[Utility] Atlas Map Generator

[padillah]

Originally posted by Junuxx
@Padillah:
hm, 'compilation' in my previous post was supposed to be 'calculation', hope you figured that out.
I'm thinking about just recommending 128MB RAM per 500 land tiles (with 512 minimum).

I think that's really the best we can do - come up with a ratio and apply it to the maps. We may want to pick a smaller number though ( i.e. according to your calculation a standard map would need:
((84 * 52)/500) * 128 = 1.118 Gig of memory to run. That's a little heavy)

And by the way, it's quite possible, at least in Java, to call all kinds of other programs with a shell command. Here is another utility I made that makes a direct call to Civ. Translating wouldnt be fun, I guess.

It would be interesting to see what happens when you call a .NET assembly from Java. One ILR on a VM calling another ILR on a different VM.

Oh, after two days and some serious thought I have decided that you cannot add or subtract TERRAIN_TYPES. You can modify the existing ones but not ADD.

So I am going to continue off that assumption and try and get the different TERRAIN_TYPES on the map this week.

Tom P.

[Junuxx]

Originally posted by padillah


I think that's really the best we can do - come up with a ratio and apply it to the maps. We may want to pick a smaller number though ( i.e. according to your calculation a standard map would need:
((84 * 52)/500) * 128 = 1.118 Gig of memory to run. That's a little heavy)

No, not really. I meant land tiles. A standard continents map has about 30-40% land on it, and will thus have only 84*52*0.4 = 1747 land tiles.
This gives 1747/500*128 = 447 MB.

It would be interesting to see what happens when you call a .NET assembly from Java. One ILR on a VM calling another ILR on a different VM.

Oh, after two days and some serious thought I have decided that you cannot add or subtract TERRAIN_TYPES. You can modify the existing ones but not ADD.

So I am going to continue off that assumption and try and get the different TERRAIN_TYPES on the map this week.

Tom P.

I'll try to find something about such calls...
What do you mean by adding and substracting terrain types? I don't quite understand

By the way , Superstring do I understand it correctly that you got Atlas working now?

[padillah]

Originally posted by Junuxx
No, not really. I meant land tiles. A standard continents map has about 30-40% land on it, and will thus have only 84*52*0.4 = 1747 land tiles.
This gives 1747/500*128 = 447 MB.

You said it plain as day and I missed it. You're right, that looks much better.

What do you mean by adding and substracting terrain types? I don't quite understand

I mean you can't edit the CIV4TerrainInfos.xml and add a TERRAIN_QUICKSAND type. You can edit TERRAIN_PLAINS and set different yeilds and footstep sounds and such... but not add an entirely new type of terrain.

You see, with seven types of terrain (Grass, Plains, Desert, Tundra, Snow, Coast, and Ocean... Peak and Hill are on a different grid) I can use one byte to flag them all. (It makes me feel better not to waste so much memory. Old habits die hard.

Tom P.

[Superstring]

Hi Junuxx,

Unfortunately a lot of problems occured.
In order to install the runtime environment some proxy settings must be applied cause the installation is done via Internet from the java homepage.

However, to change those settings you have to open the
Java control panel to harmonize those proxy entries with the ones you made for your browser (I don't have made any entries in my browsers proxy settings by the way).

What a pity. I can't open that Java control panel, cause you have to have the Java coffee icon in your systems control panel to access the Java control panel by double clicking the coffee icon. I don't have the coffee icon in my systems control panel. The website's installation help tells me if I don't see the icon I don't have installed the Sun JRE.

That means in total, if you don't have a Java environment installed already you can't install one cause you lack access to the Java control panel letting you apply the proper proxy settings to install the environment via the Internet. Vicious circle! Makes me crazy!

Maybe they mean you have to install a complete SDK before you can install the simple environment for the programs. Is that true Junuxx? Would be lot of work only to have a Java programm running on XP.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Superstring
Hi Junuxx,

Unfortunately a lot of problems occured.
In order to install the runtime environment some proxy settings must be applied cause the installation is done via Internet from the java homepage.

Windows multi-language OffLine install.

Hope this helps.

Tom P.

[Superstring]

Thanks Tom,
But to get trough to that link I'd have to register with Sun first and get an account. Otherwise I'm blocked at the login.
As its 1 am in Germany right now, I'm going to sleep cause there's working day tomorrow.
Thanx for all the help so far. Hope I'll finally get the program running.

[padillah]

Huh. Well, sorry. It's 16 meg or I'd upload it here.

If you find someplace to host it I'll UL it for you.

(I don't understand. I went to http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp and clicked "Download JDK 5.0 update 6" Hmm...)

Tom P.

[Jack Frost]

you guys gonna throw the source up somewhere?

If you write a clean interface for terrain generation logic - I'd love to throw in an old fashioned perlin noise style method to generate heightfields, then just backfill forrests/hills/mountains/etc.

All these fancy newfangled pseudo biological design stuff just makes me roll my eyes

It'd be really ideal if you throw in some kind of dynamic plug in loading - so it just loads jars in a directory, and adds each method of generation to a dropdown for later use. Don't remember how you do this in java (I haven't looked at java since 1.2 - never even saw java generics) - but I do remember finding it pretty straight forward.

If this thread is any indication - there might be a lot of people willing to contribute - further, decoupling land mass generation / terrain generation / resource generation / river generation - so that you could mix peoples approaches towards each element could be real cool.

Pie in the sky stuff even

[Jack Frost]

ps - I might also be willing to run a .net port - if you want something that is easier to package.

[padillah]

I have no problem with this except for two things:
One, mine is already in .NET (I'm using it as an excuse to learn 2005)
and Two, mine doesn't even work yet.

Give me a minute...

Tom P.

[Superstring]

Finally succeeded!

Finally, I fetched that Java runtime thing from a friend in an offline install version.
So I can run the Map Generator now.
Amazing tool! Just playing my first map made with it!
Only surprise is that the ressources don't fit to the terrain types. Like rice in forests and wine in the jungle.
Maybe this can be amended in future versions.
But besides from that it's a great improvement to the game.
Thanks Junuxx.

[Junuxx]

Great you like it, Superstring.

Atlas version 0.35 is now available for download, and there's no more wine in jungles
Matching resources with terrain types is a boring job.. 21 terrain types times 31 resources... So a lot of resources share the same list of terrain types they might pop up in. Sometimes this doesn't make sense though, and comments like your, Superstring, help me to correct those. So thanks

BTW,I implemented the memory recommendation. But it's just an estimate. I can think of two flaws. Firstly, it doesn't consider video memory, and secondly, it only relies on land tiles now, not a bit on total size. Anyway, I'd be very happy if you would let me know whether the estimates seem accurate to you.

[Superstring]

Thanks for further improving the map generator

Hello Junuxx,

Thanks for your quick reaction to the problem. On the other
hand I experienced the game growing its forest and jungles
onto already existing ressources. Thus it can happen that
wine gets into the jungle cause the jungle creeps onto the
wine tile. But it's very good that in the beginning all the
ressources are placed on reasonable game tiles.
What about rivers. Are they in already. Didn't see any so
far on the map I presently play.

[padillah]

I may be wrong but I think your bitmap is upside-down... kind of.

The WBS 0,0 is in the lower left-hand corner and goes right and up.

A standard Bitmap 0,0 is in the upper left-hand corner and goes right and down.

I realised this when I added the most recent function to my WorldPainter. Thought you might want to check.

Tom P.

[Junuxx]

You are right about the different coordinate systems, but I'm not sure how you think that causes problems with Atlas. Maps show up in Civ the way they look in the preview, right?