint program with terrain-type brushes?

The colors are alittle painful for me. I would pastel it abit. Lighter water and less bright grasslands. Make everything kindof meet closer to the middle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif It's more of the latter than the former. CC2 doesn't really do any of the work for you, but it makes some of the drawing aspects easier. It has a range of built in "decorations" like the trees, mountains, and so on. It can make your coastlines more jagged, which is helpful too.

I definitely agree with the suggestion about colors. Most of those colors in the map are the defaults for CC2. <hr /></blockquote>Gave it a 35-second overhaul with GIMP.

Lighter ocean blue, less bright green, borders visibility improved ...

Get the .tga file here
reworked farthing .tga file (http://home.arcor.de/stefan_weniger/download/farthing_mod.zip)

Haven't tested the file, though, so if anything goes wrong using it, just tell me and I'll fix it.

Hope you have fun ...
A.

edit: Had to invest some more 15 minutes to get the white pixels back (obviously something didn't work as it should). Used the opportunity to get the file size down to roughly 1/3 by reducing the colour palette to 256 colours...

[ January 14, 2004, 22:38: Message edited by: Arralen ]

Tiltowait

January 15th, 2004, 03:58 PM

Farthing: Looks great, though I agree with the others about the color, hurts my eyes. (dunno which paint program you use, but some let you have the command 'select similar', so you could select a white pixel/capital, select similar then copy em into a blank picture file, then change the colors and paste em back in, all without worrying about neighboors getting messed up)

I zipped through the province neighboors and did not see any problems. I wish I had that program !

Tiltowait

January 15th, 2004, 04:03 PM

Cant get the new one to load properly.

Gandalf Parker

January 15th, 2004, 08:29 PM

Originally posted by PhilD:
I created a new Version (1.91) that tries to assign a terrain type to each province (based on number of pixels of each color - an ugly hack). It can be found at my lousy Web page (http://duchon.philippe.free.fr/dom2/index.html). Feel free to copy and redistribute, or even to use the stupid thing.

Edit: the maps provided by Illwinter seem to be around 1600x1200, so that's the kind of size that seems to display correctly in the game. Unfortunately, the program's default size is much smaller. But if you use this size with the default amount of water and land provinces (10 and 90), you will see some small and some large provinces. Well, I did.
[/QUOTE]

OK for those following the DomMap project I have a web directory set up.
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/RandomMaps/

At the moment it runs 30 maps as large as I can get. Could be larger but I have too many things running on my server right now to mass generate the max size. Still they should be about 450 provinces (400 land and 50 sea) and a size of 1200x2400. The pixels are quite scattered which I should probably stop doing since it might be better for Dom2 to leave larger patches of color. The jigsaw shapes of the province borders is set to extreme so that there are lots of strategic locations on each map. Each map is in the directory as .tga, .map, a .zip containing both tga and map, plus a .jpg for easy viewing and for those who would rather snag the jpg. The terrains are fairly well guessed at and the maps should be playable so let me know if there are any problems.

There are multiple directions to move next. More directorys for small, medium, large. Web page thumnails for easier viewing. trying to script something to work the visual parts of them better. Scripting to offer daily maps with my touch of random insanity. Give me a clue.....

[ January 15, 2004, 20:21: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Ski Anderson

January 15th, 2004, 10:53 PM

Originally posted by Tiltowait:
Farthing: Looks great, though I agree with the others about the color, hurts my eyes. (dunno which paint program you use, but some let you have the command 'select similar', so you could select a white pixel/capital, select similar then copy em into a blank picture file, then change the colors and paste em back in, all without worrying about neighboors getting messed up)

I zipped through the province neighboors and did not see any problems. I wish I had that program ! Thank you very much for the feedback.

Taking the comments that I got into consideration, I tried to make my second map today. Borders are darker and the water and grasslands are less abusive to the eye.

It's a very small map (19 provinces, no water) suitable for 2 player games. It's called "A Question of Symmetry" and anyone who wants it is welcome to take a look at it.

A Question of Symmetry - Small Map - 19 Provinces - Approx. 473k (http://idleminds.no-ip.com/~ski/symmetry.zip)

Comments, concerns, suggestions or fixes are appreciated. I'm completely new to this so I apologize in advance for any troubles.

Ski

Arralen

January 15th, 2004, 10:55 PM

Originally posted by Tiltowait:
Cant get the new farthing map to load properly. Sorry, folks, didn't have the time to test it properly.

Looks like DOM doesn't like indexed palette colors .. .
Fixed that, but file size has grown back to 9 MB again.

Loaded the map/graphic up in the editor and it looked quite o.k. .

You can get the reworked .tga file here. (http://home.arcor.de/stefan_weniger/download/farthing_mod.zip)

[ January 15, 2004, 20:56: Message edited by: Arralen ]

Gandalf Parker

January 21st, 2004, 10:23 PM

OK if you want to see what Arralens routine does to the DomMap generated maps then here is an example...
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/way2hard.tga
(and YES its huge but its still in work)

Also if you are interested in the types of maps that can be auto-generated by GIMP then check this one out...
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/rendered.tga

I can do improvements on that but Im not interested in drawing borders and placing capital dots. And Im WAY not interested in figuring out #neighbor and #terrain for the .map file. If someone creates a program for those then maybe.
(GIMP is a free way-powerful programmable Paint program for most platforms which is what the devs use)

Gandalf Parker

January 22nd, 2004, 06:21 PM

And the new addition for the day is....
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/RandomMaps/000index1.jpg

I cant seem to get the html part to work right. Maybe tomorrow. But at least you can look at the thumbnail index it makes and see the file names
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Gandalf Parker

January 23rd, 2004, 05:15 PM

FINALLY! We are back up to where we were on DomMap for Dominions 1.
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/RandomMaps/thumbnails.html

Now if I can get something to automatically do a slight blurring of the maps they will look much better (now that the old Dom1 pixel patterns arent needed). These maps are all playable. The .map file for each one has decent #neighbor and #terrain assinments.

Now for some improvments.

1) multiple download offeres? zip, tga, jpg, map

2) blurring (smoothing the image) of the maps

3) offering games of random crazyness

4) offering the same thing as today but in more sizes

5) offering the same as today but other DomMap preferences (such as less dots and larger blocks of color)

6) drop the DomMap and shift attention to the GIMP rendered maps because they are prettier

7) drop the whole thing and concentrate on getting a web-based server to work

8) give up period

COME ON PEOPLE. Im fishing for a direction here. Is anyone listening? Do I need to make a poll out of it to get some responses? http://www.sdmud.org/~gandalf/smile/saiyan.gif

Leadman

January 23rd, 2004, 05:47 PM

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:

COME ON PEOPLE. Im fishing for a direction here. Is anyone listening? Do I need to make a poll out of it to get some responses? http://www.sdmud.org/~gandalf/smile/saiyan.gif [/QB]The maps are great, thanks! What I would like to see is map making tools for the computer challenged such as myself. I would love to make maps but am completely lost when trying to follow the map making/editing discussions. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif If it were possible to develop something similar to the map making capabilities in Kohan, I believe that we would see a lot more maps for the game. Whatever you do, don't give up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Leadman

Nagot Gick Fel

January 23rd, 2004, 06:11 PM

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
7) drop the whole thing and concentrate on getting a web-based server to workBetter yet, do both! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Oh, and many thanks for your commitment, you'll never get all the praise you deserve.

Gandalf Parker

January 24th, 2004, 05:58 PM

30 new maps are available, if you dont like any of them then check back tomorrow. They are all 450 land and 50 water.
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/RandomMaps/thumbnails.html

They are playable as they are but are better for using as a base to work with the idea of making an interesting game map. Grab one you like, edit the image, edit the .map file, give it your own game name, and an interesting description. Add things, delete things, rename things, choose the opponents, boost them harder if you wish, or make things easier. The MapEdit.pdf in the doc directory of your game tells you the things you can do. Have fun.

[ January 24, 2004, 16:01: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Targa

January 27th, 2004, 01:08 AM

Gandalf: I tried looking at
OK if you want to see what Arralens routine does to the DomMap generated maps then here is an example...
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/way2hard.tga
(and YES its huge but its still in work)

Also if you are interested in the types of maps that can be auto-generated by GIMP then check this one out...
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/rendered.tga
But the pages come up blank.?? I would love to see GIMP compared to the other maps. Looking at the maps from your Last post, I would have to vote:
6) drop the DomMap and shift attention to the GIMP rendered maps because they are prettier

The layouts are great, but as you said, you need some type of gaussian blur for the pixelation. I would like to give back to the community, which is my normal modus operandi when I'm hooked on a game, and it usually involves something with graphics... Actually I looked at this thread because I was thinking of posting a new thread asking if there was any real interest in new maps. I would like to see something a bit better-looking than the crosshatch-paper-texture maps done with pastel colors that come with Dom2. Is it worth the time investment? You seem to be having difficulty getting a positive response from the community:

COME ON PEOPLE. Im fishing for a direction here. Is anyone listening? Do I need to make a poll out of it to get some responses? Is anyone out there using these or interested in new maps?

