Ryandor.com

I want to make a map that is alot smaller than the original, but when I try to convert it in Dragon it spits out this:
The current map defintion is 6144 x 4096
Allocating memory (MAP)
Allocating Memory (BMP)
#Error : BMP file has a wrong filesize

What should I do? And is it at all possible to make a map that is alot smaller than the original map??

And also, how do i specify the starting location for new characters in Pol?
For example: If i have made a new map and want all new players to start at a certain location on that map.

You cannot change the size of the map that uo uses, and therefore Dragon cannot either. Fortunelty, there is a workaround. Simply put the areas of the map that you do not want to use as a black area. The map0.mul that you give out to players will zip or rar down quite small depending on how much area you do use.

As far as starting locations for POL I do not know as I primarily use UOX, however here's were you'll possibly find that answer:
http://pol.tumbolia.org/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pol-scriptforum/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pol-distro/
http://www.drocket.net/pol_stuff.html

Hope this helps.
If you have any other questions on the map, please reply.

-Ryandor

I made a map that was exactly the sam size as the original map. I made the whole map black except for a small area in the upper left corner. I surrounded that area with mountains and i put grass inside. When i try to play on this map everything is black as i wanted it to be but walls and dungeons are still there. When i get to the location where my grass/mountain area was supposed to all i saw was black and dungeon stuff. One interesting thing though: when i teleported outside the map i could see my area on the radar map but when i tried to teleport there it changed back to the black and dungeon stuff.

How can i remove everything from the original map so that there is no walls or dungeons left. And how can i make my little corner of the map work??

You'll need to run the DragonSP program as well to clear out the old statics and place the appropriate statics for your new world. That will solve the first problem.
As for everything being black, I'm thinging for some reason you might be "below" the map. Try to teleport to a higher z value. I'm not familiar with tweak commands but that would be one way. Also, you might just be below the mountains. The map will appear black that way but still show up in the radar.
If nothing else, teleport your self to the very edge of your new map (where you can see the mountains), and use a "targeting" teleport rather than an absolute teleport.

For example the command (in UOX) " 'go 100 100 10" would put me at x 100 y 100 z 10 on the map. This would be an absolute teleport.
The command " 'tele" will give me a targeting curser so I can pick the spot I want to teleport to. This would be a targeting teleport.

Try to teleport onto the top of the mountians (a flat area, though)

If you are still having problems, please reply.

-Ryandor

Thanks for the help, everything looks really nice now. But i was wondering if there is some way of controlling how many trees and stones Dragon generates? I would like to have less of said stuff, so that i can build towns and stuff.

There are several option you have:

The first and possibly the most difficult is to melt the areas you are going to build your towns in. You can then use the resulting wsc files to build the towns in. You can delete just the trees that are in the way, and save those that are good. Then, when finished, freeze these files back in and they'll blend in nicely.

The second way is to edit the scripts that general the trees and such. These are text files in the /scripts/items directory under Dragon. They are well commented and are easy to change, but getting the numbers and percentages good is time consuming since you have to re-run Dragon and DragonSP every time you change them to see the results. As you've discovered, running Dragon is time consuming to say the least.

The third option, and I think the best, is to plan ahead. When you are drawing the bmp for the map, take into consideration where you want the towns. Make sure that where ever you want a town, you use grass in that area. Then when you run DragonSP, do not select "grass.scp" from the left side list. This will prevent any static items in grass from placing. Then, in game, you can build your towns and landmarks without having any statics in your way. The downside (if you can call it that) is if you do want any trees, flowers, etc in those areas, then you'll have to place them manually (or with an in game tool)

I might also suggest this:
There are additional tools that are very good with aspects of worldbuilding. These include Xuri's WorldBuilder, for placing just about anything you need in the world (static and dynamic) WorldForge and MulTool, used for freezing and melting statics, and UOCopy, for moving sections of the map and statics around. The only thing is that these programs natively support wsc files which happen to be the save world format of UOXC and UOX 7.0x series servers. Since I do not know how good or advanced POL worldbuilding tools are, you might consider use UOXC or UOX 70 to build the world. Then when you've gotten everything you want in the map and statics, then switch back to POL for the dynamic items, scripts, and ,of course, running the game. Just an idea to possibly make it easier.

Let me know how you fare in your worldbuilding.

-Ryandor

Thanks for all the help, i've sorted everything out now and the map is starting to look really good now. =)