Ryandor.com

Hi all,

I just recently started working on a map I had gotten pretty far on about 2 years ago. At that time, I used dragon (mod 9 I think) and was really pleased with the results. However, I see that in the time I have been "gone" ML has extended the map size. Well, of course I want to use a larger map, so I went about the process of converting my map (manually...by using a color replace tool *sweat,*) for use with Map Maker 2 instead. Anyhow, I am comfortable with that process now, but my coastlines need some work.

Upon searching for info about the topic, I seem to gather that my coastlines need to be surrounded by some "shallow water" terrain type? This is fine, I can replace the necessary pixels fairly easily. However, another problem I want to get resolved before I pour countless additional hours into doing this is, I read that water should be at -5 and land at least at 0. This is fine...that is how I had my map set up before, however the color palette for Map Maker includes no such altitude for water (that I can tell.) Instead the palette that I have here before me has water at the following altitudes: -10, -8, -6, -4, -2, 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and so on..how am I supposed to get water at -5 with those options?

Secondly, is it ok to have water at 0 instead? Thing is...noticing that there was no water at -5, I went ahead and decided to make it at 0 and "raise" my landmass up a bit (starting at 2.) Will water at 0 and land at 2 be ok? Should land be at 4 or even 6 or 10 instead? Will water at 0 (shallow around coastlines) and land at 2 transition?

I just really want to get the basic conversion process over with and a stable map to continue building from. Thanks for any help at all!

Upon further experimentation, it seems that even if I set my water tiles to 0, the map maker program sets them to -5 on the "compiled" map. So, what is the recommended setting for altitude of oceans (when there is no altitude -5 "color in the palette?) Should I set them to 0 and my "coasts" to 0 as well and hope it automatically sets the water to -5? Which I would assume leave me with -5 water and happy coastlines at 0?

The lack of a -5 water altitude in the altitude palette, and the fact that my ocean gets set to -5 even if I set it to 0 has me a bit confused. Any insight would be great. I will of course experiment more and detail my findings here for anyone else with similar questions

By the way, the 5 pixel/tile wide "shallow" water around my coastlines (which I added for this "experiment") worked like a charm. My coastlines transition beautifully...even if a bit steep due to the fact that my set altitudes were ignored for the water

Also, I am using gimp and of course the palette that gimp recognizes (.gpl)

ok...I am just going to customize the altitude.xml file (having backed up original) to fit my needs a bit better. Are there any caveats to doing this that I cannot foresee at the moment?

Since I don't use many of the -Z elevations in my original map, I will likely put some of the dragon 5z increments down that way or shift the whole palette index down some and fill in those numbers where appropriate.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions on anything I have asked so far.

odd.. My Dragon, UOL and MG2 colortables ALL have negative colors for water, shallow and deep. Dragon doesn't need shallow, UOL and MG2 does. 5 tile wide minimum, I've seen as much as 8 tiles wide too.

but, yes... All 3 programs want Ocean at Z-5 and base ground at Z0 or multiples of 5 for cliffs

Thanks for the reply Pallando.

I didn't mean to imply that there were no -z values on the color palette at all (if that is how you took it,) but rather there is no -5z color on the palette.

Here is the section of the altitudes.xml file I would assume should contain the value, but it does not? Is this an oversight?



Anyhow, I just customized the file and added it in one of the "blank" spots..so all is good I hope.

I'll likely have more questions as soon as I get the map "converted" fully. In a few test compiles with MapGenerator I noticed a few ugly spots that Dragon had no problem with if I remember correctly. So, I will likely start a new topic when I get to the point of checking those out again.

I welcome further comments..if for nothing else but documentation on this topic for others to reference.

Your gonna find that all 3 have there own strengths and buggs. Just grab the one your most comfortable with an stick to it. Then use CED to fix the errors, skipp WorlForge. CED is much faster and easier to deal with.

But Again, Water Z-5 is the default water color on all my Dragon tables, so I'm at a loss as to why you don't have it.