-Targa

The_Maxx

January 27th, 2004, 01:36 AM

Gandalf Parker,

I fully appreciate the work you're doing, and I constantly come here to check for any updates that involve your map project. In fact, I basically come here only to see what progress youve made.

Love your random map craziness, my buddy and I play them religiously (adds to the atmosphere going up against an army of pretender gods right at the beginning with only you're dinky start army, and if you're lucky a powerful random mercenary start group).

Keep up the work. I hope to see many new maps. I prefer smaller maps to the ones you currently have, btw - Ill never finish a 450 province map, ever, ever.

The_Maxx

Gandalf Parker

January 27th, 2004, 02:11 AM

Originally posted by Targa:
Gandalf: I tried looking at
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> OK if you want to see what Arralens routine does to the DomMap generated maps then here is an example...
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/way2hard.tga
(and YES its huge but its still in work)

Also if you are interested in the types of maps that can be auto-generated by GIMP then check this one out...
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/rendered.tga
But the pages come up blank.??
<hr /></blockquote>They are tga so you need a viewer that can see them. Try right-clicking the link and saving it to your machine then viewing it.

I would love to see GIMP compared to the other maps. Looking at the maps from your Last post, I would have to vote:
6) drop the DomMap and shift attention to the GIMP rendered maps because they are prettier
I could probably get something going which would generate piles of rendered maps from GIMP. But they wouldnt be playable. They would be good starts at an image that someone could MAKE a game map out of.

Part of the advantage of DomMap is that it also creates the .map file. Unless someone wants to write a seperate .map generator I would have to say the GIMP project is a ways off. On the other hand, a blur of the DomMap images does great.

The layouts are great, but as you said, you need some type of gaussian blur for the pixelation. I would like to give back to the community, which is my normal modus operandi when I'm hooked on a game, and it usually involves something with graphics... Great. Me too. My community service usually involves something like moderating forums. That and hosting a site. Im doing alot more in programming, graphics, and web for this game than I usually do but thankfully so far no one has flamed me for it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Actually I looked at this thread because I was thinking of posting a new thread asking if there was any real interest in new maps. I would like to see something a bit better-looking than the crosshatch-paper-texture maps done with pastel colors that come with Dom2. We have had a couple done that were satellite photographs. But they come up slowly. I think people would like to see alot of variety. Please do some.

For my part I will be working more toward simple, faster download, randomly generated, mass produced stuff which should help make yours look real good.

Is it worth the time investment? You seem to be having difficulty getting a positive response from the community:
I like to remind them occassionally to thank the people here who do things. The concept of how to "pay for free things" so the people who make them feel like making more. Its not for me so much since I can see from my server logs how much traffic my stuff gets.

My maps get quite abit of download but its the worked ones that really get the traffic. The ones that do fun random things to the instructions in the .map file. Im working my way back toward the amount of automatically generated daily offers I had with Dom1.

Targa

January 27th, 2004, 06:32 AM

I shoulda known that IE couldn't display .tga's. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

I see the difference now, and I actually like the DomMap pictures better. Is there any way you could adapt the program so you could "feed" it a picture file, and it would insert province borders and the white dots in the middle of each, along with generating a .map file? Perhaps specifying that shades of blue would be water and anything else would be land? (don't know a thing about coding). I whipped up a quick map in Bryce...if I had a web site I'd post it. But it's just a picture. The thought of hand-drawing all the province borders and white dots, along with making a .map file...ugh. Not to mention the unpassable borders by mountain ranges...hmm, that could be a problem for an auto-program.

Gandalf Parker

January 27th, 2004, 05:35 PM

It can be done but not by me Im afraid. I can work out alot of the steps (what programmers call psuedo-code) but turning it into a program is probably out of my league.

Gandalf Parker

January 27th, 2004, 06:08 PM

New thing going on here. Im not so good at understanding all of setings for DomMap so Ive come up with a hacker fix. Im running maps on almost completely random settings and saving the scripts that generate something I like. Many of them fail with errors saying xxxx cant be larger then yyyy and stuff like that. But Im getting some interesting results.
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/RandomMaps/junk/
Even though the results are playable I didnt expect to get more than junk (hence the directory name) so only the jpgs were put there but Im considering changing that. Is anyone else running the Dom2 Version of DomMap? Should I put these scripts there for viewing?

If you see one you really like and are quick with an email I can zip it and put it there for pickup.

On an added note... I am considering dropping the nightly runs of the Dom1 Version DomMaps.

