beskhu3epnm's Mapping Projects

[Shadow Assassin]

Beautiful map. I feel like trying it out.

What's the average elevation of those islands, anyway? I can just imagine a metropolis tucked away in that general region.

Config's 44x44, I figure. It's a wonderful map. And you should release your custom elevation mods for Cycledogg's stuff - there's most definitely a market for that on the LEX. As always, I'll most likely do some minor fine-tuning with the terrain (I notice a couple of problems with the mountains, easily fixed - it's mainly due to Maxis' reconciling tool).

--EDIT: I noticed you included your custom mod for Cycledogg's stuff in the zip, so yeah. Awesome job, I've loaded it up in SC4 and it looks wonderful.

[beskhu3epnm]

Hey SA thanks for checking it out!

The edge reconciliation is something I've been dealing with for a long time.
Edge Reconciliation Removal Tool
This is something I created back in the old 8bit days to remove that problem when rendering maps the old fashioned way.

SC4TF and the development of 16bit PNG maps (by myself and Romaq - now NHP shares the glory) has eliminated this entirely.

What you see in the image is the shadows from the mountains. The shadows don't get carried over to the city tile adjacent to the one with the mountains.

The average mountain elevation on the 'islands' is about 900-1000m. My maximum elevation data is showing 1932.4m. The GEOBASE DEM datasheet is showing a maximum elevation of 1682.42m. In this region, Sea Level is 0. In SC4, Sea Level is 250. 1682.42 + 250 = 1932.42. I'm off my 0.02m. It's also 1:1.. nearly perfect!!

The only limitation to this map is the DEM scale of 1:50,000. This represents 30m NED data, pretty good, but not as good as 10m USGS or even 3m USGS (files too large). Some of my world maps are done using 90m SRTM data (bottom of the line) because that's all that's available....

Anyways, enough babbling, hope you enjoy it, or at least sit tight until CRV comes out!

[Shadow Assassin]

That's good to hear.

Just wondering, is the actual valley floor alongside the river in the CRV map reasonably flat? It looks like it is, but one can never be sure with the trees. It actually looks quite buildable.

[jeronij]

Chetwood Region is a really challenging a nice map. really variated. Not much flat land.... I think I might give it a try 

[beskhu3epnm]

Some CRV City tile shots:



The valley floor is fairly flat by the river (which I plan on modifying further to appear more like the one I am using, right now it is too small), but then there is a 150m shelf above that that is fairly rough to build on. It can be smoothed out fairly easily by using the terraformer, or by sloping techniques. It really poses a challenge to building, especially higher densities transitioning to the 'shelf.'

The area around the lake in the southern portion has pretty substantial relief around it, making it difficult to go around the lake smoothly. Judging from your Ensenada MD, this will be no problem for you. In fact, I'm willing to bet that you can do this excellently.

The overall map has an elevation gain of 2685m. