I've been reading all these posts about map creation and the different aspects involved and I've noticed one thing that doesn't seem to have been mentioned in a long time, and I think I remember this a being a major issue from the old Gathering Forums.
When creating your map it's best to leave all your terrain painting until you've got all the events finished and all the other settings completed.
The reason for this is 'cause as you work through the events, writing, saving, testing, writing, saving, testing, and so on, every time you save the the map you stand a good chance of your terrain painting being degraded a little more after each save.
This may not be apparent after only a few saves but the more you save and re-open the editor, the worse it will get.
Another work-around for this is to save it with a new name each time until you've got all your testing completed, then save it as the name you want it to have.
There's a lot of new map creators coming on board and most of the folks that have been a round for a while know this but the mention of it seems to have been overlooked lately.
If anyone can add to this, or disagrees, please feel free to jump in. :D
Terrain Painting and Saving!
Terrain Painting and Saving!
Last edited by Hawk on Sun May 27, 2007 9:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Hawk
You mean my memory still kinda' works 
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AZ Rail Rat
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Hawk, on the SCBC map I usually saved up to five times using one name before saving using a new name. Right now I am at build 426 that is I have made about 426 saves under a new name since the map was started. Almost all my terrain painting was done right at the beginning albeit with lots of tweaks in-between. I can not say that the way the terrain looks has much changed.
However, I need to admit that it all tends to be a bit more blurred over the last year or so. This ought to be rectified so as soon as I break down and wear glasses.
However, I need to admit that it all tends to be a bit more blurred over the last year or so. This ought to be rectified so as soon as I break down and wear glasses.
The man who has no imagination has no wings. (Muhammad Ali)
I had a terrible problem with maps getting brighter and brighter, but the problem went away when I got a new graphics card. I haven't seen any problems since then, and Transcontinental went through at least ten versions.
The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true." - James Branch Cabell
So-is this thread worth keeping? Is it something map creators should be aware of or is it meaningless?
No sense making an issue out of something that isn't really an issue.
No sense making an issue out of something that isn't really an issue.
Last edited by Hawk on Mon May 28, 2007 12:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Hawk
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Canadian Viking
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- Location: Alberta, Canada
I think there is a valid point to the idea that multiple saves cause some degeneration. I change the name of my scenario every time or 2 I save it, and I've made over 50 saves. I haven't yet started terrain painting, but I notice that the blue color of the rivers shifts onto the land. I had fixed all that up in stage 1 when I laid and smoothed the rivers, but I will have to redo the river bank coloring again. It is not hard, but time consuming, so best left for the very end I think.
River color
I have also had the same problem with the rivers / large lakes. Thanks for the heads up. I may have to go back to the original map to start over after I get it the way I want as I did add some trees and grass / mountain details.
My file size is now 231 MB The original file was 8.18 MB is this also a "save" problem?
My file size is now 231 MB The original file was 8.18 MB is this also a "save" problem?
Video
The only problem I have had with video is the on-board video with the E-machine AMD 2200+ did not have the "stuff" (blue screen type fault) to run RRT3 and some other games, I added a "old PCI video card and it runs well now, even with less memory.
The HP AMD x2 works ok with it's on board video.
The HP AMD x2 works ok with it's on board video.
I agree RRT1 & 2 work fine as they are not 3D graphics. I also had the same problem with SETI when they went from 2d to 3D graphics on their screen saver.
All of my old boat anchors (which just run SETI and printers) have 2D graphic and all but they work on RRT1/2 even at 350mhz & 8 mb video cards.
I can run a 6 persons on my network for RRT1 or 2
All of my old boat anchors (which just run SETI and printers) have 2D graphic and all but they work on RRT1/2 even at 350mhz & 8 mb video cards.
I can run a 6 persons on my network for RRT1 or 2
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bombardiere
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Dear Hawk, you left out one invaluable tool for terrain painting :) Pjay's great gmp2bmp and bmp2gmp converters.