Gandalf Parker
-- to email me replace Parker with @community.net

[ January 27, 2004, 16:11: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Targa

January 27th, 2004, 06:52 PM

How about making maps/pictures, but without any colors other than water? If you had the .map file and a .tga file with borders/capitals, it could be used as an overlay layer on a user-made map. I was going to try this with the ones you have, but the "speckled" colors make it too difficult.

Kristoffer O

January 27th, 2004, 07:18 PM

Originally posted by Targa:
How about making maps/pictures, but without any colors other than water? If you had the .map file and a .tga file with borders/capitals, it could be used as an overlay layer on a user-made map. I was going to try this with the ones you have, but the "speckled" colors make it too difficult. I'm not sure I understand? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

Do you mean that I should make a two colour map without capitals and borders? I could easily do a hundred of these, but would they be of any interest.

Or do you mean that I should make maps without borders and capitals?

Or do you mean that I should make borders and capitals without maps?

Or do you mean something in between?

Targa

January 27th, 2004, 07:40 PM

Ok, hopefully this link will work...it's a free image hosting site I found:

test map from Bryce (http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpubimage.asp?id_=7774602&selected=753536)

Kristoffer: Actually I was referring to Gandalf's maps. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif The "speckle effect" would hamper modifications. I also can't select/delete the areas inside the borders, because the borders themselves are too ill-defined and pixelated. I realize now that I was wrong in what I was asking for though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif What would be good (either from Gandalf/DomMap or from Kristoffer) would be a map with the following:

1) Water areas are solid blue.
2) Land areas are solid beige (same color as Aran map).
3) Province borders are drawn in.
4) Capital white dots are drawn in.
5) .map file exists, with water/land province info in it (but not strictly necessary as long as the Dom 2 in-game editor works with designating land/water provinces).

Then a user could take this "base map" and paint in green areas for fertile lands, add trees and mountains, etc. Also, it would be nice if you (Illwinter) would give us the icons you used in the game (the trees, mountains, etc).

So it would look something like this:

goof (http://www.villagephotos.com/viewimage.asp?id_=7775551) **EDIT: Pic removed and changed due to off-site hosting restrictions in storage space.

Except it would have province borders and capital white dots.

The first picture is something I threw together in Bryce real quick. That's sort of what I had in mind when I said I'd like to see a better-looking map. But the prospect of having to draw all the province borders, dots, and creating a .map file....ugh. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ January 27, 2004, 19:27: Message edited by: Targa ]

Gandalf Parker

January 27th, 2004, 08:11 PM

I love the Bryce map.

I can probably get DomMap to do larger colored areas but Im not sure if it would work that well. DomMap does 2 things now that save alot of time. Setting all the #neighbor commands and setting all the #terrain commands. Doing what you want would make the terrains have to be done manually.

With GIMP it is easy to grab the capitals and borders to a seperate image. Hmmmm brain kicking in here. Grab borders and capitals. Keep the original there but semi-transparent. Replace the pixels with smoother gradient effects but appropriate to what was there such as one for grass, one for swamp, one for mountain. Paste some of the icon stuff as appropriate. Then delete the original layer, merge the repainted one with the borders and capitals, save image. Hmmmm that could work. It would make all the original map info still good.

Another direction Im looking at is that DomMap seems to do a fractal landcape but pixels it in 8 colors possibly because of the old Dom1 limits. Maybe I can find the place in the code where it puts 1 color for a whole range of hieghts and change it to use a range of colors there for smoother effects. It would be better if some C programmer looked at it. The original DomMap programmer doesnt seem to be active anymore (Im half tempted to buy a copy of Dom2 and send it to him to get him hooked again MUHAHahahaha)

Strages Sanctus

January 27th, 2004, 08:23 PM

Wow I forgot all about Bryce. Time to dust off the cd and the skills heh.

Targa

January 27th, 2004, 09:23 PM

OK, (duh!) I located and downloaded DomMap. Now all that's needed are the tree/mountain/etc graphics from Illwinter. Using the DomMap generated picture and map file, it's a simple matter of cut/paste in Photoshop to get this:

low-quality jpeg map (http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-1/616587/random.jpg)

If the trees and mountains and stuff were available, it'd be fairly simple to make a Dom2-like map, although you'd still need to make the terrain match up... hmm..

[ January 27, 2004, 19:32: Message edited by: Targa ]

January 27th, 2004, 09:26 PM

All you have to do then is just add a 3d for Banner, castle, temple and labs, and suddenly you have a 'pretty' interface. I'd enjoy it.

