In which I ask questions of the audience in an attempt to speed up the production of new maps. and offer random observations, thoughts and discoveries.
1. When placing buildings, streetlamps etc in the Editor, is there no way to speed up the process? No way to grab a bunch of stuff and copy it all?
And before anyone says, "just suck it up, there aren't that many buildings", heres the monster I'm working on:
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/megacity.jpg)
So far I hand added 460 buildings, which is about one on every block. Assuming a modest 6 per block and you are maybe looking at 3000 buildings to hand place. And then streetlamps, bins, phone boxes etc etc etc.
Now, its almost certainly Too Big, and will likely kill any PC that tries to display it once everything is in place, but I wanted a Really, Really Big Map. And it runs OK on my PC with the 460 buildings in, so I'm pressing on. I can, after all, delete stuff if it is too big.
I'm experimenting with using X-ref in 3dsmax, as at least there I can select multiple objects, but I have a feeling that's not going to work.
What I want is to be able to set up 5 or so blocks of buildings and lamps, then copy them over and over to fill the map, making adjustments manually to avoid too much repetition.
So, anyone know of any way round this?
2. As has been discussed, you cannot have walkways, bridges etc. The engine just wont let you. But.
It occurs to me that it may be possible to Fake it a little. In on of my maps I have a wall with arched doorways. By not giving these a flag (ie metal, unpassable etc) I make them Walk-through-able in game. It seems to me that if I then place other pillars/short walls right next to the supposedly 'solid' parts, and tag these with 'unpassable', I get what seems to be an arched gap in the wall. Now imagine we thicken the arched wall, so it now starts to look like theres a pathway on top. By moving the 'unpassably' tagged walls inside the arched ones we get a series of stepping stones a character can hop across on top, and walk through the arches underneath. I'll try to make this happen as a proof of concept. Sure, it'll look a little strange to see characters hopping and jumping on certain bits of walkways and bridges, but may be worth it.
The other thing that occurs is if a bridge or walkway is built in Max, with a boundingbox that follows its shape (like my elevated railway tracks), you can place those in the map wherever you want, without having to worry about terrain flags. Characters can walk on the top, and underneath, without hinderance.This is probably a better bet. Again, Proof of concept meshing to follow as/when time allows.
3. When maps get Really Really Big. The FF(v3r) engine has a 'cut-off' point that blacks stuff out, so for instance you cannot see a skypshere on the far side of the map above until you get within a certain distance. Anyone know anything about this, or any possible workarounds?
3000?! Sweet Christmas!
I can offer no advice, only my admiration and enthusiasm for this map, and your other mapping projects!
Would give my opinion but.... wow... just wow...
hope it wont kill your pc when is full of buildings... but i would really love to play on a big map like that
In 3ds max, could you Group the city block prototype (i.e., the X-referenced buildings in that block) and then use the Array tool (with offset and rotation values in place to create some variety of layout) to create a matrix of, say, 5-10 city blocks at a time? Then you could Ungroup these city blocks, a task which might also prove arduous, but at least you aren't placing each individual building, one at a time.
I've never experimented with setting up levels in 3ds max, so I could simply be dreaming in the wrong haystack. It sounds to me as if your layout difficulties might best be solved by someone who could write a small application that would accept a terrain mesh value and a few mesh variables (i.e., the buildings, trash receptacles, lampposts, etc.) and then randomly populate a city block matrix that could be exported to a level.txt. Again, I'm dreaming...
I wish I could be of more assistance.
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
Very very nice.
Yes I expect there is way to lay out your map faster than this.
I think it would take patience and coding skills at first but it should be doable pretty quick once you've got the code set.
If you go find a level layout file and adjust it slightly to layout one block automatically as you want it.
So
library\area_specific\ff_base\terrain\07_briefing\07_briefing_terrain.nif [0,0,0] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\frozen_enterprise\small_objects\wire_fence\wire_fence.nif [-438.691,95.6147,0.0303469] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\frozen_enterprise\small_objects\wire_fence\wire_fence.nif [-438.691,215.583,0.0303469] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\frozen_enterprise\small_objects\wire_fence\wire_fence.nif [-438.691,-24.3539,0.0303469] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\frozen_enterprise\small_objects\wire_fence\wire_fence.nif [-438.691,-144.322,0.0303469] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\frozen_enterprise\small_objects\wire_fence\wire_fence.nif [-438.691,-264.291,0.0303469] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\frozen_enterprise\small_objects\wire_fence\wire_fence.nif [-438.691,-384.26,0.0303469] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
This is the first few lines of a typical layout file. If you write one of these so it places the objects you want in the first block then you could either write an algorithm or copy it by hand and make adjustments to alter the placement of the objects. Do you see what i mean? I'm presuming of course that the blocks are all the same distance apart, it looks like they are.
So. Using the FFediter layout one block as you want it. Go into the editor and read off the position values and paths; enter these into the layout.txt file. Then go to max and find the distance between one repeatable block and the next, both horizontally and vertically. You could then write some code that alters the initial text on the layout file and changes the coords for each object by a suitable amount (e.g, copies it 3 blocks right, 4 blocks right, 5 blocks right).
You'd then have a huge layout file with all the objects in the right places (hopefully) and you could load it up in FFedit. It could work, dunno if it would be less effort though.
Sorry I think I may have said the same thing several times there.
Lunarman
p.s. good luck it looks awesome.
Quote1. When placing buildings, streetlamps etc in the Editor, is there no way to speed up the process? No way to grab a bunch of stuff and copy it all?
like Lunarman said, if you exported the layout file with just a small block section done, and could work out the math (provided your "city blocks" were unified in size and spacing) you could then just cut and paste sections in the layout file and adjust the x/y coordinates. Its still a bit of work to get the math and measurements right, but you are just messing with text values and can rapidly cut and paste once you get it... Ive done similar stuff and it worked reasonably well.
Quote
2. It occurs to me that it may be possible to Fake it a little. In on of my maps I have a wall with arched doorways. By not giving these a flag (ie metal, unpassable etc) I make them Walk-through-able in game. It seems to me that if I then place other pillars/short walls right next to the supposedly 'solid' parts, and tag these with 'unpassable', I get what seems to be an arched gap in the wall. Now imagine we thicken the arched wall, so it now starts to look like theres a pathway on top. By moving the 'unpassably' tagged walls inside the arched ones we get a series of stepping stones a character can hop across on top, and walk through the arches underneath. I'll try to make this happen as a proof of concept. Sure, it'll look a little strange to see characters hopping and jumping on certain bits of walkways and bridges, but may be worth it.
The other thing that occurs is if a bridge or walkway is built in Max, with a bounding box that follows its shape (like my elevated railway tracks), you can place those in the map wherever you want, without having to worry about terrain flags. Characters can walk on the top, and underneath, without hindrance.This is probably a better bet. Again, Proof of concept meshing to follow as/when time allows.
While I would love to see this work and I'd love to see you figure out a way to do it, To the best of my knowledge this wont work. Ive tried every trick I can think of to "fake" this stuff as well and I have had no luck. As was explained to me.... once all the objects are placed on a map, the path-finding is basically draped over the map like a blanket, so in the example of the railway tracks, if there is a part of the object that covers the ground below, it will be impassable as the "upper" level becomes the ground as far as character movement is concerned.
But Hey, Ive been wrong in the past, and you have come up with some cool 3d Tricks, so my fingers are crossed for you...
Darn. Goggles is right. I had never noticed before, but characters don't go under the elevated train tracks. Dunno how I missed that..
So idea #2 is out, that leaves the 'jumping' bridge idea, which even before execution sounds inelegant. I'll still experiment with it at some point.
Thanks for the replies about the Editor placing problem. I think that you are on the right track with the copy/paste text file approach, so I'll see if I can try that one. Fortunately the blocks are all square and evenly spaced. Having a version with one building already placed in every block may well help with that, as it means that I already have one co-ordinate worked out. Still a slightly daunting task, but less so than the manual placement nightmare scenario.
And who knows, it could lead to the implementation of a sort of 'auto-populate' feature for maps.
Woohoo!
Following your sensible suggestions, I took the level.txt from the mp_city_small file (from which template the whole map derives), copied it into my megacity level.txt and had the centre of the map populated by cars and buildings and whatnot.
I then copied and pasted four streetlamps within the level.txt, altered the values manually, and now have streetlamps in the right place further along the street.
Now I just have to do that a million times!
Once you get the math worked out it would probably be a pretty simple thing to write a python script to loop through and automatically fill in the values.
Tom...A while back, I tried to help Valandar with a giant map project of his(by placing buildings and such on it), but the map proved far too big (and it had nowhere the amount of stuff this one does) and wouldn't be usable/accessible in the Rumble/Danger Room.
Yours may work, but I don't even think Val's map was as big as this one (and the one he made was huge).
This probably wasn't helpful, but I just thought I'd mention it.
Dana
Quote from: cmdrkoenig67 on July 22, 2008, 08:30:47 AM
Tom...A while back, I tried to help Valandar with a giant map project of his(by placing buildings and such on it), but the map proved far too big (and it had nowhere the amount of stuff this one does) and wouldn't be usable/accessible in the Rumble/Danger Room.
Yours may work, but I don't even think Val's map was as big as this one (and the one he made was huge).
This probably wasn't helpful, but I just thought I'd mention it.
Dana
Dana,
I'm not sure quite what you are saying the problem was with Val's map. When you say it wouldn't be usable/accessible in the danger room, did it crash the game, not load, prove impractical because it's size confounded the AI?
Because mine runs both as a mission and as a danger room level (only in FFv3R so far, havent tried in ff yet), though obviously it's relatively sparsely populated so far. And should it prove too big, I will simply trim bits off till it does work.
Goggles, I'll see if I can get a number for the shifts in x and y co-ordinates between blocks. Then it would be up to someone with some shreds of intelligence and programming and mathematical skill to write any putative programme, since that would most likely be far beyond my meager abilities.
Tommy,
If your huge map doesn't work out as a whole then maybe you can divide it up into districts.. especially if you do a Marvel New York City version with the landmarks and all. You probably already thought of that but I wanted to put my 2 cents in. I so do look forward to having a rumble room with Fantastic Four HQ, Dr. Strange's home, and everything else scattered among the cityscape.
And great work on what you have tackled thus far on the project... I totally had a :o look on my face upon seeing that map you unveiled thus far.
- CrimsonQuill
It's probably too late for this but....
In terms adding buildings:
1) throw in a few parks/residential blocks; it'll reduce the number of buildings you have to place.
2) I would start with an existing map, preferably square, and use it's layout as a map "grid". Since you know the dimensions, you can simply add the appropriate values to "x" or "y" to generate coordinates for "grids" above, below and diagonal to your original. You can even write a simple excel spreadsheet to generate the values for you.
for example:
1. Map Grid NW at coords. x=0, y=0
2. Map Grid NE starts at coords x=(width of NW), y=0
3. Map Grid SW starts at coords x=0, y=(length of NW)
4. Map Grid DE starts at coords x=(width of NW), y=(length of NW)
This way, the streets are already laid out, you just need to adjust the coordinates and then fine tune to your needs.
Keep posting....a large map like this could turn into a "virtual freeroam" in the rumble room.
B92
OK, the block to block distance is 1280. Adding this to a copy of all the buildings in level.txt got me a set of duplicate buildings one block over.
Now the map has a road junction at 0,0 and there are seven more junctions between it and the edge of the map in any direction (not the diagonal ones, only in x and y axes, obviously).
So, a special prize of errrr....nothing, to anyone who can write a script that takes:
[spoiler]library\terrain\mega_city\megacity.NIF [0,0,0] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_11\building_11.nif [-259.997,539.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0
0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_11\building_11.nif [-219.997,219.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0
1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_11\building_11.nif [220.003,-220.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 1
0)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_11\building_11.nif [260.003,-540.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0
-0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_07\building_07.nif [-419.997,499.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 1
0)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_07\building_07.nif [420.003,-500.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 0
1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_07\building_07.nif [420.003,-500.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 0
1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_09\building_09.nif [-479.997,239.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0
1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_09\building_09.nif [480.003,-240.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 1
0)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_06\building_06.nif [-239.997,379.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0
0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_06\building_06.nif [240.003,-380.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0
-0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_04\building_04.nif [-579.997,539.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 1
0)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_04\building_04.nif [580.003,-540.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 0
1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_15\building_15.nif [-559.997,-480.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0
-1.19209e-007 1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_15\building_15.nif [280.003,519.982,0.00222778] (quat 0 0
-0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_03\building_03.nif [-439.997,-540.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 0
1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_03\building_03.nif [220.003,399.982,0.00222778] (quat 0 0
-0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_05\building_05.nif [-359.997,-540.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 0
1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_05\building_05.nif [220.003,319.982,0.00222778] (quat 0 0
-0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_12\building_12.nif [-239.997,-540.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 0
1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_12\building_12.nif [220.003,199.982,0.00222778] (quat 0 0
-0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_01\building_01.nif [-519.996,-240.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0
-0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_01\building_01.nif [520.003,479.982,0.00222778] (quat 0 0 1
0)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_10\building_10.nif [-259.997,-280.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 1
0)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_10\building_10.nif [480.003,219.982,0.00222778] (quat 0 0
0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [-536.24,470.767,0.10054] (quat 0 0 0.382683 0.92388)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\vent_02\vent_02.nif [-256.724,295.207,179.997] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_03\awning_03.nif [-559.504,110.487,40.1625] (quat 0 0 0
1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\chimney_01\chimney_01.nif [-377.997,428.981,139.997] (quat 0 0 0.707107
0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [-285.566,141.918,0.10054] (quat 0 0 0.382683 0.92388)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [-285.566,154.312,0.10054] (quat 0 0 -0.5 0.866025)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_03\awning_03.nif [-400.058,110.487,40.1625] (quat 0 0 0
1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [-296.959,304.651,0.10054] (quat 0 0 0.130526 0.991445)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\signs\sign_hotel_02\sign_hotel_02.nif [-349.954,122.436,94.6251] (quat 0 0 0
1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\signs\sign_burger_world\sign_burger_world.nif [-159.919,359.979,63.0708] (quat
0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fire_hidrant\fire_hydrant.nif [-106.997,361.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\phone_booth\phone_booth.nif [-361.779,74.9233,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0.707107
0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_02\crate_02.nif [-348.997,277.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0.130526 0.991445)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [-348.696,465.047,0.10054] (quat 0 0 0.991445 0.130526)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_02\crate_02.nif [-350.997,257.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_long\awning_long.nif [-478.393,97.7343,0.10054] (quat 0 0 0
1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [-550.198,472.441,0.10054] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\traffic_light\traffic_light.nif [-127.897,87.3807,0.196671] (quat 0 0 0
1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [-549.997,374.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 -0.130526 0.991445)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [-521.997,375.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0.382683 0.92388)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_bin\street_bin.nif [-444.617,67.9726,0.10054] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\chimney_01\chimney_01.nif [-567.997,326.981,179.997] (quat 0 0 0.707107
0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [-359.783,176.04,21.9967] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [-359.783,191.067,21.9967] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\water_tower\water_tower.nif [-295.394,345.498,179.997] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\vent_02\vent_02.nif [-225.718,-406.531,179.997] (quat 0 0 1 1.59792e-007)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\vent_02\vent_02.nif [-193.999,-406.571,179.997] (quat 0 0 1 1.59792e-007)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [-399.788,-179.565,21.9972] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\signs\sign_tobacco\sign_tobacco.nif [-520.743,-118.028,50.2405] (quat 0 0 1
0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [-422.307,-463.893,0.100281] (quat 0 0 -0.608761 0.793353)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_square\awning_square.nif [-607.171,-110.02,24.9748] (quat
0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\dumpster\dumpster.nif [-440.644,-378.455,-0.358292] (quat 0 0 0.998135
-0.0610484)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bilboards\billboard_decal_01\billboard_decal_01.nif [-159.036,-197.643,92.1597]
(quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [-401.587,-366.94,0.100281] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_02\crate_02.nif [-454.189,-466.25,0.100281] (quat 0 0 -0.793353 0.608761)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\water_tower\water_tower.nif [-191.876,-509.913,139.997] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [-170.031,-479.518,21.9972] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_square\awning_square.nif [-428.017,-110.02,24.9748] (quat
0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_square\awning_square.nif [-486.328,-110.02,24.9748] (quat
0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_bin\street_bin.nif [-353.395,-69.1858,0.100281] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\traffic_light\traffic_light.nif [-128.097,-87.4192,0.197212] (quat 0 0 1
0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [-106.697,-237.819,-0.00278473] (quat
0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [-280.097,-66.019,-0.00278473] (quat
0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\post_box\post_box.nif [-109.997,-299.637,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [-106.697,-479.819,-0.00278473] (quat
0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [-521.396,-66.019,-0.00278473] (quat
0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\vent_02\vent_02.nif [256.729,-295.244,179.997] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_03\awning_03.nif [559.51,-110.524,40.1625] (quat 0 0 1
0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\chimney_01\chimney_01.nif [378.003,-429.018,139.997] (quat 0 0 -0.707107
0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [285.572,-141.955,0.100548] (quat 0 0 0.92388 -0.382683)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [285.572,-154.349,0.100548] (quat 0 0 0.866025 0.5)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_03\awning_03.nif [400.064,-110.524,40.1625] (quat 0 0 1
0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [296.965,-304.688,0.100548] (quat 0 0 0.991445 -0.130526)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\signs\sign_hotel_02\sign_hotel_02.nif [349.959,-122.473,94.6251] (quat 0 0 1
0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\signs\sign_burger_world\sign_burger_world.nif [159.924,-360.016,63.0708] (quat
0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fire_hidrant\fire_hydrant.nif [107.003,-362.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\phone_booth\phone_booth.nif [361.784,-74.9603,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 -0.707107
0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_02\crate_02.nif [349.003,-278.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 0.991445 -0.130526)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [348.702,-465.084,0.100548] (quat 0 0 -0.130526 0.991445)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_02\crate_02.nif [351.003,-258.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [536.246,-470.804,0.100548] (quat 0 0 0.92388 -0.382683)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_long\awning_long.nif [478.399,-97.7713,0.100548] (quat 0 0 1
0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [550.204,-472.478,0.100548] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\traffic_light\traffic_light.nif [127.903,-87.4177,0.196678] (quat 0 0 1
0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [550.003,-375.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 0.991445 0.130526)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [522.003,-376.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 0.92388 -0.382683)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_bin\street_bin.nif [444.623,-68.0096,0.100548] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\chimney_01\chimney_01.nif [568.003,-327.018,179.997] (quat 0 0 -0.707107
0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [359.789,-176.077,21.9967] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [359.789,-191.104,21.9967] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\water_tower\water_tower.nif [295.399,-345.535,179.997] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [280.103,-69.095,-0.00331879] (quat
0 0 1 -2.10734e-007)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [521.403,-69.095,-0.00331879] (quat
0 0 1 -2.10734e-007)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [106.703,-240.218,-0.00331879] (quat
0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [106.703,-482.218,-0.00331879] (quat
0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_02\crate_02.nif [293.771,414.174,0.105293] (quat 0 0 0.991445 0.130526)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [393.081,361.572,0.105293] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [580.457,359.774,22.0022] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [296.129,382.293,0.105293] (quat 0 0 0.991445 -0.130526)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\dumpster\dumpster.nif [381.567,400.629,-0.353279] (quat 0 0 0.748956 0.66262)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_03\awning_03.nif [150.552,359.036,40.1717] (quat 0 0
-0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\vent_02\vent_02.nif [353.491,185.704,180.002] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_03\awning_03.nif [150.552,517.632,40.1717] (quat 0 0
-0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\vent_02\vent_02.nif [353.45,153.985,180.002] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bilboards\billboard_decal_01\billboard_decal_01.nif [562.379,119.021,92.1647]
(quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\water_tower\water_tower.nif [250.109,151.862,140.002] (quat 0 0 0.707107
0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [280.504,130.016,22.0022] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\traffic_light\traffic_light.nif [128.202,88.0821,0.202225] (quat 0 0
0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [522.203,66.6819,0.00222778] (quat
0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\post_box\post_box.nif [460.384,69.9819,0.00222778] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [109.08,481.382,0.00222778] (quat
0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [109.08,240.082,0.00222778] (quat
0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [280.203,66.6819,0.00222778] (quat
0 0 0 1)
library\vehicles\car_01\car_01.nif [-74.4914,488.271,0] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\vehicles\car_02\car_02.nif [33.6918,-23.7157,0] (quat 0 0 0.258819 0.965926)
library\vehicles\taxi\taxi.nif [43.0475,52.0736,0] (quat 0 0 0.965926 0.258819)
library\vehicles\police\police_car.nif [-32.4996,-78.0654,0] (quat 0 0 0.258819 0.965926)
library\vehicles\taxi\taxi.nif [205.173,31.7001,0] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\vehicles\taxi\taxi.nif [-582.633,-31.6636,0] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\vehicles\police\police_car.nif [-7.86447,106.051,0] (quat 0 0 -0.382683 0.92388)
library\vehicles\car_01\car_01.nif [72.4873,-411.401,0] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\paper_01\start.nif [461.92,-59.3046,21.2551] (quat 0 0 0.608761 0.793353)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\pigeons2\pigeons2.nif [-141.827,-114.615,0] (quat 0 0 0.354291 0.935135)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\rat_01\rat_01.nif [-490.008,491.778,2.28882e-005] (quat 0 0 0.766044 0.642788)[/spoiler]
and gets it to add 1280, and also to subtract 1280 to the x and y co-ordinates above.
