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 Post subject: Spelunking
PostPosted: Thu May 04, 2006 11:08 am 
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Journeyman
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I want to make very narrow 1 tile passage ways that descend deep into a mountain, this would require a cave with drastically alternating Z levels, but I've never seen such a thing in UO. Is it recommended? How would it turn out?

No I don't want to just put the cave on a dungeon map, not right away. The players should have to go very deep down the Z Levels first, and then enter a hole which takes them to another map.


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PostPosted: Thu May 04, 2006 11:10 am 
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Caves (underneath mountains) must be built using statics, so if you have them descend or ascend, you must use the available stair/ramp pieces.

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PostPosted: Thu May 04, 2006 2:30 pm 
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Sydius wrote:
Caves (underneath mountains) must be built using statics, so if you have them descend or ascend, you must use the available stair/ramp pieces.


Your saying that there can be no "terrain" within a mountain, such as grass or sand? Not without being a pain in the ass? I guess I'll eventually switch them over to a dungeon map as soon as they go far enough into the dungeon so they are just surrounded by blackness. It's gonna be tricky making it a seamless transition.


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PostPosted: Thu May 04, 2006 5:22 pm 
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Nebu wrote:
Your saying that there can be no "terrain" within a mountain, such as grass or sand? Not without being a pain in the ass? I guess I'll eventually switch them over to a dungeon map as soon as they go far enough into the dungeon so they are just surrounded by blackness. It's gonna be tricky making it a seamless transition.


You can, but it has to be done with static tiles. One thing about static tiles is they don't wrap, so if they are not at the same altitude as each other as Syd says you have to use stairs. Caves under mountains are good for small mines and entrance foyers to dungeons that are elsewhere. While you can make more comlicated under mountain dungeons, the effort involved doesn't seem to be worth the results.

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PostPosted: Thu May 04, 2006 6:17 pm 
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Stormcrow wrote:
Nebu wrote:
Your saying that there can be no "terrain" within a mountain, such as grass or sand? Not without being a pain in the ass? I guess I'll eventually switch them over to a dungeon map as soon as they go far enough into the dungeon so they are just surrounded by blackness. It's gonna be tricky making it a seamless transition.


You can, but it has to be done with static tiles. One thing about static tiles is they don't wrap, so if they are not at the same altitude as each other as Syd says you have to use stairs. Caves under mountains are good for small mines and entrance foyers to dungeons that are elsewhere. While you can make more comlicated under mountain dungeons, the effort involved doesn't seem to be worth the results.


What would be the most complex thing to build under a mountain?

Could you theoretically build rivers under mountains with Map Generators since shoreline tiles area all static tiles? Then add in a waterfall and some buildings and then perhaps a set of stairs that you can climb and then leads to an opening at the top of the mountain?

Going deep deep deep into the planet is an important feature of my shard. The problem is my world is not flat, but rather a bunch of sets of vertical pieces


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PostPosted: Thu May 04, 2006 7:20 pm 
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You can get as complex as you care to write scripts for. Also until we come up with a better way to generate the mountains above your static caves you have to go back and edit the altitudes by hand to make it look good.

I understand what you are getting at with the depth, and as most of the people who come here asking questions, you have it in your head that to be deep it all has to be in the same place.

There are 3 very important factors to consider in this. The first is that both the client and the server emulators can only handle so much crap in 1 location before they shit the bed. The second is that you can only see so far in the client, and that includes height. Buildings higher than 3, 4 storys tops are wasted because you can't see the whole thing anyway. There is only so much altitude variation that is useful in 1 screen. The third thing is that unless you are building under non-walkable terrain (like mountains) there are just too many places for it to fuck up during play. There is a reason EA stopped doing it like that and sealed off most of the under the map areas (like Buc's tunnels).

Bearing that in mind it is a lot easier to create the illusion of depth without going to such extremes because after a few screens worth the player can't tell the difference anyway (not to mention it becomes tedious). There is no rule that says the whole dungeon has to be in 1 location. There is no rule that says even a single level of it all has to be in 1 location. It doesn't even have to be on the same map.

The map I am planning on doing with Mapgenerator is going to have a vast network of tunnels running beneath it as well as many dungeons. I intend on doing very little of that with the method you are talking about. We have (without hacking the client) 4 maps to use. I only plan on using map0 for surface.

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PostPosted: Thu May 04, 2006 9:26 pm 
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First off, if you do a single tile entrance it will not be useable by players. For sections with walls it needs to be at least 3 tiles wide maybe up to 5 with corners or turns.