Kristoffer O

January 27th, 2004, 09:53 PM

Originally posted by Targa:
OK, (duh!) I located and downloaded DomMap. Now all that's needed are the tree/mountain/etc graphics from Illwinter. Using the DomMap generated picture and map file, it's a simple matter of cut/paste in Photoshop to get this:

low-quality jpeg map (http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-1/616587/random.jpg)

If the trees and mountains and stuff were available, it'd be fairly simple to make a Dom2-like map, although you'd still need to make the terrain match up... hmm.. No access. Daily limit something.

You can find a mapstuff file (xcf format) on the Illwinter site. If you need another format let me know.

[ January 27, 2004, 19:56: Message edited by: Kristoffer O ]

Gandalf Parker

January 27th, 2004, 10:36 PM

Originally posted by Targa:
OK, (duh!) I located and downloaded DomMap. Now all that's needed are the tree/mountain/etc graphics from Illwinter. Using the DomMap generated picture and map file, it's a simple matter of cut/paste in Photoshop to get this:
Are you using the DomMap2 Version? Hopefully Phillip has the updated Version listed since we did alot of little tweaks to make the .map file match what Dom2 wants. Are you using it in linux? If you manage to compile it for windows let us know.

PhilD

January 27th, 2004, 11:37 PM

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Targa:
OK, (duh!) I located and downloaded DomMap. Now all that's needed are the tree/mountain/etc graphics from Illwinter. Using the DomMap generated picture and map file, it's a simple matter of cut/paste in Photoshop to get this:
Are you using the DomMap2 Version? Hopefully Phillip has the updated Version listed since we did alot of little tweaks to make the .map file match what Dom2 wants. Are you using it in linux? If you manage to compile it for windows let us know. <hr /></blockquote>I haven't made any new changes, but I updated the Version on my page (http://duchon.philippe.free.fr/dom2/) to match the Last I sent to you.

I'm not going to try and make this produce much prettier maps; that would best be done with Gimp scripts, not a few hundred lines of C.

Oh, and it's Philippe, not Phillip. But you're not the first to make that mistake (even though I believe, even in English, it's usually spelled Philip).

PhilD

January 27th, 2004, 11:47 PM

Originally posted by Targa:
Ok, hopefully this link will work...it's a free image hosting site I found:

test map from Bryce (http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpubimage.asp?id_=7774602&selected=753536)

Wow! Nice! What kind of program are you using to make this?

What would be good (either from Gandalf/DomMap or from Kristoffer) would be a map with the following:

1) Water areas are solid blue.
2) Land areas are solid beige (same color as Aran map).
3) Province borders are drawn in.
4) Capital white dots are drawn in.
5) .map file exists, with water/land province info in it (but not strictly necessary as long as the Dom 2 in-game editor works with designating land/water provinces).
I can probably add an option to dommap so that it outputs only these colors (blue for sea provinces, beige for land provinces, white capitals, red borders, another blue for sea borders; I just noticed, though, that the border algorithm apparently loses some pixels, at least in the seas).

I'd leave the neighbours, and can either leave the terrain information or not, in the .map file. Or even add an option for each. AFAIK dom2 doesn't even try to guess at neighbours, so these are required unless you want to mess with them in the editor.

Any interest in this? It's most likely a 20-line hack - should be within my capabilities. After all, I'm just a CS teacher...

Gandalf Parker

January 28th, 2004, 12:56 AM

Originally posted by PhilD:
Any interest in this? It's most likely a 20-line hack - should be within my capabilities. After all, I'm just a CS teacher... Might be able to do this anyway. There is a setting for how pixilated and another for how much to try and follow the colors for drawing borders. Between those two settings it might already be possible.

What Id like to know is if dommap assigns those colors to a range of height. It does a full fractal map. If a height of 10-20 is given the one green pixel because of the old Dom1 restrictions, then maybe we can change it to do a range of green for each one between 10-20. Even figure in the height into the color choice.(instead of 10/200/10 it could be 10/180+height/10)

Targa

January 28th, 2004, 02:14 AM

Kristoffer (and all), try this link:
low quality jpeg map (http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpubimage.asp?id_=7775551&selected=753536)

They apparently have a daily bandwidth usage for free accounts, so I found a backdoor. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

As for the mapstuff files, xcf is GIMP format, which neither I nor many gamers use. So if you could convert them to something like tga or bmp for us that would be great!

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Are you using the DomMap2 Version? Hopefully Phillip has the updated Version listed since we did alot of little tweaks to make the .map file match what Dom2 wants. Are you using it in linux? If you manage to compile it for windows let us know.I don't see a Version mentioned. I downloaded it from dominionsx I think, and ran it under WinXP. Worked fine...at least for creating the picture file. The map file is there, and full of text, but I have no idea if Dom2 will actually read it correctly. It has a bunch of "neighbor" and "setland" stuff in it... I run it and it pops up in a DOS box, then produces random.tga and random.map files.