I should also add that the buildings above only cover 1/4 of the block that they are on, so we may also need to copy/paste/add 640 versions in each direction. I'll test that now and post back to confirm/deny.
Meanwhile, heres some previews. An above shot showing the centre junction(where all the yellow cabs are), the original mp_city_small buildings, my copied versions either side, and some of the 400 odd buildings I placed by hand in the editor. Note the darkness at the very top is where the engine gives up if you pull the camera back further (WARNING, LARGE IMAGE):
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/megacity2.jpg)[/spoiler]
And heres a street level shot, with hand-placed buildings. Note that due to 'pop-up' you can only see five buildings on the right, even though there are fourteen along that road in total. The pop-up could be a bit of a downer in that you wont be able to see whats happening more than about 6-7 blocks distant, but I have no way round it for now.
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/megacity3.jpg)[/spoiler]
IPS:
For now, I'm going with FF for this map, though if the script thing comes together I have no objections to an FFv3r version.
And may just make an FFv3r one even if the script thing cannot or will not be done. You are right about the architecture of v3r>ff, but since people still use FF, and I know of at least one Modder still Modding for it, so I stubbornly try to cover all the bases. But this map started out in one of my FFv3R mods, using the ffv3r editor, and only got checked in FF tonight, and changing the level.txt to use ffv3r buildings instead of ff ones might be a simple find/replace order in a word processor, so believe me, it will get a sparkly FFv3R version if I can.
Boalt:
Yes, I hope to add a park or three. I actually have another megamap based on the longer city blocks, and that has parks in it. If I ever get this one to work, that ones next. For now my main concern is just to populate the map, then add variety to the blocks afterwards, manually.
Ooooooookaaay...
it seems that in either FF or v3r the game needs 'templates.txt' in the directory of every object, vehicle and building or else they dont work right. You can go and point the editor to the correct template manually, but with the number of buildings, streetlamps etc in this map, that would drive me insane, and you have to do it for each and every impobj on the map.
So, public appeal time. Has anyone got the templates.txt for FFv3r? I found a thread where Boalt referred to a templates.ff file which I dont have and have never seen. If anyone does have it, or knows where to find it, let me know please.
I know there are template files for the old ff stuff that got transferred into v3r via Ren's mappack, and I could use those, but v3r has the irritating habit of naming things differently from ff, so even this would be problematic.
My other issue is the humongous, colossal, gigantic, quite big size of the mission.mg file in 'missions/megacity'. So far its 88Mb. And I think it may get bigger as I add more stuff. Clearly this is Not Good. Even my moonscape mission.mg is 25Mb, so clearly Big Maps come with a cost, and right here's where you start payin for it. FAAAME!
You get points just for the Fame joke....
I know there is a templates.ff file... I have seen it. I'll look when I get home.
Also for FF my Map pack has template files for all the objects as well... OR if you have FF installed, you could just use the templates.ff file from there as well... that's where i got em from.
Ahhh... found templates.ff
Though why Agent Ransack couldn't is beyond me.
For anyone else struggling to find it, is in the Data directory in both games.
I have a terabyte of HDD space, big maps are ok with me :)
Regarding templates.....
I've found several "generic" templates, particularly with the buildings that could potentially give you problems. Basically, there is only one template file to cover 2-3 types of buildings.
For example, the template.txt file for standard buildings 1, 4, 7, 11, 14 all say pat_bldg_orange; for both light and "dark" versions of the model.
There are several others (I can't name them all now). They don't seem to affect they layout files, however, unless you manually adjust the building's location/attitude/pitch/etc, which causes the building to revert to the template version. Check it with an existing map and you'll see what I mean.
At any rate, good luck with this...we'll be watching (Mwuhahahaha!)
B92
Oh sweet baby jebus, noooooo.
You'd be forgiven for thinking that those city block pictured above are square, right?
And that if by adding 1280 to the co-ordinates on one axis of a copy of the buildings gives you precisely placed buildings that you could add 1280 to the co-ordinates on the other axis and the same would be true on that axis?
Noooooo....apparently they aren't square. Somehow they are some weird oblong because the fourteen gosh-diddly-darned blocks I just painstakingly spent three hours typing in to the level.txt dont line up anywhere near the terrain.
I know, I should have just tested one building first before typing in all the buildings on fourteen blocks.
If this board allowed swearing I'd make an angry, drunken, docker with tourettes blush right now.
Venting over, back to the mind numbing entry of numbers for me..
Be sure to test it with one building :D
Quote from: tommyboy on July 23, 2008, 12:24:32 PMVenting over, back to the mind numbing entry of numbers for me..
Wish I had seen this before. Take a break for an hour or so and maybe I can write a little python to take the objects you have in the post above (or any file you specify) and copy them uniformly in X and Y.
Quote from: stumpy on July 23, 2008, 01:23:39 PM
Quote from: tommyboy on July 23, 2008, 12:24:32 PMVenting over, back to the mind numbing entry of numbers for me..
Wish I had seen this before. Take a break for an hour or so and maybe I can write a little python to take the objects you have in the post above (or any file you specify) and copy them uniformly in X and Y.
It's +1280 on one axis, and +1200 on the other, if that helps.
So:
[-219.997,219.981,-0.00332642]
becomes:
[-1499.997,219.981,-0.00332642] for the next block along,
and:
[-1499.997,1419.981,-0.00332642] for the next one up or down from that. And so on, until you can't bear it anymore...
I've actually got a sort of system going, where I work out the co-ordinates in a spreadsheet, then use find/replace to enter the new ones in a copied block of text. I confidently anticipate finishing the process 100 years after I am dead.
So yes, please to a script to do it. I'd write one myself if I weren't an olympic level dullard.
Okay, here's my first pass at it. Hopefully this isn't too hard to follow.
Basically,
1. Open your python editor and save the code below as TommyMapDup.py.
2. Next, change the constants at the top of the file to fit your setup.
The TEMPLATE_FILE is your template for the layout, the one as above with the map at the top and no copied blocks yet. I would keep a separate copy of this from the output file so it doesn't get overwritten. That way, if needed, you can make changes to one block and then regenerate the rest of the blocks.
The OUTPUT_FILE is the layout file that will be generated. The next constants are the limits for block duplication on the map (could be the map extents themselves if your blocks go to the edges of the map). The DELTA_X and DELTA_Y are spatial frequencies of the blocks. From your last post, I've set them to 1280 and 1200, respectively.
I have it so the the code reads from a layout file like the one posted above by your or Lunarman (forget which one I looked at). It assumes the top line is the map NIF and the rest are all objects. No blank lines (though I could change that if it matters).
3. Then run the code. The OUTPUT_FILE should have what you want, though it has the copies of each object clumped together, instead of the objects of each block. That was easier, but I could rework it if it's important to have the objects for each block grouped together.
Let me know if it works or if it needs work. :)
#! /usr/bin/env python
# TommyMapDup.py, © 2008 stumpy
# Per http://freedomreborn.net/archive/index.php?topic=47730.0
# Grab all but the first item (assumed to be the map itself) listed in
# a layout file and duplicate each at uniform x and y increments.
# This is the file with the map and your "master" set of objects for one block
TEMPLATE_FILE = r'E:\freedom force vt3r\avengers_jla\Art\level layout\megacity\layout-template2.txt'
# The file to write to
OUTPUT_FILE = r'E:\freedom force vt3r\avengers_jla\Art\level layout\megacity\layout.txt'
# The upper and lower X and Y coordinate boundaries for the map
MAP_MIN_X = -13834.8
MAP_MAX_X = 13842.4
MAP_MIN_Y = -13536.8
MAP_MAX_Y = 13938.6
# The increments in X and Y
DELTA_X = 1280
DELTA_Y = 1200
# #######################################################
# The work is done below
# #######################################################
# find the list of x coordinates for a given object
def GetXCoordList(basex):
numleft = int((basex-MAP_MIN_X)/DELTA_X)
numright = int((MAP_MAX_X-basex)/DELTA_X)
xlist = []
for i in range(-numleft,numright+1):
xlist.append( basex + i*DELTA_X )
return xlist
# find the list of y coordinates for a given object
def GetYCoordList(basey):
numbelow = int((basey-MAP_MIN_Y)/DELTA_Y)
numabove = int((MAP_MAX_Y-basey)/DELTA_Y)
ylist = []
for i in range(-numbelow,numabove+1):
ylist.append( basey + i*DELTA_Y )
return ylist
TemplateNIFs = open(TEMPLATE_FILE,'r').readlines()
NIFDATA = []
# parse all the object data
for TNIF in TemplateNIFs:
if TNIF.find(r"library\terrain")==0:
continue
try:
nif, coordstr, quatstr = TNIF.rstrip().split('\t')
coord = map(float,coordstr[1:-1].split(','))
NIFDATA.append((nif,coord,quatstr))
except:
print 'trouble parsing line <%s>' % TNIF
# Now write everything out.
f = open(OUTPUT_FILE,'w')
# Map object first
f.write(TemplateNIFs[0])
# Write the objects. This write all instances of each object, then moves to the next object.
for NIF in NIFDATA:
xcoords = GetXCoordList(NIF[1][0])
ycoords = GetYCoordList(NIF[1][1])
for y in ycoords:
for x in xcoords:
f.write('%s\t[%f,%f,%f]\t%s\n' % (NIF[0],x,y,NIF[1][2],NIF[2]))
f.close()
Thanks a gillian for this, Stumpy, it's a life saver, (not mine, but I probably would have killed someone else soon if I kept up with my manual method).
However, when I run it in WinPython, I get the following:
PythonWin 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Feb 21 2008, 13:11:45) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on win32.
Portions Copyright 1994-2008 Mark Hammond - see 'Help/About PythonWin' for further copyright information.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\pythonwin\pywin\framework\scriptutils.py", line 312, in RunScript
exec codeObject in __main__.__dict__
File "E:\freedom force vt3r\avengers_jla\Art\level layout\megacity\TommyMapDup.py", line 56, in <module>
nif, coordstr, quatstr = TNIF[:-1].split('\t')
ValueError: too many values to unpack
>>>
These are the adjustments I've made to the file itself:
# This is the file with the map and your "master" set of objects for one block
TEMPLATE_FILE = r'E:\freedom force vt3r\avengers_jla\Art\level layout\megacity\layout-template2.txt'
# The file to write to
OUTPUT_FILE = r'E:\freedom force vt3r\avengers_jla\Art\level layout\megacity\layout.txt'
# The upper and lower X and Y coordinate boundaries for the map
MAP_MIN_X = -13834.8
MAP_MAX_X = 13842.4
MAP_MIN_Y = -13536.8
MAP_MAX_Y = 13938.6
Any ideas from that?
Is it just too big?, I got the co-ord boundaries from the extents.txt, which looks like this:
[13842.4,13938.6,12850.5]
[-13834.8,-13536.8,-9100.69]
Since it has no labels for x and y I guessed which was which, I can try swapping them around if you think it's that.
I'm afraid the error message means little to me.
Tommy, I think there might have been an extra tab or something at the end of one of the lines that was causing trouble. Probably something I should have thought of.
I have edited the code posted above with a slight change to accommodate end-of-line tabs. See if that works.
If not, maybe I am not looking at your template layout file the way I should. I thought I tried it with the one you posted above, but that one had extra line feeds, so I fixed them.
