Ryandor.com

Hello!
I've been working in Ultima Online shard development for quite a time now. However, I have been responsible only for arts, graphics, architecture, decorations and such. Right now I understand that the map our project is working on itself is very buggy (sharp cliffs, spike grass, bad coasts) and a lot of other things need to be corrected. I even have considered that a new map must be made, as I heard that it is possible now via hex editing of some sort create maps of a very large scale. Where was this tutorial and what bugs could occur with creation of such a huge map? Lag? Will players be able to play it? Or is it better and safer to create maps of their original sizes? Also the problem is that there are already huge towns and statics done for the map and we don't want to lose it all. Also, we are planning to use the new UO KR client as it comes out. As far as I know, the client will contain mostly graphical changes, however, maybe it is worth to wait for it and see if the map creation proccess and other technical issues will become easier to operate with? Also will I be able to use these tools (like dragon, world forge), when KR comes out?

In summary: I want a new, clean, beautiful and if possible a very big map but I don't want the creation process to take more than a month or few, what do I do? I want to keep the old statics and decorations and npc's and trasfer all of it to certain places at the new map. I want to use Pandora Box for decorations and landscape static generation as I have done before on the old map. I want it all to be in KR graphics. Of course, it all has to be playable.

What would you, pros, do in my place (step by step)?

Use the "Export" feature of RUNUO or other third party emu program like UOCopy and copy all of the map areas you want to save. This will allow you to replace them where ever you may like on the new map.

If your map is as messed up as you describe then you have a few options, you can either smooth it out in Worldforge or redo it completely. Depending on the degree of errors Worldforge may be a good option. If the coast are messed up then redoing the entire map might be the way to go unless you have the original .bmp that was used to make the map.

Personally I would stick with the normal sized maps.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

Another question is - which is better Dragon or UO Landscaper? I understand that UO Landscaper has higher requirements, but I had errors with dragon while trying to create new maps. And I consider upgrading if necessery. I want to hear and objective answer about + and - of each product.

Thanks.

You might want to check out Punt's Map Generator 2. It works very much like Dragon and UO Landscaper.

Dragon has problems with 3-way transitions, requiring a lot of manual fixes. UOL and Dragon both support 3-way transitions and break the map into terrain and altitude files.

UOL has problems with large maps (Map0 size), it has issues with running out of memory even on good systems. And takes forever (days!) to generate a Map0 size map. A new version that addresses these issues is supposed to be forthcoming.

Dragon is probably the most "popular", mostly because it was the first, has been along the longest, and does do the job well. Map Generator is actively developed and is probably the best of the lot right now.

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-= HellRazor =-
Shattered Sosaria is coming!
http://www.shatteredsosaria.com

Okay, thanks. However, I do not need to make map0.mul as it is already done. I am focusing on the other maps now.