Originally posted by PhilD:
Wow! Nice! What kind of program are you using to make this?Bryce 4.0 from Metacreations. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Is there any documentation on using the Map Editor included with Dominions 2? I read the 2 pdf files that came with the patch, and they're not very explicit. They also don't explain anything about how to use the built-in program. I read on this board that if you use "guess neighbors" it crashes the game. My question is: Can the built-in editor be used to generate an accurate .map file? It appears as though it's just asking for a finished .tga file, but when I loaded one (complete with white dots for capitols), none of the buttons/boxes did anything. There was just a white indie flag in the bottom-left corner of the map the whole time.

EDIT: Found another freebie site. Try these links if you can't see the pics:
low quality jpg quickie map (http://targa.webspace4free.biz/index2.html)
Bryce test map (http://targa.webspace4free.biz/index3.html)

[ January 28, 2004, 04:25: Message edited by: Targa ]

PhilD

January 28th, 2004, 09:19 AM

Originally posted by Targa:

As for the mapstuff files, xcf is GIMP format, which neither I nor many gamers use. So if you could convert them to something like tga or bmp for us that would be great!
Note that Gimp is free, so you can use it. But I'd understand if you didn't want to switch from your favorite program.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Are you using the DomMap2 Version? Hopefully Phillip has the updated Version listed since we did alot of little tweaks to make the .map file match what Dom2 wants. Are you using it in linux? If you manage to compile it for windows let us know.I don't see a Version mentioned. I downloaded it from dominionsx I think, and ran it under WinXP. Worked fine...at least for creating the picture file. The map file is there, and full of text, but I have no idea if Dom2 will actually read it correctly. It has a bunch of "neighbor" and "setland" stuff in it... I run it and it pops up in a DOS box, then produces random.tga and random.map files.
<hr /></blockquote>That's most likely the original dommap program, which is for dom1 maps. Look at the first line of the .map file: the new Version outputs something like "#dom2title random". It will produce .map files that can be used right out of the box to play ugly games, but then you can do almost whatever you like to the .tga file to make it bearable.

The new Version is available here (http://duchon.philippe.free.fr/dom2) .

PhilD

January 28th, 2004, 09:19 AM

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by PhilD:
Any interest in this? It's most likely a 20-line hack - should be within my capabilities. After all, I'm just a CS teacher... Might be able to do this anyway. There is a setting for how pixilated and another for how much to try and follow the colors for drawing borders. Between those two settings it might already be possible.
<hr /></blockquote>Might be doable, but it will likely result in Provinces with very convoluted shapes. You could set the various height/richness limits at outrageous levels so that it results in single-color provinces, but that will make it output the same terrain type for all Provinces.

What Id like to know is if dommap assigns those colors to a range of height. It does a full fractal map. If a height of 10-20 is given the one green pixel because of the old Dom1 restrictions, then maybe we can change it to do a range of green for each one between 10-20. Even figure in the height into the color choice.(instead of 10/200/10 it could be 10/180+height/10) It's two fractal maps, actually: a height map, and a richness map. Then low/poor pixels are assigned such terrain type, low/normal pixels get this, and so on. There are command line switches to change the low, high, poor, and rich levels.

We could do more ranges, but because of the fractal nature of the thing, this will result in more isolated pixels. Plus, more work for me
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif . What is needed is smoothing of the maps, which is most likely what the Gimp scripts that generate maps do, so that the terrain limits are actually limits instead of lots of isolated pixels.

Gandalf Parker

January 28th, 2004, 04:21 PM

Originally posted by PhilD:
We could do more ranges, but because of the fractal nature of the thing, this will result in more isolated pixels. Plus, more work for me
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif . What is needed is smoothing of the maps, which is most likely what the Gimp scripts that generate maps do, so that the terrain limits are actually limits instead of lots of isolated pixels. Well GIMP would be another direction. So far we dont seem to have any scheme programmers showing up (which GIMP seems to prefer for scripts-fu). Too bad. A nice 3-step scipt would do much for fixing up the dommaps.

I can get some very nice rendered maps from GIMP. Maybe someone could write something that will pick up the images and dommap them. EDGE (put borders around large color areas. DIVIDE draw borders across areas still too large. CAPITALIZE put a white dot in the middle of each one. WRITE MAP with guessed neighbors and terrains. I know it would be a big project but it would be useable for any map coming from any program or even hand drawn.