[Edit] I should have posted this straight off, but here is the edited version of the layout file I was testing with.
library\terrain\mega_city\megacity.NIF [0,0,0] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_11\building_11.nif [-259.997,539.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_11\building_11.nif [-219.997,219.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_11\building_11.nif [220.003,-220.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_11\building_11.nif [260.003,-540.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_07\building_07.nif [-419.997,499.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_07\building_07.nif [420.003,-500.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_07\building_07.nif [420.003,-500.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_09\building_09.nif [-479.997,239.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_09\building_09.nif [480.003,-240.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_06\building_06.nif [-239.997,379.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_06\building_06.nif [240.003,-380.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_04\building_04.nif [-579.997,539.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_04\building_04.nif [580.003,-540.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_15\building_15.nif [-559.997,-480.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 -1.19209e-007 1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_15\building_15.nif [280.003,519.982,0.00222778] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_03\building_03.nif [-439.997,-540.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_03\building_03.nif [220.003,399.982,0.00222778] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_05\building_05.nif [-359.997,-540.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_05\building_05.nif [220.003,319.982,0.00222778] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_12\building_12.nif [-239.997,-540.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_12\building_12.nif [220.003,199.982,0.00222778] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_01\building_01.nif [-519.996,-240.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_01\building_01.nif [520.003,479.982,0.00222778] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_10\building_10.nif [-259.997,-280.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\buildings\standard\building_10\building_10.nif [480.003,219.982,0.00222778] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [-536.24,470.767,0.10054] (quat 0 0 0.382683 0.92388)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\vent_02\vent_02.nif [-256.724,295.207,179.997] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_03\awning_03.nif [-559.504,110.487,40.1625] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\chimney_01\chimney_01.nif [-377.997,428.981,139.997] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [-285.566,141.918,0.10054] (quat 0 0 0.382683 0.92388)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [-285.566,154.312,0.10054] (quat 0 0 -0.5 0.866025)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_03\awning_03.nif [-400.058,110.487,40.1625] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [-296.959,304.651,0.10054] (quat 0 0 0.130526 0.991445)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\signs\sign_hotel_02\sign_hotel_02.nif [-349.954,122.436,94.6251] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\signs\sign_burger_world\sign_burger_world.nif [-159.919,359.979,63.0708] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fire_hidrant\fire_hydrant.nif [-106.997,361.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\phone_booth\phone_booth.nif [-361.779,74.9233,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_02\crate_02.nif [-348.997,277.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0.130526 0.991445)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [-348.696,465.047,0.10054] (quat 0 0 0.991445 0.130526)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_02\crate_02.nif [-350.997,257.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_long\awning_long.nif [-478.393,97.7343,0.10054] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [-550.198,472.441,0.10054] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\traffic_light\traffic_light.nif [-127.897,87.3807,0.196671] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [-549.997,374.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 -0.130526 0.991445)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [-521.997,375.981,-0.00332642] (quat 0 0 0.382683 0.92388)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_bin\street_bin.nif [-444.617,67.9726,0.10054] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\chimney_01\chimney_01.nif [-567.997,326.981,179.997] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [-359.783,176.04,21.9967] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [-359.783,191.067,21.9967] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\water_tower\water_tower.nif [-295.394,345.498,179.997] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\vent_02\vent_02.nif [-225.718,-406.531,179.997] (quat 0 0 1 1.59792e-007)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\vent_02\vent_02.nif [-193.999,-406.571,179.997] (quat 0 0 1 1.59792e-007)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [-399.788,-179.565,21.9972] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\signs\sign_tobacco\sign_tobacco.nif [-520.743,-118.028,50.2405] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [-422.307,-463.893,0.100281] (quat 0 0 -0.608761 0.793353)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_square\awning_square.nif [-607.171,-110.02,24.9748] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\dumpster\dumpster.nif [-440.644,-378.455,-0.358292] (quat 0 0 0.998135 -0.0610484)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bilboards\billboard_decal_01\billboard_decal_01.nif [-159.036,-197.643,92.1597] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [-401.587,-366.94,0.100281] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_02\crate_02.nif [-454.189,-466.25,0.100281] (quat 0 0 -0.793353 0.608761)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\water_tower\water_tower.nif [-191.876,-509.913,139.997] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [-170.031,-479.518,21.9972] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_square\awning_square.nif [-428.017,-110.02,24.9748] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_square\awning_square.nif [-486.328,-110.02,24.9748] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_bin\street_bin.nif [-353.395,-69.1858,0.100281] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\traffic_light\traffic_light.nif [-128.097,-87.4192,0.197212] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [-106.697,-237.819,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [-280.097,-66.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\post_box\post_box.nif [-109.997,-299.637,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [-106.697,-479.819,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [-521.396,-66.019,-0.00278473] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\vent_02\vent_02.nif [256.729,-295.244,179.997] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_03\awning_03.nif [559.51,-110.524,40.1625] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\chimney_01\chimney_01.nif [378.003,-429.018,139.997] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [285.572,-141.955,0.100548] (quat 0 0 0.92388 -0.382683)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [285.572,-154.349,0.100548] (quat 0 0 0.866025 0.5)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_03\awning_03.nif [400.064,-110.524,40.1625] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [296.965,-304.688,0.100548] (quat 0 0 0.991445 -0.130526)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\signs\sign_hotel_02\sign_hotel_02.nif [349.959,-122.473,94.6251] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\signs\sign_burger_world\sign_burger_world.nif [159.924,-360.016,63.0708] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fire_hidrant\fire_hydrant.nif [107.003,-362.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\phone_booth\phone_booth.nif [361.784,-74.9603,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_02\crate_02.nif [349.003,-278.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 0.991445 -0.130526)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [348.702,-465.084,0.100548] (quat 0 0 -0.130526 0.991445)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_02\crate_02.nif [351.003,-258.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [536.246,-470.804,0.100548] (quat 0 0 0.92388 -0.382683)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_long\awning_long.nif [478.399,-97.7713,0.100548] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [550.204,-472.478,0.100548] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\traffic_light\traffic_light.nif [127.903,-87.4177,0.196678] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [550.003,-375.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 0.991445 0.130526)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [522.003,-376.018,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 0.92388 -0.382683)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_bin\street_bin.nif [444.623,-68.0096,0.100548] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\chimney_01\chimney_01.nif [568.003,-327.018,179.997] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [359.789,-176.077,21.9967] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [359.789,-191.104,21.9967] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\water_tower\water_tower.nif [295.399,-345.535,179.997] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [280.103,-69.095,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 1 -2.10734e-007)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [521.403,-69.095,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 1 -2.10734e-007)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [106.703,-240.218,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [106.703,-482.218,-0.00331879] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_02\crate_02.nif [293.771,414.174,0.105293] (quat 0 0 0.991445 0.130526)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bin\bin.nif [393.081,361.572,0.105293] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [580.457,359.774,22.0022] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\crate_01\crate_01.nif [296.129,382.293,0.105293] (quat 0 0 0.991445 -0.130526)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\dumpster\dumpster.nif [381.567,400.629,-0.353279] (quat 0 0 0.748956 0.66262)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_03\awning_03.nif [150.552,359.036,40.1717] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\vent_02\vent_02.nif [353.491,185.704,180.002] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\awnings\awning_03\awning_03.nif [150.552,517.632,40.1717] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\vent_02\vent_02.nif [353.45,153.985,180.002] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\bilboards\billboard_decal_01\billboard_decal_01.nif [562.379,119.021,92.1647] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\water_tower\water_tower.nif [250.109,151.862,140.002] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\fusebox\fusebox.nif [280.504,130.016,22.0022] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\traffic_light\traffic_light.nif [128.202,88.0821,0.202225] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [522.203,66.6819,0.00222778] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\post_box\post_box.nif [460.384,69.9819,0.00222778] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [109.08,481.382,0.00222778] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [109.08,240.082,0.00222778] (quat 0 0 -0.707107 0.707107)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\street_light_single\street_light_single.nif [280.203,66.6819,0.00222778] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\vehicles\car_01\car_01.nif [-74.4914,488.271,0] (quat 0 0 0 1)
library\vehicles\car_02\car_02.nif [33.6918,-23.7157,0] (quat 0 0 0.258819 0.965926)
library\vehicles\taxi\taxi.nif [43.0475,52.0736,0] (quat 0 0 0.965926 0.258819)
library\vehicles\police\police_car.nif [-32.4996,-78.0654,0] (quat 0 0 0.258819 0.965926)
library\vehicles\taxi\taxi.nif [205.173,31.7001,0] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\vehicles\taxi\taxi.nif [-582.633,-31.6636,0] (quat 0 0 0.707107 0.707107)
library\vehicles\police\police_car.nif [-7.86447,106.051,0] (quat 0 0 -0.382683 0.92388)
library\vehicles\car_01\car_01.nif [72.4873,-411.401,0] (quat 0 0 1 0)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\paper_01\start.nif [461.92,-59.3046,21.2551] (quat 0 0 0.608761 0.793353)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\pigeons2\pigeons2.nif [-141.827,-114.615,0] (quat 0 0 0.354291 0.935135)
library\area_specific\city\street_objects\rat_01\rat_01.nif [-490.008,491.778,2.28882e-005] (quat 0 0 0.766044 0.642788)
Fantastic!
Whatever you did worked.
Stumpy, I owe you big time, this is The Best Thing Ever, and I say that without any overstatement or hyperbole.
It outputted the biggest level.txt I've ever seen (8.16Mb), which the ffv3r editor is struggling to load even as I type, with steam and sparks metaphorically shooting out of my pc. Now to run that bad boy. Or not. FFedit deems to have hung after clicking the 'run' button. I think it might be the dilithium crystals. I'll reverse the polarity of the forward deflector shield, that usually works..I manually stopped the process.
Hmmmm... when I run the game trying to get to the rumble room to load it gets a message about:
'alert: CMissionMGR::doDiscoverIn(),invalid mission file format'..
Perhaps as was alluded to earlier, the game simply cannot load and run that much map...
I'll investigate further.
But thanks again Stumpy, Lord knows how badly I would have reacted after several weeks of manually setting up the map only to get this error message.
Your very welcome. :) I think it's cool for you to even attempt a map on this scale. :blink: :cool: I kinda wonder if my old PC could even hadnle the motion for that many cars and rats! :D
For testing purposes, you can pretty easily just change the X and Y limits in the code to create a map with fewer filled blocks in it. Maybe go from +/-3000 in each direction (about a 5x5 or so block grid) and see what happens. That should be small enough to load.
And, it could be that my code still isn't producing a proper layout.txt (though it looked okay to me, I don't really know what one should look like).
Nah, your output file looks good. I've looked at that stuff a Lot in the last few days, it looks fine.
I noticed that I had used the original mp_city_small level.txt to generate the file, which of course has a tiny terrain file, so it wont have liked trying to squeeze all that stuff into about 4 blocks in the game.
I've edited the level.txt to point to the large megacity terrain, and am re-saving the map in the editor, which has so far taken fifteen minutes and isnt finished. mission.dat is currently 31Mb and growing.35MB...39.5Mb...43.5Mb
So I'm guessing that the wrong terrain and maybe not having saved it all before might explain the error I got before.
Muhahahah! I've made a single map bigger than most Mods. Now to run my infamous AvengersVsJLA battle from the avengersspecialMod on the megamap, and create a Black Hole which will destroy Everything. Except me, because obviously I'll be in the Eye of the Black Hole.
:thumbup: Awesome!
Mission.dat currently at 61.5Mb and growing.
On the plus side, Mission.mg hasn't grown at all as I feared it might, it's still at a very trim and compact 88Mb, so the contents of that missions folder is currently 152Mb.
It's Finished! Mission.dat= 66.6Mb (is that an omen...)
The generated level.txt file has 65662 lines, meaning 65661 objects in the map, before any heroes are loaded.
Time to try and run it again...
Aaaarghhhh! got 55somethingthousand objects loaded then got:
'alert: CFastHeap::allocate failed, Out of main memory.'
I'll try trimming the file down, there are, after all, over 500 rats on the map, I can lose some of them, surely.
But yeah, other than that I think we are in business, sort of.
But you still haven't added all the ezscript markers, or rumble room markers....
I think you might just be a masochist... Nice job though!
On the plus side you have actually got me at least opening up all my in progress never to be finished maps and thinking "Maybe I could get just this one finished"
I finally got the map to load, after some nasty BSOD type troubles.
The odd thing is I changed the X and Y co-ord boundaries to 9000, -9000, 9000, -9000, which given the extents are 13842.4,13938.6,
-13834.8,-13536.8 you might think was too small. But it fills the map top to bottom, and only misses the last half-block on the left and right.
Here it is in all its glory:
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/megacity5.jpg)
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/megacity4.jpg)
[/spoiler]
I've edited the original template to remove all rats, pigeons, and bits of paper. Cut the fuseboxes from 2 to 1, removed one cop car from the junction, so theres 'only' 27000 or so objects in the level. And surprisingly, it runs just fine on my system (2.6gig core duo with 2gig of ram and an 8800gt geforce), even at my default settings of 1280x1024 32bit fsaa.
I did go back into 3dsmax to add the splines for civs and traffic, but they dont seem to be working, so I'll have to keep trying.
Tonight if I can I'll transpose it to FF (the testing is in ffv3r so far) to see if it works.
Then if I have the energy I'll see about sticking a custom building (or more) dotted around..
That looks very cool Tommy.
I wonder if the map has some blank area past what's visible on the map?
BTW, I noticed that the buildings and such can look a little repetitious. If you want, you could create a 2x1, 2x3, or whatever template of blocks and then duplicate those over the map by changing the DELTA_X and DELTA_Y settings. That would save you a little effort in adding random buildings later on...
And, 27000 objects. Holy cats! :blink:
Tha map is amazing and I can't wait until you release it.
:blink: :blink: :blink: Damn..that' a big map! Lots of superhero destruction is afoot! :thumbup:
This is really Amazing...
Behold-- the Big map of DOOM
Heres my proposed layout for a Marvel_megacity.
Apologies to those inhabitants of Manhattan whose city I've mangled, but there are limits to what one can do (when one is sloppy and lazy).
WARNING:LARGE IMAGE (again...)
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity.jpg)[/spoiler]
Now, there are obviously a few more landmarks, real and imaginary that can be added, and if people want to request them, here's the place to do so.
Assume I'm an idiot, and that a picture and location will help immensely. Those of great initiative could even mark on the map I just posted where they would like stuff.
Bear in mind that although marked as a whole block, many buildings like Doc Stranges house do not fill a whole block. I'd argue that some biggies like Avengers mansion and the Baxter Building could well take up a block, what with rockets and quinjets and pogo planes and whatnot.
Although I am willing to try to do it all myself, I throw it open to the community to suggest/contribute/heckle about/to/at this project.
Oh, and there is (in my head at least) a plan to do a 'generic' manhattan/megacity map, devoid of Marvel trademarks, as well, for DC/other use.
Soooo.....whaddaya think?
That map will be a great boon for all sorts of Marvel projects. Even if one is doing an Avengers mod with no Fantastic Four appearances, it will still be cool to cruise past the Baxter Buildiing. :cool:
That's an amazing piece of work.
The only issue i see (aside from those with lower powered computers) is that any mission or Mod that takes advantage of it is really gonna have to take into account size as an issue and plan placement accordingly. If you just were to try and play that in a generic rumble room session, my fear is that the characters would spend most of the time potentially running all over Manhattan just trying to get to one another.
Quote from: GogglesPizanno on July 25, 2008, 11:43:23 AM
That's an amazing piece of work.
The only issue i see (aside from those with lower powered computers) is that any mission or Mod that takes advantage of it is really gonna have to take into account size as an issue and plan placement accordingly. If you just were to try and play that in a generic rumble room session, my fear is that the characters would spend most of the time potentially running all over Manhattan just trying to get to one another.
Yes.
There could easily be issues with the AI not 'seeing' you at far distances. And trying to find that stubborn last enemy on a map this size if they aren't 'looking' for you will be a nightmare.
I'm thinking it's more useful for freeroam type mods than for most standard campaigns or rumble battles, but even in a standard rumble room mission it will be nice to not hit the 'edge of the world' quite so soon, and those big brawls with characters being knocked back a block or two should be more interesting as the fight can spread out. There could and should be some slight variations on tactics, and stuff thats been done in other mods like Hospitals to heal injuries could be interesting.
And standard 'find' missions go up a notch now, as could timed runs from one side to the other.
I'm hopeful that the addition of some new maps will open up more than just a different coloured background to do the same types of things in the same ways. Good map design (which I can't do yet) should add something to a game in a similar way that FFX type add-ons do.
Its actually given me an idea for a rumble room mode I originally conceived of as an FFX plug in back when I did the Police and Hospital ones (it was gonna be my trilogy of interactive plugins) -- but I think with a map this size and a little extra scripting (and marker placement), it could work pretty well as its own new game type.
Hmmmmm.... must start some experimenting.
Yeah, I need to get back to the map attempts myself.
Some progress on the Marvel Megacity(but at the cost of not playing with FFx3.3 yet :().