These programs can convert Map's terrain textures to common picture format. (requires some understand of dos commands, but I don't think those are overly complicated)
After making the basic heightmap, I make a copy of the map and extract the terrain texture. Thus I don't have to worry about map degeneration. I just import the original terrain texture back, after all the testing is done. I also do atleast part of terrain painting using this texture picture. It is easier to paint with a paint program than with the map editor.
Nevertheless, I am not very good with terrain paintings, so all tips are welcomed.
BTW, I purposely degenerate the map a bit, because I feel that the sea and lakes doesn't show well in the first map texture. Couple of saves will highlight these better, in my opinion. (if I have problems with river colour showing, but I am otherwise happy with the map, I paint the rivers over using a paint program.)
These programs can convert Map's terrain textures to common picture format. (requires some understand of dos commands, but I don't think those are overly complicated)
After making the basic heightmap, I make a copy of the map and extract the terrain texture. Thus I don't have to worry about map degeneration. I just import the original terrain texture back, after all the testing is done. I also do atleast part of terrain painting using this texture picture. It is easier to paint with a paint program than with the map editor.
Nevertheless, I am not very good with terrain paintings, so all tips are welcomed.
BTW, I purposely degenerate the map a bit, because I feel that the sea and lakes doesn't show well in the first map texture. Couple of saves will highlight these better, in my opinion. (if I have problems with river colour showing, but I am otherwise happy with the map, I paint the rivers over using a paint program.)
Well, I may have forgot to mention PJay's converter but you forgot to give a link to his site.
It seems though that his site has been reduced to an index list instead of a web site, but here's the link anyway.
http://studwww.ugent.be/~pbusscha/rt3/
It seems though that his site has been reduced to an index list instead of a web site, but here's the link anyway.
http://studwww.ugent.be/~pbusscha/rt3/
Hawk
If you notice the index page is named index.shtml which will not open in IE or Foxfire as an index page, if you save the file and change it to index.html it will open and looks like a news "update" with the latest entry of 2007-03-25 not having any menu options. It is missing 2 ["] in the code at the end of website links so it will not display totally correct.
You can still reach the program by going to
http://studwww.ugent.be/~pbusscha/rt3/programs/
You can still reach the program by going to
http://studwww.ugent.be/~pbusscha/rt3/programs/
Re: Terrain Painting and Saving!
I just did a quick test of this water edge degradation on save.
Got one of the default PopTop maps and pigged around with it a bit, then saved with a new name.
Loaded that, saved again with a third name.
Loaded that one and saved with a fourth name. Etc.
Results, on my box at least, were that if you knew what to look for there was noticeable degradation after one save and load. It wasn't much, but it was there.
After two saves and loads it was a bit worse, but still largely ok for most purposes, especially if there was a lot of visual interest to distract from the slightly dodgey water edges.
By the third save and load, it was getting very noticeable. Fourth, a bit worse again.
By the fifth, it was rough as guts. Not sure if it would get much worse after that, because it was already bad.
As far as I can tell, it'll start degrading with the first save, but after five is probably about as bad as it's going to get.
Naturally, I want it perfect.
It seems to me that this isn't necessarily a big problem. The easiest way out of it is to simply let the thing get rough while doing all the event/gameplay debugging, and then return all water to land, check the textures, then just set it back to water again. That should be as good as a first save, and is a lot less work than trying to copy everything over to a fresh map in one sitting.
If you have a screenshot of the original highlighted water blocks (pink n purple stuff) in a spare tab, and just compare that with the map you want to re-edit, it should be a fairly quick and easy job to put the water back. Worth a try, anyway. I'll give it a go over the weekend and see if it works.
ETA: Oh and on my box, it's only the water edges that are a problem. All other terrain painting, trees, whatever seems to be fine.
Got one of the default PopTop maps and pigged around with it a bit, then saved with a new name.
Loaded that, saved again with a third name.
Loaded that one and saved with a fourth name. Etc.
Results, on my box at least, were that if you knew what to look for there was noticeable degradation after one save and load. It wasn't much, but it was there.
After two saves and loads it was a bit worse, but still largely ok for most purposes, especially if there was a lot of visual interest to distract from the slightly dodgey water edges.
By the third save and load, it was getting very noticeable. Fourth, a bit worse again.