[ January 28, 2004, 14:22: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Targa

January 28th, 2004, 05:16 PM

Ah...OK, I see it now in the map file. It says Version 0.7, so I guess it's the Dom1 prog. Well, I don't know anything about C, other than it being the 3rd letter of the alphabet so..... I found and downloaded "LCC-Win32" which seems like it's what's needed to run your Version (which I also downloaded, thanks!), but have no clue as to how to use it. Some searching comes up with some cryptic information like:

Open a DOS box in Windows, set PATH=c:\lcc-win32\bin, and that's about as far as I got. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

LCC-Win32 is "C only" (won't work with C++), so I dunno about that either. But in response to Gandalf's earlier question about getting it to compile in Windows, you guys should check out this page. It seems like it would work:
http://home.worldOnline.co.za/~rmaritz/

-Targa

PhilD

January 28th, 2004, 09:04 PM

Originally posted by Targa:
Ah...OK, I see it now in the map file. It says Version 0.7, so I guess it's the Dom1 prog. Well, I don't know anything about C, other than it being the 3rd letter of the alphabet so..... I found and downloaded "LCC-Win32" which seems like it's what's needed to run your Version (which I also downloaded, thanks!), but have no clue as to how to use it. Some searching comes up with some cryptic information like:

Open a DOS box in Windows, set PATH=c:\lcc-win32\bin, and that's about as far as I got. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

LCC-Win32 is "C only" (won't work with C++), so I dunno about that either. But in response to Gandalf's earlier question about getting it to compile in Windows, you guys should check out this page. It seems like it would work:
http://home.worldOnline.co.za/~rmaritz/

-Targa Hah! I forgot that source code wasn't the distribution method of choice for some OSes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Can't help you with the compilation, sorry. There isn't any C++ code in there (I even checked for C++ comments), so if you have a proper compiler it should work OK.

I have absolutely no idea what's available in the way of (free) compilers for Windows. I had a quick look at www.gnu.org, (http://www.gnu.org,) and the GCC compiler does exist for Windows if you install Cygwin, but it might be more trouble than you want.

As for the dommap program itself... it only opens two files and writes a little text to the standard output, so running it in a "DOS box" should be OK.

Graeme Dice

January 28th, 2004, 09:24 PM

Originally posted by PhilD:
I have absolutely no idea what's available in the way of (free) compilers for Windows. I had a quick look at www.gnu.org, (http://www.gnu.org,) and the GCC compiler does exist for Windows if you install Cygwin, but it might be more trouble than you want.You want DJGPP most likely for a DOS compiler that will likely run under windows. It's at www.delorie.com (http://www.delorie.com)

You can also get ahold of Borland's C++ compiler for free nowadays.

Targa

January 29th, 2004, 07:05 PM

OK, here's the thing (as I see it).

1) Maps that look similar to Aran map are not easy to make for most ppl.

2) Because of this, we don't see many ppl coming up with new maps, as you might see in other games with "level editors".

3) It wouldn't take much to change this, if we had someone to do a little work.

I downloaded and ran DomMap (the original), which is a great starting point, but this program lacks the following:

1) Maps can only be 800x599 maximum (should be 1600x1200).

2) The generated .map file is not the same as a Dom2 .map file (from what I'm told)

Making the .map file doesn't seem to be an issue, since you can use the built-in prog that comes with Dom2. Sure, some people might not want to do this, but alot more would if they had a decent map to start with.

What I'm trying to say: If we had a program (or someone modified DomMap prog, or PhilD's mod can do this) that would create 1600x1200 .tga's with clear borders, capitol dots, and no pixelation (as seen by using the -d 0 command-line switch with DomMap), and we had someone (Kristoffer?) who would convert the xcf mapstuff to a more popular format (preferably .bmp or .tga to retain quality), I could provide a Photoshop tutorial on how to take one of these randomly generated maps and make it look just like Aran map.

I don't know the capabilties of Phil's Version because I don't run Linux, and not many people do.

If PhilD's hack can run the -d 0 command-line switch, then all we need is someone who runs a linux machine to create a bunch of "base maps" for us (along with Illwinter converting the xcf files).

Gandalf Parker

January 29th, 2004, 08:24 PM

1) Maps can only be 800x599 maximum (should be 1600x1200).Phil_D fixed that in the new one. In fact I think it can do twice that big. And all of the capabilities of the old dommap are in the new one so yes it should be able to create the kindof maps you want. I just dont generate them that way because Im too lazy to do anything with a partially done map. Is this closer?
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/RandomMaps/junk/TestingXL.jpg

I don't know the capabilties of Phil's Version because I don't run Linux, and not many people do.Hmmm I think I would have worded that as not many Users do. Even thats changing rapidly since many people run linux now as just a desktop workstation rather than a server. But Im just being picky.