I've added what will pass for Central Park. I know, it's tiny, nowhere near as big as it should be, and so on and so forth. Sadly, my map can't really be to scale as yet. Maybe one day, but not now.
Need I mention that its a large image? I thought not:
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity2.jpg)[/spoiler]
Note off to the right my first attempt at placing Avengers Mansion (AKA the mansion from the Berlin maps), albeit one block too far 'south'.
And either 'side' of the map, we have River:
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity3.jpg)[/spoiler]
Further off you see the irritatingly still-not-working skysphere, which can only be seen when you get close anyway.
At present you can walk on the water, which I hope to address. For now call it 'swimming'.
I'm thinking that both these features (park and river) will be included in the 'generic' megacity as well, just for a bit of variety.
Word of warning to those who may wish to further ammend the map in the editor: it will seemingly let you delete/move etc objects that are setup in 'level.txt', but will not actually save any of these changes. You have to edit the text by hand, seeking out the bit you want based on finding its co-ordinates first. Unless I'm doing something elsewrong, which would not surprise me.
Endless updates will doubtless follow, unless I decide to just shut up till something gets finished...
QuoteWord of warning to those who may wish to further ammend the map in the editor: it will seemingly let you delete/move etc objects that are setup in 'level.txt', but will not actually save any of these changes. You have to edit the text by hand, seeking out the bit you want based on finding its co-ordinates first. Unless I'm doing something elsewrong, which would not surprise me.
As a matter of fact, yes you are, but it's rather tricky and counter-intuitive, so I'm not surprised.
In order for any changes to objects in level.txt to stick, you must have those objects actually showing in the editor, with that window opens, at the time but checking off the appropriate tick box. Do so, and you can move or delete those objects as you wish to.
This is honestly the most exciting thing I've seen done for FF since FFX.
a map with avengers mansion and the baxter building.cool.could also throw in dr.strange's sanctum.
Quote from: herodad1 on July 27, 2008, 04:57:35 PMcould also throw in dr.strange's sanctum.
I think it's already on the list.
Quote from: tommyboy on July 25, 2008, 07:02:48 AMHeres my proposed layout for a Marvel_megacity.
[...] many buildings like Doc Stranges house do not fill a whole block. [...]
Unless the sactum is a different place...
Quote from: stumpy on July 27, 2008, 05:13:30 PM
Quote from: herodad1 on July 27, 2008, 04:57:35 PMcould also throw in dr.strange's sanctum.
I think it's already on the list. Quote from: tommyboy on July 25, 2008, 07:02:48 AMHeres my proposed layout for a Marvel_megacity.
[...] many buildings like Doc Stranges house do not fill a whole block. [...]
Unless the sactum is a different place...
There will definitely be a Sanctum Sanctorum..
My list is:
Baxter Building
Avengers mansion
Sanctum Sanctorum
Gem Theatre
Enpire state building
Empire state University
Met museum of art
Columbia U.
possibly
Daily Bugle
Xmansion (I know its not in Mangattan, but still...)
Latverian Embassy
Wakandan Embassy
SHIELD HQ and/or barbershop.
First placeholder; Dr.Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum. A poorly ripped from the hulk game version(not for release, I just needed a placeholder that looked right-ish) . And yes, it should be on the corner of Bleeker St., and I hope that it will be in due course, but I think it looks pretty cool nonetheless.
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_sanctum1.jpg)[/spoiler]
Now to make placeholders for some other landmarks and see about getting them in the map.
Oh, and despite currently being FFv3R only, the map WILL use ffv3r, and FF buildings, as well as new custom made ones. Do most people have the FF mappack/converted stuff installed, or will I need to bloat what is going to be a pretty big file anyway by including the necessary FF stuff too? What's the general view? My take is that people will and should already have the FF area_speciff1 stuff installed, but I could be convinced to try to include the necessary...
this map sounds incredible!ive loaded the recent big ffx3_map pack.can i load your map with it also being loaded?
Quote from: herodad1 on July 28, 2008, 05:45:14 AM
this map sounds incredible!ive loaded the recent big ffx3_map pack.can i load your map with it also being loaded?
I would think so. I dont plan to change any resources, only to add new ones if necessary. So it should be compatible with pretty much everything *crosses fingers*.
QuoteQuotethis map sounds incredible!ive loaded the recent big ffx3_map pack.can i load your map with it also being loaded?
I would think so. I dont plan to change any resources, only to add new ones if necessary. So it should be compatible with pretty much everything *crosses fingers*.
If hes using the Renegade Created file structure I used in my map pack (ie. FF1 objects located in area_speciff1 as opposed to area_specific) then it should be no problem. If not, it should be pretty easy to do a hex fix like I did with the original maps. *crosses fingers as well*
That is simply amazing, Tommy.
Not necessarily..
Now this is mildly interesting...
I created a new Mod directory, called 'Maps'. Into this I copied just the Vanilla Ffv3r .Dat files, and the new maps and textures and objects and missions, but, and this is crucial, NO FF stuff at all.
These show the results:
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_ffv3r_only.jpg)[/spoiler]
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_ffv3r_only2.jpg)[/spoiler]
Note that with the exception of one crowded corner, it basically works with just ffv3r buildings and objects. There are some blocks indicating missing objects (awnings and signs I think), and the awnings are too high in places, but otherwise its perfectly serviceable, without installing any FF buildings or objects.
I'll see if I can tweak the 'template' map that its all based on to eliminate the building clipping. If I can, we could be looking at a stand-alone map for those without the FF stuff installed.
That's because some of the FFvTTR map assets are named the same as FF assets. That's why I had to come up with the area_speciff1 folder, way back when.
Actually, if you made a specific version for FFvTR with no FF assets, and a specific Version for FF using FF content, it should be easy to convert the FF one for people who have the mappack installed. I say make the map you want to make... we can figure out ways to tweak it to do things it wasn't originally designed for.... this community is really good at getting square pegs into round holes.
Quote from: GogglesPizanno on July 28, 2008, 09:25:57 AM
Actually, if you made a specific version for FFvTR with no FF assets, and a specific Version for FF using FF content, it should be easy to convert the FF one for people who have the mappack installed. I say make the map you want to make... we can figure out ways to tweak it to do things it wasn't originally designed for.... this community is really good at getting square pegs into round holes.
Because of my tendency to want to make stuff as compatible as possible, I will do at least two versions (three if I can ever get it to work in FF, (I dont think my finally upgrading to SP2 is helping my problems opening the map in the FF editor));
one FFv3r 'only', (ie no FF stuff needed).
Then there should be a version for those with the FF mappacks installed.
To some extent the two will be interchangeable, but there will be glitches (see the shots above) if people use the 'wrong' version.
The FF one will continue the original project, using art assets from both.
The ffv3r one will have the template tweaked to align the buildings, remove the parts like awnings or vents that are named differently in ffv3r, but largely be the same map.
Both will have new custom buildings, terrain, textures, and should come with merge-able .dat files for the new building templates, and, if I can be bothered, new strings to describe the wonders and the splendours of Old new new old new york, ie "Baxter Building: Towering Home to the Fantastic Four" and so on (but better, I hope).
Such is my absurdly grandiose, over-reaching plan.
Oh, and I finally got the skysphere to work in the map too, except you can only see it from a few hundred yards away, then the games 'pop-up' makes it all black again :banghead:.. consequently, its distinctly underwhelming, and may end up on the cutting room floor...
Quote from: ips on July 28, 2008, 10:03:01 AM
are you sure you didn't include ff1 content? those are ff1 curbs present in that pic ;)
anyhow, ya i would love to check out this map but i don't have ff1 installed on my bootcamp and i don't like the art assets either as previously discussed - so i don't want to install them. i always thought the maps in ff1 were lacking even back then :-(
If there is still FF stuff in there, it must be in my data/art/library/area_specific/etc path (which is perfectly possible, I'm always fiddling around, copying stuff back and forth, and when helping Abenavides on transferring FF to FFv3r I could easily have deliriously copied files to area_specific in stead of area_speciff1.
But I definitely renamed area_speciff1 in the data path to make it inaccessible to the game, and there isn't that folder in the Maps Mod dir.
*lightbulb comes on in head*
Aha! they ARE FF curbs because the original mp layout max file on which the curbs are drawn is from FF and I think I still have a bunch of ff textures in my data/art/library/area_specific/_textures directory.*checks* Yep, I do.
You may need to install the small 'terrain' map pack to have those textures, but I'll try to tweak the Max file to point to the ffv3r pavemants if i can.
@IPS, I can make an ffv3r version, but it will take a fair amount of time, and I'd like to get the hybrid ff/ffv3r version(s) finished first.
Unfortunately due to the vast size, it takes about an hour to change the template, generate the level, load the mission and level in the editor, save it then run the game to see how the changes look, so for now I'm going to not divide my attention, and try to finish one thing before starting another.
But I do intend to come back to this, because I like the way it looks as an all-ffv3r map.
Ooohooohooooh my statue of liberty!
Impaled on your hair, what do you do do do to me?
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_liberty1.jpg)[/spoiler]
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_liberty2.jpg)[/spoiler]
She's not perfect, she's a bit smaller than in real life, and in the wrong place, the texture needs work, and she needs a custom bounding box made, but other than all that, as per a suggestion by Herodad, New York now sports the Statue of Liberty!
I have to wait till I get home to see it cause our web filter at work is blocking the domain hosting the images.... but I love the concept.
For bounding boxes, Ive found that if the mesh is low poly, you can just paste in a generic "box" shaped bounding box node using nifskope then remove the shape data and replace it with a copy of the model data itself... then you end up with a bounding box that perfectly matches the model (though for higher poly meshes it can add a bit of excess data).
that lady liberty looks awsome.to me when you think of newyork you always think of her.
truly amazing Tommy.
please keep at it, but don't overwork yourself, kay?
Quick preview of Avengers Mansion:
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_avengers1.jpg)[/spoiler]
Still needs gates, proper positioning, resizing slightly smaller and damaged version (for those master of evil invasions).
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_freedom_force.jpg)[/spoiler]
See that?
Thats the marvel_megacity map in Freedom Force, as opposed to ffv3r.
Clearly there are some anomolies (ie half the buildings are missing..), which I think can be cured by loading the map in the Editor then re-loading the level.txt and letting the editor associate the correct templates for ff, as the ffv3r editor associates ffv3r templates. Either that or its because I still have the ffv3r template.txt files. I'm overwriting those with ff template.txt files now....no, that didn't seem to help..
Well, I'll see if the FF Editor will stay stable long enough to load the mission (stupid SP2!)
Anyway, the larger point is that the map WILL work in FF, so I'm pretty happy.
The Statue of Liberty...........that's too awesome.
If you Incorperate Hells Kitchen, 4 Freedoms Plaza(or Baxter Building), The X-Mansion, Avengers Mansion, Tony Starks Tower(With The Sentry Watchtower on Top), The Daily Bugle, and Doctor Stranges' Sanctum Sanctorum this would be the BOMB!!! :P Well it is the bomb already but still. :P
I'm strongly disinclined to have either Stark Tower or anything Sentry related in this map. As far as I'm concerned the Avengers stopped being published after Chuck Austen's run, and there has been nothing since then.
One day Wanda will go into the shower, see the Vision in there, and realize everything was a dream.
The Sentry does not, and never has existed. Stark may have a tower of some sort, somewhere, but Avengers Mansion is the base of the Avengers.
Pretty much everything else you mention is already planned for inclusion, though.
Marvel_megacity for Freedom Force Lives:
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_freedom_force2.jpg)[/spoiler]
Got some wrinkles to sort out, but it will be available for FF (not that many mod for FF anymore, but hey, it'll be there for them as do).
Quote from: tommyboy on July 31, 2008, 08:45:59 AM
I'm strongly disinclined to have either Stark Tower or anything Sentry related in this map. As far as I'm concerned the Avengers stopped being published after Chuck Austen's run, and there has been nothing since then.
One day Wanda will go into the shower, see the Vision in there, and realize everything was a dream.
The Sentry does not, and never has existed. Stark may have a tower of some sort, somewhere, but Avengers Mansion is the base of the Avengers.
I sympathize Tommy! I totally agree.
This map is totally awesome!
tommy,i totally agree with your opinion of the avengers lately.nothing about it feels right or appeals to me.i dont like sentry.superman rip off!the best avengers stories were when KURT BUSIEK and GEORGE PEREZ were drawing/writing the book.all the original members were on board.the new stuff may be here now but the classic live on.thats what people remember.thats what they eventually always come back too.
Hey I like the Sentry :(......But I do agree with you on this Fiasco going on with Civil War and the Skrulls is just plain UHH! :angry: After what Scarlet Witch did with everything cause the Avengers to disband the story arc seem to get really DUMB! But I can't wait to see your finished product!
Oh yeah this might be of some sort of help to you TB!
http://images.wizarduniverse.com/WizardUniverse/magazinepics/marvelmanhattan1.jpg (http://images.wizarduniverse.com/WizardUniverse/magazinepics/marvelmanhattan1.jpg)
Quote from: style on July 31, 2008, 01:54:39 PM
Oh yeah this might be of some sort of help to you TB!
http://images.wizarduniverse.com/WizardUniverse/magazinepics/marvelmanhattan1.jpg (http://images.wizarduniverse.com/WizardUniverse/magazinepics/marvelmanhattan1.jpg)
Thanks, I found that one myself a week or so ago. It's a big help.
New York, New York, it's a wonderful town...
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_freedom_force3.jpg)
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_freedom_force4.jpg)
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_freedom_force7.jpg)
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_freedom_force5.jpg)
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_freedom_force6.jpg)
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_freedom_force8.jpg)
[/spoiler]
As you can see I've been busy.
It's really starting to feel more like a 'proper' town as you run around it, with a better variety of architecture and vehicles.
And the scale, if not quite breathtaking, is exhilarating. You will never run out of waste bins to throw at enemies again.
These shots here are all from the Freedom Force version, the 'ff in ffv3r hybrid' version will probably look fairly similar.
Theres still a lot to do, I want a couple of run down areas, more skyscrapers in midtown, and I'm drawing a bit of a blank as to how to handle Times Square.
More when there's more.
That's just amazing.
Given how many times I have started, stopped, been frustrated and beaten in my attempts to do these kinds of maps, its really impressive to see how far and fast you've taken this.
I think the only thing that I don't care for is the city skybox.
Its just a personal preference, but those flat walled sky boxes have always left me a little cold. Have you tried it with one of the spherical ones... they suffer from similar texturing issues, but somehow don't make the map feel so caged in and little bit more open.
Wow Tommy! Very awesome. That bridge is especially cool.
Quote from: GogglesPizanno on August 01, 2008, 05:53:35 PM
That's just amazing.
Given how many times I have started, stopped, been frustrated and beaten in my attempts to do these kinds of maps, its really impressive to see how far and fast you've taken this.
I think the only thing that I don't care for is the city skybox.
Its just a personal preference, but those flat walled sky boxes have always left me a little cold. Have you tried it with one of the spherical ones... they suffer from similar texturing issues, but somehow don't make the map feel so caged in and little bit more open.
That
is a spherical skybox. Or a skysphere, as I call 'em. If you look closely at the top two shots in the last post I made, you can see the sphere curve round behind the bridge (the bridge is in the top north-west part of the map)
The problems are, at that size you just see huge flat planes, and of course they suffer from 'pop up' at that scale, neither of which is attractive.
I've been wondering, do we think it possible to 'attach' a usual sized skysphere to wherever the camera is, and have it follow the camera so that we are never far enough away to get popup? I seem to recall a 'tiggot' in FFX or maybe Kuertee's camera mod that had a similar property. If the sphere were given 'air' as a material and were completely 'game-neutral', you'd have a pretty backdrop/sky anywhere in the city.
Anybody think it's possible?
It does look possible; I'm a bit afraid of the lag between the camera's movement and the skysphere's, and of the performance hit, though. It's worth trying anyway. I've got a guest this week-end, so I can't check this now, however. Kuertee's code might be adapted for this task, and there's also a step by step movement script by Conduit (?) which might be simpler to use.
Alternatively, maybe some kind of layered alpha'ed spheres would provide most of the same, plus a bit of parallax?
What can I say!? Is it possible for a man to do more in week? :)
Verrrry nice, especially that statue of liberty
Guess the unfinished landmark:
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_chrysler1.jpg)[/spoiler]
The winner gets.....ummm...more preview shots here in the near future...
Nice!
So do all your custom buildings have the destruction versions as well?
Quote from: GogglesPizanno on August 03, 2008, 10:20:06 AM
Nice!
So do all your custom buildings have the destruction versions as well?
Not today, but when finished I aim for them to.
Just needs gargoyles and the _destruction version can be made:
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/marvel_megacity_chrysler2.jpg)
Damn, that is cool!