By the fifth, it was rough as guts. Not sure if it would get much worse after that, because it was already bad.
As far as I can tell, it'll start degrading with the first save, but after five is probably about as bad as it's going to get.
Naturally, I want it perfect.
It seems to me that this isn't necessarily a big problem. The easiest way out of it is to simply let the thing get rough while doing all the event/gameplay debugging, and then return all water to land, check the textures, then just set it back to water again. That should be as good as a first save, and is a lot less work than trying to copy everything over to a fresh map in one sitting.
If you have a screenshot of the original highlighted water blocks (pink n purple stuff) in a spare tab, and just compare that with the map you want to re-edit, it should be a fairly quick and easy job to put the water back. Worth a try, anyway. I'll give it a go over the weekend and see if it works.
ETA: Oh and on my box, it's only the water edges that are a problem. All other terrain painting, trees, whatever seems to be fine.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: Terrain Painting and Saving!
Hey I just had a quick play with that idea. It's pretty easy, apart from river junctions. The rivers themselves are fine. I had trees in a narrow strip along the banks anyway, which defined the existing course even when they were set back to land. It might be an idea to heavily forest all water boundaries temporarily, just as a guide.
Anyway, once the river is set back to land the blue bleeding is obvious (and realy ugly). So, all I did was use the smallest brush set to rich dark mud, and run that along the course to cover the ugly blue bits. This is a natural colour for an inland river bed anyway. Once that was done, just drag the river back into place, then dandy up the bank edges a bit with whatever swatches and opacity works if the dark mud is a bit much on some parts of the banks.
The result is something that has clean river edges, and actually looks better than the original.
You can get a really nice effect of the countryside turning into dark mud on the riverbed. It looks wet and lowered, just like it should.
Junctions are a PITA, but I've got some sorted easily. A couple of the others will need more messing around. i've already come up with one trick though. Use a snow brush smack under the junction if it's looking a bit rough. This matches in with the river gfx pretty well, and you can re-brush the bank edges with grass or whatever if the snow blurs up the banks a bit. It'll turn an slightly ugly junction into a passable one fairly quickly, especially if you throw a few trees into the scenery.
The same general trick works on oceans too. Just set the coastal strip back to land in a constant width (so you can reinstate the old coastline easily) then brush up the reclaimed land to suit, then just turn that strip back to ocean. Hey ho. Sorted.
I did it all to a not perfect but quite reasonable standard in about an hour, just with a quick bash at it without having done it before. If I was going to spend several hours on it and get fussy, I reckon it wouldn't be hard to do a really good job.
Short version: don't worry too much if your water starts bleeding out. Just fix it once you've debugged the map.
Anyway, once the river is set back to land the blue bleeding is obvious (and realy ugly). So, all I did was use the smallest brush set to rich dark mud, and run that along the course to cover the ugly blue bits. This is a natural colour for an inland river bed anyway. Once that was done, just drag the river back into place, then dandy up the bank edges a bit with whatever swatches and opacity works if the dark mud is a bit much on some parts of the banks.
The result is something that has clean river edges, and actually looks better than the original.
You can get a really nice effect of the countryside turning into dark mud on the riverbed. It looks wet and lowered, just like it should.Junctions are a PITA, but I've got some sorted easily. A couple of the others will need more messing around. i've already come up with one trick though. Use a snow brush smack under the junction if it's looking a bit rough. This matches in with the river gfx pretty well, and you can re-brush the bank edges with grass or whatever if the snow blurs up the banks a bit. It'll turn an slightly ugly junction into a passable one fairly quickly, especially if you throw a few trees into the scenery.
The same general trick works on oceans too. Just set the coastal strip back to land in a constant width (so you can reinstate the old coastline easily) then brush up the reclaimed land to suit, then just turn that strip back to ocean. Hey ho. Sorted.
I did it all to a not perfect but quite reasonable standard in about an hour, just with a quick bash at it without having done it before. If I was going to spend several hours on it and get fussy, I reckon it wouldn't be hard to do a really good job.
Short version: don't worry too much if your water starts bleeding out. Just fix it once you've debugged the map.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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