If PhilD's hack can run the -d 0 command-line switch, then all we need is someone who runs a linux machine to create a bunch of "base maps" for us (along with Illwinter converting the xcf files). Alot of us can do the conVersion. Many programmers use GIMP. Being a free and powerful paint program doesnt hurt either.

Here is a conVersion for you. You might do some other formats for others.
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/mapstuff.tga

[ January 29, 2004, 18:27: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Gandalf Parker

January 29th, 2004, 08:43 PM

Getting closer?
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/RandomMaps/junk/

[ January 29, 2004, 19:30: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Targa

January 29th, 2004, 09:41 PM

Either of those would work great (as they are missing the pixelation). I'm running into more difficulties though. *sigh* This will never be easy unless someone were to create a very powerful map designer for this game.

Basically what I was attempting to do is to take a DomMap map, delete all the color information, just retaining the province borders and capitol dots, then filling in the land and sea with Dom 2's texture, as you can see here:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/junky.jpg

(I just threw the mountains and stuff on there, don't pay attention to those graphics)

Problems....
The beige and blue is no problem, but then you have to draw in all the rivers by hand. If you are going to use the "mapstuff" icons (a mountain range for example), you'd have to hand-modify the province borders to follow the shape of the mountains. Have to paint in the greenery (valleys) and "forest shadows", etc... alot of work went into the maps that came with Dom2!

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Hmmm I think I would have worded that as not many Users do. Not many people, not many Users...what's the diff between a person and a user? Yeah, you're being picky. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif A very good friend of mine is a linux fanatic, and I know exactly where you're coming from. No insult or slight intended. My meaning was that the vast majority of gamers out there are running MS Windows OS's. So if DomMap (Phil's Version) only runs on linux/unix, there won't be as many Dom2 fans using it to create maps.

Oh well... there's always the old fashioned way of hard work. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Gandalf Parker

January 29th, 2004, 11:09 PM

Originally posted by Targa:

<blockquote>quote:<hr /> Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Hmmm I think I would have worded that as not many Users do. Not many people, not many Users...what's the diff between a person and a user? Yeah, you're being picky. <hr /></blockquote>Well system admins and guru's are people too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Actually I only use linux as a server and for internet stuff. I like to keep the GUI stuff off my server. I play games on WinXP.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif A very good friend of mine is a linux fanatic, and I know exactly where you're coming from. No insult or slight intended. My meaning was that the vast majority of gamers out there are running MS Windows OS's. So if DomMap (Phil's Version) only runs on linux/unix, there won't be as many Dom2 fans using it to create maps.

Oh well... there's always the old fashioned way of hard work. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif [/QB][/QUOTE]

Targa

January 30th, 2004, 03:10 AM

Since I'm still new to this, I don't really know what people are looking for. Would there be any interest in this map, if I were to make it look similar to aran (graphically):

http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/maybe.jpg

That's 310 land, 75 sea provinces. Too many? Not enough? Choke points not good?

Arryn

January 30th, 2004, 03:44 AM

Great looking map, Targa. 20% water, wow. R'lyeh players will love it! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

January 30th, 2004, 03:57 AM

That is alot of sea provinces. Maybe you could adjust it down some. ~30-40

And for kicks put in all the good 'underwater' sites that allow for a decent triton/shambler/watery creatures on the coasts.

Hard to tell chokepoints based on anything but neighbors.

Other than that, looks good.

Gandalf Parker

January 30th, 2004, 03:58 AM

Nice looking start there. Probably quite playable. For land/water balance I try to figure a map as being 5/10/25 provinces each. Then do the 10*15 for land and 10*2 for water.

Targa

January 30th, 2004, 06:01 AM

OK, here's a new shot of it with 250 land, 38 water. Better?

http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/maybe2.jpg

Gandalf Parker

January 30th, 2004, 03:43 PM

Originally posted by Targa:
OK, here's a new shot of it with 250 land, 38 water. Better?
Looks good to me. Making a map that way with DomMap seems like a good way to get a starting map. You can run off 100 with the same setings and look at them to see if any catch your eye. That way the provinces, capitals, #terrain settings and #neighbor settings are all figured out and any paint program can add the touches that make it special. Any word processor can add instructions that give the map a storyline and unique locations.

By the way, the MapEditor feature to add names to every province does seem to work well. Same concept. Its easier to create it and see ones you would like to change than to do it all manually from a blank slate. I have some work done on a random name generator but there hasnt been much interest.