Quit it TB you're making me home sick! :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: Great stuff!
OK, I think I already know the answer to this, but will ask it because I've been wrong often enough before.
I've taken the art assets from the ffx3_Mappack, and used its objects.dat in the megamap, so I can use FF objects in the map.
When I play 'mp-ff1-citysmall' in the ffx3-mappack mod, all the buildings and objects are named correctly, and show up labelled in both the game and the editor.
If I copy that mission, it's terrain and level layout to my 'maps' mod, it also functions correctly, all FF buildings and objects appear as they should.
If I now copy the mission from 'mp-01-citysmall' to 'toms_mp-01-citysmall', the new version still works. But if I import the level layout 'level.txt' for that level, I start to lose the labelling of the buildings and some other bits and pieces. They still appear in game, but in the editor they are just 'generic' with nothing in the 'template' field, even though in the 'nif' field below it you can see the correct nif selected.
Which is to be expected, as this is an FF map in FFv3r, so various objects dont have templates, or are named differently. If I now edit the layout file 'level.txt' for 'toms_mp-01-citysmall', replacing 'area_specific' with 'area_speciff1', you might now expect the 'template' field to show correctly, and those objects to be labelled in game correctly. But it doesn't, and they aren't.
Heres a shot to illustrate:
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/editor_prob1.jpg)
On the left, the 'mp-01-citysmall' mission, note that every 'template' shows correctly. On the right, 'toms_mp-01-citysmall', note that the buildings and a few other bits have no 'template' defined. The only difference is that on the right I 'imported' the level layout file.
Now, I've copied the FF templates for everything into the correct folders in 'area_speciff1', and it remains the same.
I've even tried defining templates for all the buildings (ie building_02.nif etc) in the templates tab, to no avail.
So it seems to me that any object loaded as a result of an import of a level_layout file that is in area_speciff1 will never be recognised as a valid template in ffv3r, and that those maps like mp-01-citysmall that appear to function correctly probably had the buildings manually added to the map in the leveleditor, rather than as a result of a level_layout file.
Except that the 'vent' object, an 'area_speciff1' object shows correctly. So maybe it's just buildings.
If I were to copy the FF buildings from 'area_speciff1' to 'area_specific', and define templates for them all in the templates tab, and edit the templates.txt for them all, it would work better for some of them, but would mean ffv3r maps would be messed up by FF buildings replacing the FFV3r versions. So that's not an option.
I tried thinking laterally. I renamed all the FF buildings from 'building_01' to 'building_21', 'building_09' to 'building_29' and so on, to avoid any clashes with the ffv3r buildings. I edited the 'level.txt' to reflect these changes. I created templates in the 'templates' tab in the editor for 'building_21' to 'building_35', put 'template.txt' files in the appropriate directories, and tried defining the path as both 'area_specific' and 'area_speciff1', with copies of the buildings in both locations.
Nothing seems to work.
So, anyone got any idea what, if anything, I'm doing wrong here?
I've tried a 'search' but have yet to find anyone else even with the same problem, let alone an answer.
Any help would be appreciated.
Having read through some other posts, and seen mention of hex editing FF maps to work in FFv3R, I opened up the two maps shown above, and found that for the 'working' map there was an extra entry following that for each 'impobj', which in the case of buildings is a piece of text that says 'building'. This is the name of the 'template' used by all the buildings. Adding that bit of text to one of my buildings in my map caused that building to be 'seen' by the editor as a template, and to appear in the leveleditor too, and in the game itself.
I can achieve the same thing by manually setting the template for the building in the editor, mission tab, template field.
Both of which are fine for a little map like mp_citysmall, but a bit harder on the megamap with its 26,000 or so objects.
I'll see if I cannot do a 'find/replace' within the mission.dat...
Let me get this straight before l get my hopes up. Will this awesome map just be for :ffvstr: ? Maybe I I'm missing something here. :huh:
Again being at work behind the cursed "Web Filter of Death" I can't see screen shots or look at the game files, but you are correct in that Hex editing was done extensively to basically replace all instances of "area_specific" with area_speciff1" - And as you saw it allows the maps to work as is, and it allows you to manually place building and objects via the in game editor, but things can get a bit wonky with the template stuff. It was one of the tradeoffs when I did the mappack (as like you I didn't want to spend 90% of the time setting drop down template values), as most people would be either playing FF1 maps, or placing a few FF1 objects... and for that its ok. For something on the scale you are talking about, quirks and issues rear up.
You might check the FF1 building object directories to make sure they have a "template.txt" file and that there is in fact a template that matches in FFedit. If I remember correctly, buildings were handled a bit more loosely by the game engine in FF vs. FFvTR. If they dont have that, adding it and trying to reimport the level layout might work -- its a longshot, but hey.
I have a couple of other suggestion that are just spitballed off the top of my head right now, though neither of them is perfect.
My best idea would be to do the map as an FF1 conversion (like I did with the FF1 maps)
Basically build the map as an FF1 map. Then edit the map in a hex editor and do a batch and replace of "area_specific" with area_speciff1". At that point you should have a giant working FF1 map converted to FFvTR like I had done it. You would then need to manually swap out or place any new FFvTR content in the editor.
The other option would be to figure out in a hex editor where that template value is set for each object, and then come up with some kind of pattern recognition to search out and add/replace. While this kind of thing CAN be done (and I have) it can get really ugly really fast -- especially if you miss an empty byte somewhere along the way.
Quote from: style on August 06, 2008, 10:15:40 AM
Let me get this straight before l get my hopes up. Will this awesome map just be for :ffvstr: ? Maybe I I'm missing something here. :huh:
There will be, and already is, an FF version of the map. The troubles I am having is with version that is a hybrid of ff and ffv3r stuff. At some later date there will be (I hope) an FFv3R 'only' version which will use the slightly superior (IMO) FFv3R buildings only.
So there is an FF 'only' version.
There is an ff and ffv3r version featuring buildings and objects from both games.
There should be an FFv3r only version for those without any ff content at all.
Quote from: GogglesPizanno on August 06, 2008, 10:19:08 AM
Again being at work behind the cursed "Web Filter of Death" I can't see screen shots or look at the game files, but you are correct in that Hex editing was done extensively to basically replace all instances of "area_specific" with area_speciff1" - And as you saw it allows the maps to work as is, and it allows you to manually place building and objects via the in game editor, but things can get a bit wonky with the template stuff. It was one of the tradeoffs when I did the mappack (as like you I didn't want to spend 90% of the time setting drop down template values), as most people would be either playing FF1 maps, or placing a few FF1 objects... and for that its ok. For something on the scale you are talking about, quirks and issues rear up.
You might check the FF1 building object directories to make sure they have a "template.txt" file and that there is in fact a template that matches in FFedit. If I remember correctly, buildings were handled a bit more loosely by the game engine in FF vs. FFvTR. If they dont have that, adding it and trying to reimport the level layout might work -- its a longshot, but hey.
I have a couple of other suggestion that are just spitballed off the top of my head right now, though neither of them is perfect.
My best idea would be to do the map as an FF1 conversion (like I did with the FF1 maps)
Basically build the map as an FF1 map. Then edit the map in a hex editor and do a batch and replace of "area_specific" with area_speciff1". At that point you should have a giant working FF1 map converted to FFvTR like I had done it. You would then need to manually swap out or place any new FFvTR content in the editor.
The other option would be to figure out in a hex editor where that template value is set for each object, and then come up with some kind of pattern recognition to search out and add/replace. While this kind of thing CAN be done (and I have) it can get really ugly really fast -- especially if you miss an empty byte somewhere along the way.
It appears to me, (through my vast beer goggles), as though you are making sense with the 'convert an ff version' hypothesis. However, I have to assess the information in my more sober alter-ego, lest Beer-Goggle-Boy lead me astray.
Woooo...is the room spinning for everyone else..? I don't recall putting on roller skates..
I'll leave it until I return to the dessicated Shores of Sobriety, whereupon my ability to spell may return..
Worst case scenario if I follow your advice? I reload the backups I'll make before trying anything..
At least I whupped my friends at Wii Golf down the pub, although that may be nothing to be proud of it covered my drinks for the night..
Well, a quick test this morning seems to prove that taking the FF mission.dat and replacing area_specific with area_speciff1 where ever appropriate via hex editor, and using it in ffv3r works just fine. Thanks for the tip Goggles.
Having had that sorted for me, the only other problem I have currently is that object shadows are messed up in both FF and FFv3r versions. See pic below:
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/shadow_prob.jpg)
It's as though it's trying to display the shadows at a greater distance than the view is actually set for.
It may be specific to my graphics card, a Geforce 8800gt.
But I suspect that the sheer number of objects is overloading the engines capacity to calculate where shadows should be.
So I just turn 'em off. It's a shame to lose the shadows, but there have to be some costs to a map this size, and no shadows is one of them.
And speaking of costs... I manually added in some civilians, trying for one male and one female per block. I stopped when I'd added seventy (35 of each). And although it's nice to see them walking around, or running away, the cost in processing power is, I think, too high. Between animating 70 civs and the traffic, my pc is starting to choke. Ergo, no civs, and I'm considering having no moving traffic. Now, obviously once the map is released, people can add civs to it in the editor, if they feel it's too empty, or they are needed for a mission. And loathe though I am to deprive new york of the patriot city sport of vehicular homicide, again, the costs may outweigh the benefits. Plus I rather stupidly have a jam at every junction at the moment, so its not as if the cars can go very far..
Well, back to adding in stuff for me...
This thread is one of my recent favorites. I am so glad someone is making more maps. It getting really dull playing in the same sandbox over and over again.
Quote from: tommyboy on August 06, 2008, 03:26:39 PM
At least I whupped my friends at Wii Golf down the pub, although that may be nothing to be proud of it covered my drinks for the night..
"Wii Golf"--isn't that a game most frequently played after, and not before, putting down a number of pints? ;)
As I've noted elsewhere, 'tis a beautiful Chrysler Building you've done there, Tom. I especially admire the way you've reduced what could be massive mapping distortion to an unnoticeable minimum on that spire. Very nicely executed. :)
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
Quote from: ow_tiobe_sb on August 07, 2008, 09:36:36 AM
Quote from: tommyboy on August 06, 2008, 03:26:39 PM
At least I whupped my friends at Wii Golf down the pub, although that may be nothing to be proud of it covered my drinks for the night..
"Wii Golf"--isn't that a game most frequently played after, and not before, putting down a number of pints? ;)
As I've noted elsewhere, 'tis a beautiful Chrysler Building you've done there, Tom. I especially admire the way you've reduced what could be massive mapping distortion to an unnoticeable minimum on that spire. Very nicely executed. :)
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
Thank you kindly. The mapping isn't quite accurate of course, I....errr...improved it. Yes, that's it, it's actually better than if I'd made it accurately. Seriously, I am quite pleased with the steeple/spire/top bit. The rest is pretty average and hastily done, but looks OK in game. I'm not 100% sure I have it scaled correctly in the game, but FF/ffv3r both have such weird scaling of buildings that it probably doesn't matter too much.
As for the Wii golf (Tiger Woods 08, to be precise), we played before, during and slightly after imbibing the nectar of incompetence. Plus you have to remember the tradition of 'the 19th hole'.
Quote from: tommyboy on August 06, 2008, 03:14:32 PM
Quote from: style on August 06, 2008, 10:15:40 AM
Let me get this straight before l get my hopes up. Will this awesome map just be for :ffvstr: ? Maybe I I'm missing something here. :huh:
There will be, and already is, an FF version of the map. The troubles I am having is with version that is a hybrid of ff and ffv3r stuff. At some later date there will be (I hope) an FFv3R 'only' version which will use the slightly superior (IMO) FFv3R buildings only.
So there is an FF 'only' version.
There is an ff and ffv3r version featuring buildings and objects from both games.
There should be an FFv3r only version for those without any ff content at all.
Got Cha! :thumbup:
Quote from: tommyboy on July 22, 2008, 08:57:38 AM
Quote from: cmdrkoenig67 on July 22, 2008, 08:30:47 AM
Tom...A while back, I tried to help Valandar with a giant map project of his(by placing buildings and such on it), but the map proved far too big (and it had nowhere the amount of stuff this one does) and wouldn't be usable/accessible in the Rumble/Danger Room.
Yours may work, but I don't even think Val's map was as big as this one (and the one he made was huge).
This probably wasn't helpful, but I just thought I'd mention it.
Dana
Dana,
I'm not sure quite what you are saying the problem was with Val's map. When you say it wouldn't be usable/accessible in the danger room, did it crash the game, not load, prove impractical because it's size confounded the AI?
Because mine runs both as a mission and as a danger room level (only in FFv3R so far, havent tried in ff yet), though obviously it's relatively sparsely populated so far. And should it prove too big, I will simply trim bits off till it does work.
Goggles, I'll see if I can get a number for the shifts in x and y co-ordinates between blocks. Then it would be up to someone with some shreds of intelligence and programming and mathematical skill to write any putative programme, since that would most likely be far beyond my meager abilities.
I apologize for not getting back to you til now, Tom...If I recall, Val wasn't happy with the fact that parts of his map blacked out the further you moved from it (including objects). Sounds like you have the same issue.
I had to recently reinstall all of my FF and FFVTTR stuff and I reinstalled his map too. It does the same thing...But it does show up in the Rumble Room and it is playable...It's just impossible to see the end/horizon of the map from the middle, other side, etc...
Dana
Quote from: cmdrkoenig67 on August 08, 2008, 01:13:31 AM
I apologize for not getting back to you til now, Tom...If I recall, Val wasn't happy with the fact that parts of his map blacked out the further you moved from it (including objects). Sounds like you have the same issue.
I had to recently reinstall all of my FF and FFVTTR stuff and I reinstalled his map too. It does the same thing...But it does show up in the Rumble Room and it is playable...It's just impossible to see the end/horizon of the map from the middle, other side, etc...
Dana
Yes, what I call 'pop-up' (that a black 'curtain' appears over everything beyond a certain distance) is present, but I can and will live with it, since its a built in game limitation of the engine, as far as I can see.
Of course it's ugly (but so are the black skies of the original game), and I'd really like to see my skysphere, and navigate by sighting the ESB or Chrysler Building from a distance, or just to see a battle from fifteen blocks away, but there you are, the limit is there, and nobody ever accused me of being a perfectionist, so I'll make the map regardless.
Thanks for at least trying to warn me of it.
Quote from: tommyboy on August 08, 2008, 02:27:20 AM
Quote from: cmdrkoenig67 on August 08, 2008, 01:13:31 AM
I apologize for not getting back to you til now, Tom...If I recall, Val wasn't happy with the fact that parts of his map blacked out the further you moved from it (including objects). Sounds like you have the same issue.
I had to recently reinstall all of my FF and FFVTTR stuff and I reinstalled his map too. It does the same thing...But it does show up in the Rumble Room and it is playable...It's just impossible to see the end/horizon of the map from the middle, other side, etc...
Dana
Yes, what I call 'pop-up' (that a black 'curtain' appears over everything beyond a certain distance) is present, but I can and will live with it, since its a built in game limitation of the engine, as far as I can see.
Of course it's ugly (but so are the black skies of the original game), and I'd really like to see my skysphere, and navigate by sighting the ESB or Chrysler Building from a distance, or just to see a battle from fifteen blocks away, but there you are, the limit is there, and nobody ever accused me of being a perfectionist, so I'll make the map regardless.
Thanks for at least trying to warn me of it.
I'm sure you already thought of this, but ....
Is there a way - via scripting or otherwise - to increase the camera's field of vision? Kinda like a python telephoto lens?
Secondly, I'm not sure what the "visible" distance is, but it seems more realistic (I love using that term when discussing video games!) that you
couldn't see the entire map; no more than you could see across a real city.
IMHO as always.
B92
Actually, thats exactly my view, that if on one side of Manhattan you wouldn't be able to see to the other side, which is partly why it doesnt bug me too much.
As to getting around it, it seems pretty python independent to my ignorant eyes, but I'll poke around to see what I can find. I'm pretty sure that Valandar must have looked at this and not found a solution too, but I'll look at it anyway.
I'd bet good money that SouperIan could hack--erm--fix this problem or, at the very least, verify that the problem cannot be fixed.
*illuminates the Soup Signal*
[spoiler](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v243/ow_tiobe_sb/SoupSignal.jpg)[/spoiler]
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
Ho hum, another day, another new york landmark:
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/flatiron.jpg)
i cannot wait to play this map!
also, looking at all these screenshots makes me want to go back and play spider-man 2 :D
Sweet christmas! It's a work in progress! Imagine without the awning, and the streetlamp better placed, if you can,
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/gem1.jpg)
Better, I think:
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/gem2.jpg)[/spoiler]
I like that, especially the "HERO FOR HIRE" sign. :cool:
these look great :thumbup:
Nice, Nice, Nice, Nice, Nice, Nice, Nice
Is there any word to describe your devilish doings apart from NICE!?