There are texture tiles for caves and you can make them various smooth altitudes but you need to do it in the dungeon region to get the full effect. Z increases or decreases of 2 or less are invisible almost so its not worth it. If you go to high at once it will block passage or require stairs.

You can paint them flat on the map then adjust them in Worldforge if your hearts set on it but from personal experience its really not worth it. It also plays hell with the wall or floor static placement.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu May 04, 2006 9:32 pm 
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It's not that difficult to create the illusion of depth, I know this screenshot doesn't show it that well... but you enter this cave via a normal hole in a mountain, there's a platform there, you go down a few cave type stairs, you come out to where you see DF here standing, another side has some stairs up, etc etc.

The darkened area in the screenshot doesn't give it justice, but in game that really looks like a whole other level of the cave below you.

Image

edit - this is under the mountain, it's not in the black dungeon area

also remember there's a limitation on highest and lowest z level, so don't go plotting -500 z cities underground before testing that you can even BE there. i dunno if it's server or client side, but sphere has a -127 to +127 Z limit.


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PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 6:43 am 
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It's a client limitation.

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PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 9:40 am 
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Ok.

Rosethorn is that a custom cave tile graphic?


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PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 11:20 am 
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Those look like normal hued cave floor tiles... if I had to guess, id say 1109.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 11:41 am 
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Dian wrote:
Those look like normal hued cave floor tiles... if I had to guess, id say 1109.


Wouldn't that mean horrible lag since static tiles cannot hold color?


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PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 12:09 pm 
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Nebu wrote:
Wouldn't that mean horrible lag since static tiles cannot hold color?


They can.

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PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 12:10 pm 
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Who says static tiles can't....oh, damn, Sydius beat me to it.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 12:32 pm 
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Sydius wrote:
Nebu wrote:
Wouldn't that mean horrible lag since static tiles cannot hold color?


They can.


Are you sure? I distinctly remember this was NOT the case a few years ago, what the hell happened? Can they hold different names now too?

If static tiles can hold color now this changes a lot of things, would I be able to use green-hued water tiles?


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PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 12:53 pm 
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They have always been able to be a different color. Whether or not map-making tools supported it, though, is a different story. Yes, you may use green water, and no, the name cannot be different.

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PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 1:25 pm 
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When 'freeze' static items into the statics.mul files, you can use any valid hue color, and it will retain the color, however if you rename the static item prior to freezing them into the statics files, the item name will default back to its original index name..

example, if you renamed a cave floor tile to "dirty floor" and froze it to static file, it would not hold that name, and show as 'cave floor' or whatever its original name is.

Changing the hue to static items has no effect on preformance to the shard or client, froze or not.

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PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 1:36 pm 
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Sydius wrote:
They have always been able to be a different color. Whether or not map-making tools supported it, though, is a different story. Yes, you may use green water, and no, the name cannot be different.


Yes, but the "ocean" water that is away from the shorelines, that counts as terrain and not static tiles? So that can't be hued?

And Mapgenerator should be coming out of the womb soon right?


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PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 2:28 pm 
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The non-static water cannot be hued.

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PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 2:39 pm 
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Not your daddy
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Quote:
And Mapgenerator should be coming out of the womb soon right?


Map Generator is already "out of the womb" as stated before, it is just a matter of the transition scripts that StormCrow is working on, to be released. As we said, you are more than welcome to download it, and add transitions as needed, that may not be within that release. :)

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 2:44 pm 
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Sorry for being quiet.

The actual Map Generator that builds maps from data is complete and can be downloaded now. The issue is, there isn't a lot of data for it right now. That is in work. I hope by tonight or tomorrow, to have a transition editor/wizard complete, which should make the data generation job a tad easier.


In other news, which I will be posting on WorldMaker site, is I have decided to finally go the route HellRazor and others have suggest.

I will be starting version 3 of WorldMaker, as an integrated suite, versus the collection of tools that it compromises of. But more on that later.

Map Generator 2 will be "packaged" as a final distro as the data sets become complete.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 2:55 pm 
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I believe Map Generator 2 is what I was waiting for, and that should be coming in the next couple days right?


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 3:07 pm 
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id build it via world forge or in game, and when you're ingame you'd place them then freeze the statics.

i can't remember if freezing saves hues, i think it did, but im not sure


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PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 3:07 pm 
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Yea, and is one in the same. That is just the latest release of Map Generator. You may still find it avaliable for download. Transition scripts are just still being worked out, to package as a complete distro type set.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 3:24 pm 
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Can I tell map generator to generate the static shoreline water tiles as green-hued? Then can I just make an entire ocean using only the static water tiles? Wouldn't that lag?


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