important mapping questions

[King Kong]

Hi all,

I hope someone can help me with a few annoying mapping problems:

1. The most important point first: Is there any good way how I can create smooth mountains?
I don't see any system, where I know that he mountains will look good.
All good-looking mountains I've made so far were purely by chance.
I.e: a vanilla mountain in the ground types map::

is looking similar to this in vanilla:

but strangely, when I make exactly the same ground types (even with exactly the same heights!) on my extended map, the montains often look much worse on my map:

(note: it isn't exactly the same mountain, but they often look similar to this one)


2. How can I get rid of these black pixels?



3. What do trade routes exactly do?
I've made new varangian trade routes, but I don't see any differences...


I would be grateful for every help and ideas!

Thanks in advance!

[alpaca]

1. That's because only the pixels with odd/odd coordinates in map_ground_types set the ground type for their tile (descr_region pixel). Move the thing about a bit so the peaks are at correct pixels and it'll look like in vanilla
2. This is the same problem as the water triangles you get on coasts. I wrote something about it in a thread called "sea edges", you might want to read that. Basically, the pixel where the triangle is pointing into needs to have a height that is the sum of the three pixels to the left and bottom minus the height of the pixel to the bottom left of it.
3. Nothing afaik

[King Kong]

Thanks Alpaca!

Well, I could solve the second problem, however, I don't really get it how to make smooth mountains...

And what do you mean exactly with "Move the thing about a bit so the peaks are at correct pixels"?
The problem is that I copied exactly the same area of a "vanilla mountain" and exactly the same area of corresponding vanilla heights for that area, pasted both areas to the map files of my mod.
But I still get other mountains than in vanilla.
Very weird....

btw, noob question: what's afaik?

[iudas]

As Far As I Know.

Glad I could contribute, at least this way.

[wilddog]

2. This is the same problem as the water triangles you get on coasts. I wrote something about it in a thread called "sea edges", you might want to read that. Basically, the pixel where the triangle is pointing into needs to have a height that is the sum of the three pixels to the left and bottom minus the height of the pixel to the bottom left of it.

Are you sure? I was working on a new map today and although I only have a base set of heights (as I'm working on rivers) I could only spot 2 black rectangles. One of them was in the middle of a set of 1,1,1 pixels? Also it didn't seem to appear on similar such pixels. I haven't looked at this in detail yet but I'm not so convinced its the same as the triangle problem. If it was I would of expected lots more and on specific positions.

King Kong - the heights/ground types/Climates are on a grid of size 2*+1 versus regions. Only pixels showing as odd, odd coordinates (at least in paintshop) end up being used to determine the terrain type on the campaign map. Therefore even if you copied a set of pixels from vanilla you may be out of line by one pixel on your new map thats what Alpaca meant.

[alpaca]

Are you sure? I was working on a new map today and although I only have a base set of heights (as I'm working on rivers) I could only spot 2 black rectangles. One of them was in the middle of a set of 1,1,1 pixels? Also it didn't seem to appear on similar such pixels. I haven't looked at this in detail yet but I'm not so convinced its the same as the triangle problem. If it was I would of expected lots more and on specific positions.

King Kong - the heights/ground types/Climates are on a grid of size 2*+1 versus regions. Only pixels showing as odd, odd coordinates (at least in paintshop) end up being used to determine the terrain type on the campaign map. Therefore even if you copied a set of pixels from vanilla you may be out of line by one pixel on your new map thats what Alpaca meant.

No, not sure. It's probably indeed not the same problem, but they could be related. At least I had those black artifacts in some areas where triangles occured, but I agree that they don't happen as often and that they are not as obvious.
And yes that's what I meant. 3/4 of the info in map_ground_types are simply discarded, everything that's not a pixel with x=odd and y=odd doesn't code for anything.

[King Kong]

Hi Sir Paladin,

As Far As I Know.

Thanks!


Hi Wilddog,

Thanks for the notes!
However, I still don't get it...


Another quick question:
Do you know if the heights map is even responsible for the look of mountains?

I've tested to smooth the heights (with the "rain-drop" feature of PS), but it didn't seem to have an effect on the mountains...
So weird...

[wilddog]

King Kong

Map heights, Climates and Map_ground types are all on a scale of 2X+1 versus Regions size X map. What you see on the campaign map is only a tile for every odd numbered pixel (X and Y) that is shown on the map_ground types. The other pixels will show up in the battle map. so if you put a single pixel mountain or forest on the map ground types in one of the odd,odd pixel locations you will see it on the created campaign map. if you put it in one of the surrounding 9 squares (which all have at least one even coordinate) then you don't see it.

For High Mountains a model is used to represent the peak. So if a mountain is chosen then that's what's put on that tile in the campaign map. If you use low mountains which only use a TGA then you would see the effect of any heightening of the maps.