My post yesterday got eaten, so heres some more preview pics:
Another NY landmark
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/un1.jpg)[/spoiler]
and the right way round now...
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/un2.jpg)[/spoiler]
A placeholder fictional building
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/baxter1.jpg)[/spoiler]
Wonderful stuff here Tommy. Really exciting. :thumbup:
A lot of this stuff will be very useful to me in my modern mod. not the statue of liberty and chrysler building of course but those modern buildings, hmmmmm.....
And giving a sense of what's where, some long shots:
N.B. In all of these following shots 'south' is counter-intuitively placed at the top. I just rotated the view for these.
Visible clockwise: Chrysler Bldg, Empire state Bldg(only base visible), Baxter Bldg, Central Park, Avengers Mansion
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/top1.jpg)[/spoiler]
Barely visible: Doc Strange's Sanctum (middle block, third block down), Gem Theatre(2nd block from right, 2nd block up tiny yellow triangle), Baxter Bldg:
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/top2.jpg)[/spoiler]
The ever popular Lady Liberty
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/top3.jpg)[/spoiler]
Visible Clockwise: One of the bridges (GW maybe?), Flatiron Bldg, Empire State Bldg, Chrysler Bldg, United Nations Complex.
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/top4.jpg)[/spoiler]
So you can see how cramped it is, I'm afraid, but an accurate topography just isn't possible without dramatically increasing the size of the map, or splitting it into separate districts or neighbourhoods. And for now, neither of those is getting done.
Cramped is GOOD!!!! :thumbup: We love it TB! :wub:
hey tommy,will people be walking around as well as cars driving?
Quote from: herodad1 on August 13, 2008, 06:11:04 AM
hey tommy,will people be walking around as well as cars driving?
Probably not, because even with only a couple of civs on most blocks it causes a lot of slow down. You have about 150 city blocks in the map. So one civ per block is 150 characters before any super heroes show up. And less than one per block still leaves it feeling oddly deserted. I might trade one of the cars per block for a civ and see how that works out.
But bear in mind that anyone with the Editor will be able to add whatever they want to it, be that civs, thugs, dinos or just lots and lots of rats.
Very awesome. I am excited about this.
You are missing the Daily Bugle building.
Great work on the Flatron and Chrysler buildings. I would just put like a few small crowds every so often. Also have a nice traffic jam in front of the chrysler building just to make it feel like home.
Great work, Tommy. :)
Quote from: tommyboy on August 13, 2008, 08:14:17 AM
Quote from: herodad1 on August 13, 2008, 06:11:04 AM
hey tommy,will people be walking around as well as cars driving?
Probably not, because even with only a couple of civs on most blocks it causes a lot of slow down. You have about 150 city blocks in the map. So one civ per block is 150 characters before any super heroes show up. And less than one per block still leaves it feeling oddly deserted. I might trade one of the cars per block for a civ and see how that works out.
But bear in mind that anyone with the Editor will be able to add whatever they want to it, be that civs, thugs, dinos or just lots and lots of rats.
I may be wrong about that, but IIRC there was a way to disable AIs outside the active zone. Can't find it for now, but at minimum, it should be possible to script it using AI_SetEnabled() or carOn() and regProximityEnter() or similar events.
Quote from: Avalon on August 13, 2008, 11:16:20 AM
Very awesome. I am excited about this.
You are missing the Daily Bugle building.
I won't post my preview pics in Tom's thread to prove it, but rest assured that there will be a (destructible--sorry J.J. ;)) Daily Bugle building in the Manhattan map.
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
That map is looking so amazing (I especially love your custom Maxed buildings), Tom...Great work!
Dana :thumbup:
I cant wait to see Spider-man swing through this city!!! :thumbup:
As always when my back is turned...... (all to often these days).
Just stunning Tommyboy!
I read the thread as thoroughly as I could, but doubtless missed stuff.
If I missed it being discussed, forgive me, but it's entirely possible take FF objects and give them the bounding boxes they need so they work in FF3R. (I've done a few such conversions). So any FF objects used should not cause a fatal issue in the FF3R version.
Great job with this, Tommyboy! The map just keeps getting better and better.
About the "pop up" or "black curtain" that prevents you from seeing things beyond a certain point: this can be changed. To change the draw distance, just put ff.CAM_FAR_CLIP=[insert number here] in the script (the default value is 2000). I did this for one of the levels in the last Matrix Mod. However, I imagine that the frame rate would be very slow when looking horizontally across the whole map.
Quote from: Conduit on August 18, 2008, 12:33:51 PM
Great job with this, Tommyboy! The map just keeps getting better and better.
About the "pop up" or "black curtain" that prevents you from seeing things beyond a certain point: this can be changed. To change the draw distance, just put ff.CAM_FAR_CLIP=[insert number here] in the script (the default value is 2000). I did this for one of the levels in the last Matrix Mod. However, I imagine that the frame rate would be very slow when looking horizontally across the whole map.
A-Ha!
Thanks, I'll give that a try. To be honest, having had the Black Curtain Of Doom popping up and receding on me for several weeks now, I'm accustomed to it, even a little fond of it, as it unveils the geography in the distance.
But, if the option to dispense with it indeed exists, and doesn't scupper my framerate too much, I'll be giving it a go.
Thanks muchly.
Not much progress in the last few days, due to some RL stuff and playing the at-the-moment-not-publicly-released-so-I'm-just-teasing-now 'Crisis on Finite Earths' Mod.
Got Times square a little better looking, and Columbia U. sort of on the map, and am starting a Madison Square Garden model.
Thanks to the very knowledgeable and generous Mr. Conduit, we can now enjoy screenshots like these:
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/farview.jpg)[/spoiler]
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/farview2.jpg)[/spoiler]
I'm still getting the Curtain when looking across the city from one side to the other, even with the value set to 20,000, so there may be an upward limit. I'll push it higher, of course, 'cos thats my thing, test to destruction.
No noticeable slowdown, though, and it looks just fab at ground level to have both the skysphere, and the longer view of the big landmarks.
So thanks again Conduit, this thing really is a team effort, (though of course I'll hog all the glory and credit....)
Woop!
Edge to edge, baby, no clipping at all!
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/farview4.jpg)[/spoiler]
And the ultimate ingame overview:
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/farview3.jpg)[/spoiler]
This might be THE coolest map ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :blink:
Damn impressive....
Im curious if my poor video card will think so when its released :blink:
HOLY CRAP! :blink: WOW.
Good gawd! That is amazing...To see the whole map like that is just...Mind-boggling.
Dana
The one thing I keep thinking about when I see these amazing maps is how much will this lag my laptop?
...and this is the game Irrational decided to drop?
Nice one Tommy!
Most impressive.
There's a tear in my eye. You can't see it under my funky fresh enigmatic hood, but it's there.
Thank you all kindly.
Well, it took all day pretty much (because I'm slow, not because its hard), but I finally integrated the current version of the map into a Freeroam campaign, and even setup some encounters, using M25's excellent system. Since I also merged in and copied over literally hundreds of characters from my Avengers Mod, there should be a nice choice of foes for me.
Since you can specify where encounters happen, that means I can set up Submariner villains to attack along the riverbanks, FF villains near the baxter bldg, Doom to appear at the Latverian Embassy, and so on.
I should also be able to set up allies to appear and help at certain locations, like when you get within a certain distance of the Avengers Mansion, Baxter Bldg, Daily Bugle, Sanctum Sanctorum, a random number of heroes shows up to help.
I'm hoping I can get a sandbox city to play in, with random encounters, random scripted missions (bank robberies, maybe jailbreaks, alien invasions).
I should state that I am unlikely to release the Big freeroam mod as its probably about 6-9gig or more in size (and I'm lazy), but a cut down version that doesn't necessarily have every single character ever should be relatively easy (for someone)to cobble together.
The Map, when released will have all necessary 'encounter' positionals, markers for multiplayer and rumble room etc. You'll need to rename a few things in the editor to integrate it into a Mod or freeroam, but that shouldnt take too long to do. It's just the 10-30minutes it takes to save the damn thing that slows the process down...
I'm quite excited, which is why I'm still typing at 3:30 am. Time to sleep, I think.
If you can make any use of the modular code in COFE, feel free to steal it. I'm really looking forward to playing this and/or stealing it for use in my mods. :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub:
congratulations tommyboy! this is quite a feat!
knowing that it probably won't run on my laptop just strengthens my desire to get a fully loaded pc instead of an xbox 360 or something.
i sure hope that people will take advantage of this map and write ez script comics for it!
Heres a shot of Madison Square Garden:
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/madison.jpg)[/spoiler]
I know, I know, it's a nighttime shot and you can hardly see anything. This is because its taken on the FFX/Freeroam enabled version and ffx lighting is set to night. Whats interesting is that somehow, building shadows are now working correctly, at least on this FFX/Freeroam enabled version. Don't ask me how, or why, cos I don't know.
I'm going to play with the lighting to get a daytime shot, and see if the shadows work there too.
If it means that shadows work, its another big step forward.
I should mention that behind the scenes and unreported I've been struggling with the water issues created by the river. After some experiments and playtesting, my solution is that the river will not be very deep, so a character standing or moving in it will have their head just above the water, as if swimming. I could have had it deeper so you could see people running around beneath the water, but then nobody except fliers could ever get out again, which i disliked in playtesting.
I'll post some shots of 'swimming' so you can get the idea in the near future.
Heres a centurion enjoying a refreshing 'swim' in the east river. Taller characters have more sticking above the water, shorter characters, or those with a slight crouch like Bullet, look like they are snorkelling.
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/swimming.jpg)
And the shadows thing isn't FFX/freeroam related at all. Turns out the freeroam mission.py I copied into the megamap folser was actually the first ffv3r mission, and the lighting and shadows are setup in there. So what you see in the swimming shot is the city with Cuba's lighting and shadows.
Now, the really odd bit is that the old shadows, (of the entire map), are still in there and visible at certain camera angles, ie close to the ground, when the camera points in a certain direction. When they hove into view you get a hefty framerate hit (which you'd expect with the shadows of every single object in the map visible), but if you raise the camera or spin it, they are gone, and the framerate climbs back up. So the problem is still present for now, and you may well prefer to have shadows off if like me you keep the camera low a lot. I'll see if it can be fixed somehow, but have no clue at the moment.
The Garden by day:
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/madison2.jpg)[/spoiler]
Madison Square Garden presents the Fight of the Century!*
[spoiler](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/madison3.jpg)[/spoiler]
*Last century, but who's counting?
Amazing, tommyboy!
That is SUPER FLY! :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: But the knicks still suck!
Excellent! And, I love that cover from the classic tabloid-sized special issue.
i'm going to need a bigger computer!
Quote from: herodad1 on August 23, 2008, 08:54:42 PM
i'm going to need a bigger computer!
Something like this (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/Eniac.jpg/785px-Eniac.jpg)?
Is that Madison Square garden a conversion or created from scratch?
Quote from: GogglesPizanno on August 24, 2008, 03:13:47 AM
Is that Madison Square garden a conversion or created from scratch?
What I've done with a lot of the landmarks is download a google earth version, load that into max, and use it as my reference as I make my own version, (which is usually a lot less detailed, as FF is low poly). For textures I sometimes use those that come with the models (it's a cheat, I know, but they are photos, so I'm not re-using or kitbashing anyone else's hand painted stuff), or do a print screen from google earth, or seek out photos online.
So, to answer the question, it's created from scratch.
Other buildings like my Avengers mansion, Baxter Bldg, Sanctum Sanctorum I've just made from scratch using 2d reference materials.
Had I more time and less of a workload, I'd prefer to sit down and do everything myself, without referencing other models at all. but to my mind referencing a model isn't too different to referencing photos, blueprints or the real thing. You still have to make it, whatever your source is for proportions, details etc.
And whilst I could just import the google earth buildings then re-export them, that would be crossing a line I don't want to cross, and I prefer to know I've made all the geometry myself, even if some of the textures aren't strictly 'mine'.*
*In order to be truly 'mine', I'd have to go to NY, take the photos myself, and get my textures from them, and them only. Not terribly practical at the moment, so i compromise.
It's an amazing undertaking, Tommy....I'm just in awe.
Dana
Its a huge project and have been following along great works as always. :popcorn
Not only does he mesh World War Hulk, but now he also provides a proper arena to play host to the green giant's justice! Nicely done, Tom. :thumbup:
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
Huh,say something!?.....Oh, I thought I heard something! :unsure:
Quote from: style on August 29, 2008, 08:17:58 AM
Huh,say something!?.....Oh, I thought I heard something! :unsure:
Nope, really slow week this week. Combo of RL, work, and needing a little rest from it, has meant No Map Progress.
For what it's worth, I think it's 80-90% done, overall. I could keep adding stuff indefinitely, and some things still need fixing (like a weird problem where you cant stand on top of the taller custom buildings, only inside them about 2/3's of the way up :banghead:), but the bulk is done.
But it shouldn't be too much longer, I hope. Two, three, four weeks, at a guess..
I've run into that "can't stand on top of really tall buildings" problem myself a few times. I would guess that it has to do with the boundaries as determined by the extents.txt, so you might want to try increasing the vertical extents.
I love the idea of a sandbox in Freedom Force and your city of Manhattan looks incredible.
Unbelievably good, Tommy. Kudos.
Quote from: Conduit on August 29, 2008, 10:57:25 AM
I've run into that "can't stand on top of really tall buildings" problem myself a few times. I would guess that it has to do with the boundaries as determined by the extents.txt, so you might want to try increasing the vertical extents.
That's a logical suggestion.
However, a peek in my extents.txt reveals:
[14685.2,14787.6,13437.6]
[-14677.6,-14361.1,-9850.46]
Now, I assume the third set of numbers is the 'height/depth' extents, in which case its set to 13437.6 which is pretty high (bear in mind there's a 'skysphere' built into the terrain, and the extents are based on its huge height/depth), much more so than any building.
And I should mention that my placeholder version of the empire state building, which consists of two in game empire state 'bases' stacked on one another topped off with the shrunken and re-exported ESB level
is stand-upon-able. And its much higher than all the other custom buildings that aren't. Suggesting that either, there is an intrinsic maximum height for a building, that can only be gotten around by stacking them, or that something in the way I exported the esb top bit is different.
My four storey avengers mansion is stand-upon-able, so I'm going to try shrinking one of the problem buildings and see if its the size itself.
If anyone knows of a variable that can be set for building heights, sing out please.
Is the bounding box tall enough to include the top section of the ESP? (always start with the obvious)...'
Might it have something to do with the sheer angle of the top section, like the game sees that section as not flat enough to stand on?
Also might it be a limit with the height that a character can actually reach in game?
Is the character jumping or flying to the top? Have you tried placing a character in the editor to see if that works?
Im just spitballin...
Quote from: GogglesPizanno on September 01, 2008, 09:30:30 AM
Is the bounding box tall enough to include the top section of the ESP? (always start with the obvious)...'
Might it have something to do with the sheer angle of the top section, like the game sees that section as not flat enough to stand on?
Also might it be a limit with the height that a character can actually reach in game?
Is the character jumping or flying to the top? Have you tried placing a character in the editor to see if that works?
Im just spitballin...
And all worth checking.
Either with or without bounding boxes my custom buildings cannot be stood upon. Whereas the ESB is three seperate meshes, each with its own BB, piled on atop the other.
I did wonder about the angle myself, the Chrysler building being obviously steep, for instance. But the flatiron building has a flat roof, as do the tallest sections of Madison square Garden, the UN complex, the Baxter building. All are shorter in-game than where the top of the ESB is, none can be stood on, only in.
If the character had a height limit, the ESB peak would be above it, as all the others are shorter.
I usually teleport characters on top (I have the developer cheats on by default), but have flown up too. Haven't tried editor placement, thats worth a shot (allowing for the half hour or so it takes to load up the jumbo map, make a change and then save it).
Oooohhh...my head hurts...it's much more complex and impossible to understand than I thought...
Lets start with the flatiron. I thought you couldnt stand on the roof, ever.
Turns out, if you destroy a segment, you can then stand on some of the remaining segments roofs, which are of course the same height as the undamaged building.
OK, thinks I, I must have done something to the geometry or bounding boxes in the destruction version that aint in the undamaged one. But an examination in max reveals no information I can make use of.
So I make a big box, as high as the flatiron, and wide and long, but its just a box, no geometry to speak of. I export this as 'flatiron' and replace the undamaged version with it. I start the game up, teleport Alchemiss onto the roof of the new boxy flatiron and she stands there! It's a proud day for etc etc etc. Except. Ex-cept....when I move her about on the roof, after a few steps, she drops through, back down to the 'phantom' level. It seems that only certain bits of the new roof are 'solid', but not in any way that makes sense. The new boxy version has a boundingbox that is just a box, a clone of the original.
And there are odd spots on the other buildings I can teleport onto and stand on, at roof height as well. Some of these only seem to work once, or are so small that you cannot get onto them again.
So I've no idea whats going on, and my head hurts from thinking about it.
I could see a consistancy to not being able to get up there at all, but to be able to get up to some of a flat polygon, but not to other bits of it is maddeningly maddening.
I'll come back to it tomorrow, cos tonight I've had enough...
This almost sounds like the type of behavior you get when when the memory is running out and it starts dropping "stuff" to compensate.
What I might try is taking your final flatiron custom building, and placing it on a couple of regular sized maps and see if the problem is duplicated. If it is, then you can be pretty sure its some kind of building mesh problem (or engine limitation regards to building size). If not, then it may start looking like the size and the resource demands of the map may be the problem...
Quote from: GogglesPizanno on September 01, 2008, 03:23:09 PM
This almost sounds like the type of behavior you get when when the memory is running out and it starts dropping "stuff" to compensate.
What I might try is taking your final flatiron custom building, and placing it on a couple of regular sized maps and see if the problem is duplicated. If it is, then you can be pretty sure its some kind of building mesh problem (or engine limitation regards to building size). If not, then it may start looking like the size and the resource demands of the map may be the problem...
I put the flatiron building in mp_city_small (the smallest map there is), and it still has the roof with 'holes' in, so I don't think it can be memory based.
I need to check out a few things tomorrow.
This sounds similar to the problems I experienced in my mod with the pirate ship. It was essentially a new mesh, but whatever I did with flags or bounding boxes there were some places they just would not stand.
OK, this morning, I exported a version of the flatiron that was less than half the original height, and, sure enough, ALL the roof is walk-upon-able.
So now I'll extend upwards till I find where the problems begin, and at least I'll know that up to a certain point there are no complications.
Beyond that height I still think there must be something I can do, even if its as crude as a second mesh thats just a plane in the shape of the roof that stacks on top of the original building, since stacking works with the ESB.
Quote from: tommyboy on September 02, 2008, 03:36:13 AM
Beyond that height I still think there must be something I can do, even if its as crude as a second mesh thats just a plane in the shape of the roof that stacks on top of the original building, since stacking works with the ESB.
I would really like to see this Gordian knot untied (not cut). I agree, stacking seems like a crude resolution to the problem, especially given what is possible within this versatile game engine. If these restrictions on height could be lifted (ho-ho!) via Python scripting or--*gasp* dare I say it?--hacking the game engine, I'd like to see such solutions implemented.
I know precisely what to do:
[spoiler]
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v243/ow_tiobe_sb/SoupSignal.jpg)
[/spoiler]
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
Well, two-thirds the height of the original gets us the phantom roof syndrome, and my system has been bluescreening most of the day so I havent really had a chance to do more testing on the height side of things. It did allow me to export a flatiron_roof mesh, which when placed (via the editor) atop the full size flatiron does indeed prove the principle that stacking works. The character can stand on, and run around on the flatiron.
'Great' you may say, 'get on with it and make roofs for all the other buildings and we'll be laughing'.
Would that it were so simple. The flatiron_roof, being a separate building needs a destruction version, and how can I 'tie' it's destruction version to that of the original building in such a way that both crumble the same bits at the same time, so we aren't left with bits of roof hovering in mid air with no buiding beneath to support them? The answer? I've no idea how. So although I have a 'solution' to the original problem, the solution itself has other problems.
So I think the way to go is to fix whatever it is in the meshes that isnt working.
Clearly the game allows you to stand on buildings at these heights, or at least on bits of buildings that are these heights (the section of the flatiron I could stand on after destroying a segment is the same height as the original building, after all).
Maybe the game engine 'caps' building heights, but not object heights (because I can teleport a character to stand on the skysphere, which goes higher than any building, and is neither a stack of meshes nor a fragment).
Maybe I'll try making them objects in the editor, see how that pans out.
QuoteWould that it were so simple. The flatiron_roof, being a separate building needs a destruction version, and how can I 'tie' it's destruction version to that of the original building in such a way that both crumble the same bits at the same time, so we aren't left with bits of roof hovering in mid air with no building beneath to support them? The answer? I've no idea how.
Have you tried making the building half height, and then using nifscope to combine multiple instances of it into a single building where each instance of the building is its own separate niNode? Ive done this with original FF1 buildings where I stacked 3 of them together in Nifskope saved it as a single building object and it worked fine. The potential of this is that you could do the same thing with with the damage versions (which in my FF example worked fine).
My theory is that if stacking the buildings works, maybe stacking them as components of a single Nif file may 'fix' whatever quirk is causing the problems. This is the theory behind my versatile building that I may one day actually finish.
Quote from: tommyboy on September 02, 2008, 10:59:17 AM
Maybe the game engine 'caps' building heights, but not object heights (because I can teleport a character to stand on the skysphere, which goes higher than any building, and is neither a stack of meshes nor a fragment).
Maybe I'll try making them objects in the editor, see how that pans out.
Good question. The only problem I can foresee (with my myopic vision) is that, unless you want a building to be reduced to rubble all at once, you would also need to export numerous OBJECT_damage_version_#.nifs as well as an OBJECT_fragments.nif for each building instead of one BUILDING_destruction.nif (which, with the exception of the naming conventions within the [building] group, would be identical to the OBJECT_fragments.nif). My understanding is that the damaged versions are swapped in as the object's health is gradually reduced, and, without careful planning, this may affect the look of the building's destruction animation sequence.
Incidentally, can you target the buildings that have "phantom roof syndrome" in-game? If not, you may have discovered the reason behind the problems C4 experienced with my mesh of Hillbrow Tower (which may be too tall for its own good) for his "Reformed" mod.
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
Quote from: ow_tiobe_sb on September 02, 2008, 11:36:21 AM
Incidentally, can you target the buildings that have "phantom roof syndrome" in-game? If not, you may have discovered the reason behind the problems C4 experienced with my mesh of Hillbrow Tower (which may be too tall for its own good) for his "Reformed" mod.
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
Yes you can target, hit, and destroy them, you just cant stand on top of the beggars!
Well, at least I'm learning why hardly anyone makes custom buildings.........its a royal pain..
Quote from: tommyboy on September 02, 2008, 11:42:12 AM
Yes you can target, hit, and destroy them, you just cant stand on top of the beggars!
Curses! I thought you'd done all the hard investigative work for me. :(
Keep me posted, Tom, for, obviously, anything you discover will affect the Daily Bugle, the Baxter Building, the ESB, etc.
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
So King Kong won't be climbing Empire State any time soon...
:(
I take it careful inspection of the Nifs reveals nothing strange about the bounding boxes?
If not, my guess might be that the game engine either assumes limits on, or internally represents (very large) bounding boxes in such a way that is causing the problem.
Might be worth asking the NifTools crew if they are aware of any limitations on bounding boxes. It could be down to the use of a short Int or similar.
There's a NifTools crew!!?? :blink:
The laws of Thermodynamics preclude self-organization. :P
Quote from: yell0w_lantern on September 03, 2008, 02:42:31 PM
The laws of Thermodynamics preclude self-organization. :P
Tell that to Illya Prigogine..
Back in head hurting territory, I made a new version of flatiron_destruction, this time with only 4 sections.
The original retains its phantom roof syndrome, but if you destroy a segment, in the flatiron_destruction version the segments adjacent to the gap have a solid roof.
As you move away from the gap, the roof becomes phantom once again.
So if you destroy the segment at the thin end of the wedge, only the bit right next to it can be stood upon.
If you destroy one or both of the two middle segments, those either side become solid,
even though they may not have been before. Yes, the solidness of the roof in the destruction versions at least is not an intrinsic property of the mesh itself, it is something the game engine does. By destroying the segment next to one which does not have a solid roof, you can give it a solid roof.
To add to the inscrutability of it all, the solidness of the segments does not extend to the whole segment. Walk or run across half a segment (especially away from the 'gap' where the destroyed segment was), and you will fall through before you reach a different segment. And where you fall through is, as far as I can tell, completely unconnected to geometry. It isn't where an edge, face, poly or even vertex are sited, nor is it purely a function of distance from the gap, the 'edge' of the solid bit doesn't follow the 'edge' of the segment itself.
So, I remain stumped as to what is going on. There is a height component involved, as it's only the taller buildings that develop these tendencies. The game engine and physics clearly can support standing on structures of that height, be they stacked like the esb from separate bits, or be they segments of a version_destruction as with the flatiron. And even with whole, contiguous buildings, there are anomalous spots atop them that can be teleported to and stood upon even though 99% of the rest of the roof remains phantom.
But the ability to create a tall structure and have characters stand on its undamaged roof continues to elude me.
Some my custom buildings are all one polygon, these dont work, some are several polygons like the UN or Madison Square garden, these dont work. I've tried exporting with or without boundingboxes, and the result is identical.
That's where I am with it...
At the risk of sounding daft (and a tad impolite), do the strange results of Tom's experiments suggest the possibility that he is witnessing the game engine crap out while doing its collision calculations? Would a log of some sort be potentially useful to those who know how to interpret it? In other words, is there game data (short of a home video) that Tom could collect and share here that would demonstrate a successful rooftop-character collision calculation versus the unsuccessful rooftop-character collision calculations he's witnessed? I know too little about game logs, the game engine, and console messages to speak intelligently about this matter; however, perhaps someone else could explain the data collection options (if any) open to Tom. :unsure:
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
Quote from: ow_tiobe_sb on September 05, 2008, 12:20:07 PM
At the risk of sounding daft (and a tad impolite), do the strange results of Tom's experiments suggest the possibility that he is witnessing the game engine crap out while doing its collision calculations? Would a log of some sort be potentially useful to those who know how to interpret it? In other words, is there game data (short of a home video) that Tom could collect and share here that would demonstrate a successful rooftop-character collision calculation versus the unsuccessful rooftop-character collision calculations he's witnessed? I know too little about game logs, the game engine, and console messages to speak intelligently about this matter; however, perhaps someone else could explain the data collection options (if any) open to Tom. :unsure:
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
I'm happy to upload a few buildings so other can 'share' the 'pleasure' of trying to figure out what exactly I've broken
this time.
I'll round up a handful for this weekend.
I don't know if this oberservation will be of any value, but I've noticed that buildings in FFvTR always collapse in a specific order (Section1, Section2, Section3), even if the damage occurs on the opposite side (Section3, for example) of the building. I think some/most of the buildings collapse in 3 sections, too. What I'm getting at is that maybe the game is looking for specific information and isn't finding it? Its looking for some type of generic information that your custom buildings don't have? I've had a lot of troulbe with M25AI moving standing on partially demolished buildings, so...?
This discussion is over my head, but I'm trying to follow along. :)
You've probably already tried importing native 3R buildings for comparison? It could be a problem with the exporters we have.
Quote from: tommyboy on September 05, 2008, 02:46:15 PM
I'm happy to upload a few buildings so other can 'share' the 'pleasure' of trying to figure out what exactly I've broken this time.
I'll round up a handful for this weekend.
I seriously doubt this is an issue related to
breaking anything about these meshes, and I am fully prepared to to concede yell0w_lantern's point about the exporters. We've already seen how the direct-from-IG character NIFs differ from anything an
amateur user exports; perhaps building height provides another example of these limitations (though, something tells me that the stacking solution underlines a limitation in place in the way the game interprets the meshes and not a characteristic of the meshes themselves).
Hmm. If we cannot puzzle this out ourselves, I'll drive down to Quincy (with billdamn and lugaru as the muscle) and pay IG Boston a personal visit. (And I won't come back without the 3ds max files for the FFvT3R meshes, aye? Have you seen lugaru's Ginsu knives? Muhahahahaha! ...) :twisted:
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
Here we go, heres some buildings and destruction versions to play with.
Download them if you know what you are doing, if you cant figure out how to get them in the game, you are unlikely to fix them (if they need fixing).
This is not a 'release', this is an attempt to get around the phantom roof problem mentioned in my previous posts.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/uc6hq9
Hey, Tommyboy, did you ever try Goggle's suggestion of "stacking" multiple building pieces in the same nif? Because I really think that that could work. And I can confirm that the destruction nifs will work with multiple pieces in FFvTTR. I know, because I did this for one level of the Matrix Mod Revolutions (I added doors to the buildings in the Zion dock map), and both the normal and destruction versions worked perfectly. Simply make the different pieces part of the same fragment group, and they'll all collapse together.
Anyway, I'll take a look at those nifs you uploaded and see if I can do anything with them. I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back to you, since internet access is pretty spotty for me right now.
I did in fact try the stacking idea...and it fails. But I think I have a pretty good grasp (well almost fairly certain) of some of the problems and what is happening.
From what I can see, this is an issue with the game engine.
I tried several ideas with tommyboy's buildings and they all failed in pretty much the same way each time.
So then I tried replicating the issues with my own "in progress" building nifs, that are constructed on a floor by floor basis (each floor being ~1 1/2 times the height of a standard character).
I started with a nif file that was the size of a standard in game building - Worked fine
Doubled the height - still worked
Quadrupled the height - Had the same problems as tommyboy's
So at that point I started removing a single floor at a time until the nif started behaving correctly again.
Because Im scaling things in nifskope, and its values are relative to the original size of the model, I don't have actual game units, but a rough estimate looks to be about 80 feet (9 floors x 9 ft per floor assuming the average game character is 6ft). Anything higher than that, it starts to go wonky.
This still didn't explain the issue with being able to stack it (or the destruction pieces sometimes working)... playing around with that, I tried taking my working 9 floor building duplicating it and stacking it on itself. Like Tommyboy said, that works.... BUT when you get a level that high up you start getting weird behavior when you click for a character to move. It looks like that with the camera at that height it starts to screw up the vector math for computing locations of mouse clicks... which makes sense because the camera is so high up you completely lose level detail and scale so the vectors that the game is using from the camera to to the ground (or building roofs) start messing up and becomes kind of a crap shoot as to what the game is registering you hitting.
So in summary, from my tests (which are anything but scientific) I theorize the following two hypotheses.
1. It appears that there IS a limit on height that an individual building can be before it starts acting bizarrely. This is based on the height of the nif file, so my original stacking idea with nifskope will still produce the same problems if the total height of the whole nif exceeds this arbitrary limit.
2. Even with stacking in FFEdit (which overcomes the building height issue) there seems to be a limit to how high the level can be before the game engine starts losing the ability to interact properly with it.
Bugger. :angry:
*storms down to MacNavish's Inn, where SouperIan is likely to be found nursing a lime Rickey*
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
GyaaH!11oneoneone1!
Well, thanks for the confirmations, and new info, Goggles.
Looks like exciting dizzyingly high rooftop battles are probably not on the menu, unless the separate roof idea is used, or stacking, and even then, there are the issues Goggles mentions, as well as those pertaining to _destruction synchronization.
For the latter I did think maybe if the separate roof were alpha'd to be invisible it'd look nicer, but then you might just be treading on an invisible roof. Then I thought, give the invisible roof very low hitpoints and a tiny _destruction version. That should mean you can stand on the undamaged version (on the invisi-roof), then hopefully when the main building is damaged, the invisi-roof is either destroyed outright, or leaves a tiny _destruction version, meaning the damaged buildings can only be partially stood on, if at all. Or maybe an ffx plugin can destroy the invisi-roof if the building takes damage.
I can live with the limitation, personally. The high buildings are a tiny percentage of the whole map, and really just add nice scenery. It's a shame if they cannot be fully functional, but I'm not sure I can be arsed to make lots of stackable versions of bits of each one, with the attendant damaged versions, just for the sake of a few seconds of fighting atop them, given knockback will get you off them pdq.
Honestly after seeing them in game, I think they work well in the distance as a sense of scale, but are actually a little too high to be much fun during a fight (especially when only a few of your team may be on top of them). Once you are in a fight I think anything more than twice the current building size works well for making the level seem bigger in scale and giving variety, but not making it obtrusive to try and play. I think for rooftop battles, maybe a bigger version of the original FF rooftop map with several buildings is a better way to go.
I personally would like to see your energy spent on making more variety of stuff rather than pulling your hair out trying to add a few more feet to a building.
But thats just my preference.
Probably just a silly idea which cannot work, but could the ground be lower than the default? So, with a ground at -80', we'd have 160' buildings.
I believe that is the layout for the skyscraper rooftop map, Epi. Would the cameras be unable to travel below the X- and Y-axes? If so, that would pose a problem to gameplay if tommyboy were to set up his map in a similar fashion.
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
Quote from: Epimethee on September 06, 2008, 05:35:43 PM
Probably just a silly idea which cannot work, but could the ground be lower than the default? So, with a ground at -80', we'd have 160' buildings.
It can be done, indeed in the river bits, that's just what I do to simulate swimming (drop the 'ground' beneath the 'water'). However, the camera cannot go beneath '0' as far as I know, so sadly this fine piece of lateral thinking comes to nought, as the game quickly becomes unplayable at the distances you'd need to drop the ground.
It might work though, as far as the recalcitrant roofs are concerned...
*shakes fist at sky*
Camera max/min height limits can be set in Python, either in localini.py or mission.py ; in fact, mine is already set to a negative minimum value:
ff.CAM_MIN_ZOOM = -325
ff.CAM_MAX_ZOOM = 3000
Not sure if it really sets the camera to really go under ground level, though
Edit: Darn, Tommy confirmed it doesn't work.
Quote from: Epimethee on September 06, 2008, 05:56:00 PM
Camera max/min height limits can be set in Python, either in localini.py or mission.py ; in fact, mine is already set to a negative minimum value:
ff.CAM_MIN_ZOOM = -325
ff.CAM_MAX_ZOOM = 3000
Hmmm....too late to try this tonight, but tomorrow belongs to me...
Nope. Camera is pretty much locked at 0 as far as I know... going to negative with the zoom value I believe just affects how far back it moves parallel to the ground once it levels out at the 0 plane.
And even if it did work, I think you would still run into the same weird behavior regardless as to whether the distance was 0->160 or -80->80. The distance between camera view port and the ground is the same amount of game units which would still cause the same computational problems. At least logically speaking...
Quote from: GogglesPizanno on September 06, 2008, 11:41:22 PM
Nope. Camera is pretty much locked at 0 as far as I know... going to negative with the zoom value I believe just affects how far back it moves parallel to the ground once it levels out at the 0 plane.
And even if it did work, I think you would still run into the same weird behavior regardless as to whether the distance was 0->160 or -80->80. The distance between camera view port and the ground is the same amount of game units which would still cause the same computational problems. At least logically speaking...
Oooookaaaaayyyy......sort of a good news/bad news/more bad news scenario on the 'drop the ground' idea.
I took the mp_01_city_small and dropped it about half the height of the flatiron in Max, then exported the terrain, then painstakingly adjusted the level.txt so most buildings and objects were at the new 'ground_level' which I arbitrarily selected at -454.
The good news first: It works! The Flatiron building is stand-upon-able, straight out of the box! Huzzah! Witness the awesome spectacle etc etc etc:
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/sub-city1.jpg)
Now all the bad news: for one thing, doing this to the Megacity would be something of a nightmare, meaning I'd pretty much have to start over from scratch (ie either manually or somehow automatically adjust the height of every single one of the 26000 or so objects by -454, or build a -454 version of the mp_city_small, use Stumpy's code to generate a new level.txt then manually re-insert all the custom and non standard buildings to avoid the 'same block repeated over and over' syndrome).
And that's not all. Let's ignore the fact that the camera wont zoom down to the new -454 ground level for a moment, and concentrate on the fact that the
characters will not drop down to the new -454 ground level! See?
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/sub-city2.jpg)
Now, this I must have done something wrong to achieve, because I know on the megamap you could drop below '0' if you went in the 'water', even down to the very deep bottom of the skysphere. So I don't know how I got this weird 'everyone stands on an invisible ground '0'' effect. I'll play a little more to see if I can fix that, and then give some thought to the 'start over' options.
OK, I was referencing the wrong terrain.nif in the level.txt :doh:, but even with the right one, its still problematic getting the characters to stand on the terrain, rather than above or below it (and probably very obvious or simple as to why, but I'm just not seeing it).
Given that the camera wont go below zero, and the work involved in dropping everything, I think that the idea may have to go to one side.
Which is a shame, as it fixed the tall-buildings-roof-problem, but if it adds more problems than it cures (and it does seem to), then it's not for me.
Well, that's bad news; sorry for having sent you on such a wild-goose chase. The change of z-position could be done in batch through a script, but for the rest, I've zero clue. For the camera, the only other variable I can see as being vaguely relevant is CAM_BASE_HEIGHT = 300.0
Quote from: Epimethee on September 07, 2008, 08:49:18 AM
Well, that's bad news; sorry for having sent you on such a wild-goose chase. The change of z-position could be done in batch through a script, but for the rest, I've zero clue. For the camera, the only other variable I can see as being vaguely relevant is CAM_BASE_HEIGHT = 300.0
No, it was a good idea, which worked as far as the initial problem was concerned.
I'll play with the Cam_base_height to see if it can be used.
If the problems are surmountable without my having to go back too far, I may still use the 'drop down' method.
I know this is probably not a good time to mention this with all the frustrating hard work going on. But I was just skimming through my Skoping topic section and seen that Mistik had a Shield Helecarrior in the works. Wouldn't it be nice to in corporate this in the map some how? When everything is said and done?
Quote from: style on September 08, 2008, 10:32:23 AM
I know this is probably not a good time to mention this with all the frustrating hard work going on. But I was just skimming through my Skoping topic section and seen that Mistik had a Shield Helecarrior in the works. Wouldn't it be nice to in corporate this in the map some how? When everything is said and done?
If it's in the air, nothing can move beneath it. I suppose it could be out over the river.
It depends on it's size, really, and on whether I like it being permanently in the sky over New York. I sort of doubt that it's there all the time.
Plus, and I mean no disrespect to Mystik, if it's unfinished, my inclination would be to make my own if I wanted one, and I'm not 100% convinced yet that I do.
I'll keep it in mind though.
Honestly it would only be a good idea to include this if you solve your standing on top of buildings dilemma. Then you can have it close by Stark Towers in the air. ;) :P And How someone would get to it well I remember playing a mod in which you stood on this transpoter pad and it would transport you to another area. It would be cool to do something like that with this! :thumbup:
Quote from: style on September 08, 2008, 02:58:06 PM
Honestly it would only be a good idea to include this if you solve your standing on top of buildings dilemma. Then you can have it close by Stark Towers in the air. ;) :P And How someone would get to it well I remember playing a mod in which you stood on this transpoter pad and it would transport you to another area. It would be cool to do something like that with this! :thumbup:
There will be no so-called "Stark Tower" in this map...there is Avengers Mansion, right there on 5th Ave, overlooking central park. That is where the Avengers are based.
There will be no "new avengers", no "mighty avengers", no "superheroes" who shoot people with guns, or tear superskrull heads off.
There will be no "house of bendis".
That is all.
Return to your workstations until further orders.
:angry: all that burn it tommy! i was looking to chop off a skrull heads or two. ;) :P :D :lol: :thumbup:
Quote from: djfredski on September 08, 2008, 04:03:44 PM
:angry: all that burn it tommy! i was looking to chop off a skrull heads or two. ;) :P :D :lol: :thumbup:
Well, you can't. The worst you may do to them is hypnotize them into thinking that they are cows...or maybe some light punching. But no punching them when they are cows! :P
:lol: :lol: :lol:
QuoteBut no punching them when they are cows!
How about tipping??
Tipping is supposed to be fun...
That should be a new FFX swap..."Tipping"
Quote from: GogglesPizanno on September 08, 2008, 04:31:02 PM
QuoteBut no punching them when they are cows!
How about tipping??
Tipping is supposed to be fun...
That should be a new FFX swap..."Tipping"
I have consulted with the Council of Watchers, the Living Tribunal and the Supreme Intelligence, and it has been deemed that Cow-Tipping is acceptable.
However, should you hypnotize any Skrulls into believing that they are flies, I should warn you that fly-tipping is strictly prohibited...
Milkk the cows at your own risk. And if you try to milk the flies, well, you are just disturbed.
But, no fly tipping. Let's keep the streets clean. :P
BTW, it looks like the idea might have come and gone by now, but if you need a script to bump the z-axis locations of layout objects by some amount, let me know.
Quote from: tommyboy on September 08, 2008, 03:15:23 PM
There will be no so-called "Stark Tower" in this map...there is Avengers Mansion, right there on 5th Ave, overlooking central park. That is where the Avengers are based.
There will be no "new avengers", no "mighty avengers", no "superheroes" who shoot people with guns, or tear superskrull heads off.
There will be no "house of bendis".
So... no Paste Pot Pete?
Can we petition Marvel to make you editor for the Avengers books (or what's left of them)? Please?
Quote from: tommyboy on September 08, 2008, 03:15:23 PM
Quote from: style on September 08, 2008, 02:58:06 PM
Honestly it would only be a good idea to include this if you solve your standing on top of buildings dilemma. Then you can have it close by Stark Towers in the air. ;) :P And How someone would get to it well I remember playing a mod in which you stood on this transpoter pad and it would transport you to another area. It would be cool to do something like that with this! :thumbup:
There will be no so-called "Stark Tower" in this map...there is Avengers Mansion, right there on 5th Ave, overlooking central park. That is where the Avengers are based.
There will be no "new avengers", no "mighty avengers", no "superheroes" who shoot people with guns, or tear superskrull heads off.
There will be no "house of bendis".
That is all.
Return to your workstations until further orders.
Tommy, you are the most awesome! Rock on!
Dana
Try to imagine it with a skin on, and you'll get what I'm going for here.
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/helicarrier1.jpg)
Of course, you cant actually stand on it as yet....
I predict that you've just tickled the fancies of several community members here, Tom. ;)
Nicely done. :)
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
Super Fly :thumbup: (get it?) ;) :P
The Shield Helicarrier?!?!? That is just nuts Tommy!! You have some awsome ideas for this mega map, almost like having the entire Marvel Earth right there! (well a big Majority of it)
Quote from: USAgent on September 11, 2008, 02:23:19 PM
The Shield Helicarrier?!?!? That is just nuts Tommy!! You have some awsome ideas for this mega map, almost like having the entire Marvel Earth right there! (well a big Majority of it)
Ahhh... Style gets any credit for the Helicarrier being in it, for it was his suggestion.
i can't wait! :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:
Better:
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/helicarrier2.jpg)
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/tommyboy2002/helicarrier3.jpg)
Looks great, and the skin makes it look real!
OMIGAWD! :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:
Stunning! :thumbup:
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning
:o come on tommy stop it stop it! :banghead: :banghead:
i can't take. :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:
Sweet. Thinking more and more that the "patch" should include your map. What's a few hundred megs in a multi-gig mod. :P And it's not like I've ever gotten off my bum and sent Cat the files.
As for your skrull comments, I can only say "Embrace Change", by which I mean recycle your plots every decade. I forget which issue, but since you said you were synchronicitously reading Ostrander's H4H, did you notice where they referenced the Skrull Invasion and how they had replaced much of the population? Bizarre to see that line in a comic that old but shows you there is no originality in S.I., even though I like it more than... well, anyone, from the sound of things. ;)
He Loves You. And by He I mean Me. Sweet looking New York and the helicarrier is great. Would love to see it as a separate map, like the old aircraft carrier in the Nuclear Winter levels in FF1. Maybe I've been playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance too much lately...
Excellent work!
Although previously not converted to your skydomes with skylines, you are convincing me! This map looks amazing
"Wow" that map is crazy great,with all the work and landmark buildings just remarkable. (stunned)
such awesome work tommy!
Now TB I know you're thinking man I'm glad I did that Shield Helecarrier in the sky piece. Because it looks beautiful!!! :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:
hey tommy...is this going to be a mod or a map.might be a stupid question but all the cross-talks confusing.
Quote from: herodad1 on September 16, 2008, 02:09:22 PM
hey tommy...is this going to be a mod or a map.might be a stupid question but all the cross-talks confusing.
Not a stupid question.
It's going to be a map
in a sort of mini-Mod. A Mod without any new story, or character, that really only has one mission.
The reason being that the map itself will have all new buildings, requiring new .dat files or they wont work right.
And since some people dont have all the FF1 textures the map uses, I'm including those too.
Of course the map (and its files) can be copied out of the mini-mod into whatever Mod (or native) directory you like, but you'll need to merge the .dat files in.
Oh, it'll have FFX 3.3 stuff in there too, so ez-freeroam campaigns can be set up in it, or ez-script missions.
I may include several versions, ie the Marvel New York, a 'generic' New York without the marvel stuff, and a generic megacity, minus the new york stuff.
If you are all
very lucky, the map may be included in one (or two) gigantic, fantastic Mods another member has made (RMT), as and when the map is finished, and he's happy to release his Mods.
cool :thumbup: I cant wait for this Tommy
I have no words...
I am like so siked about this map!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :wacko:
Wow! That is even MORE incredible Tommy! I've been needing a helicarrier map for one of my projects, so I'll echo what someone else asked. Do you think there is any chance of us seeing a map with just that by itself, or perhaps the release of the object itself? :D
Quote from: BentonGrey on September 18, 2008, 07:41:59 AM
Wow! That is even MORE incredible Tommy! I've been needing a helicarrier map for one of my projects, so I'll echo what someone else asked. Do you think there is any chance of us seeing a map with just that by itself, or perhaps the release of the object itself? :D
I can release the object itself if people want it. It's about the same sort of size as the aircraft carrier native to FF, in terms of length and width, but is obviously much deeper.
The caveat is, in order to get it in the air above a map, the 'phantom roof' syndrome kicks in, so I'll either have to also release a separate 'deck only' mesh that will be invisible but placed in the same spot as the 'carrier so it can be stood upon, or it would have to be used in a 'fall off and die' type map like the empire state map with the clouds, where the 'carrier itself is the 'ground'.
I'll see if I can package the helicarrier up in the next week or so and stick it on my website.
The other option would be to scale it up in nifskope, and use the mesh itself as the terrain.
You could wrap it with a sky box to give the illusion of being in the air. So characters would be locked to the deck for movement, but since its technically at ground level now, the roof issue should go away.
If you wanted a fall off an die type of level, design it the same way, just raise it above the ground enough that its still possible to stand on the deck, and make the terrain below invisible and unpassable with some big markers that trigger the character deaths when a character gets knocked off (like the Empire State map form FF1 did).
I think for my purposes an Empire State flavor map would work just fine. Thanks Tommy, I'm sure I can figure something out that will work!
Another option is to release it as a character! :D Could that be done? I'd like to think it carries enough firepower to take on the heavy hitters or comicdom.
Quote from: Xenolith on September 18, 2008, 11:10:40 AM
Another option is to release it as a character! :D Could that be done? I'd like to think it carries enough firepower to take on the heavy hitters or comicdom.
I'd have to add some turrets and weapon nodes and a selection box for that, and bear in mind that in the first preview pic, the view from above? The little red 'x' on the big yellow deck is a male_basic mesh, to give you a sense of scale. To be anywhere near other characters (except maybe Red Ronin), would be to cover them from view. So I dunno how feasable it would be to have it as a character...
Heya tom, may I kindly request permission to (possibly)use your buildings in my mod. Goings without saying you'll be credited. Besides, I'm sure everyone already knows they're yours! I'm still contemplating wheter to in any case. Oh and in case you didn't know, your last "release" had no textures. Ta.
Curious about the progress of this. :huh:
STOP GOING ROUND BUMPING THREADS YOU! Nah kidding me curious too. Tommy's still pretty active round the forums..
Quote from: style on October 07, 2008, 11:03:34 AM
Curious about the progress of this. :huh:
Well, for the last few weeks, there has been none.
Various reasons, real-life, distractions, laziness etc etc.
I hope to start the wagons rolling again within the next week or two.
Sorry for the teasing and delaying tactics...
Do not be sorry T-man this is perhaps the best Map ever!!! And I just didn't want it forgoten about. :(
Huh say something?......Oh man I thought I heard something. :unsure:
Quote from: style on November 13, 2008, 02:41:47 PM
Huh say something?......Oh man I thought I heard something. :unsure:
Sorry to be so long about this. There will be a release, but I cannot promise a timescale, and then fail again to deliver.
I wish I could tell you that I've been working hard, improving and adding new features, but I haven't.
So "what's the hold-up?" you quite reasonably ask.
Several things; real life, ennui, a realization that in order for it to be as good as it could be would require more effort than I am willing or perhaps able to make. So what you will get is a half-bottomed version. Oh, it'll still be a very big map (or maps), with some new buildings and so forth. But it will also have some bugs and drawbacks that I am unlikely to fix prior (or subsequent) to release, and it will not be as good as it could be.
I'll post more when there is more than this to post.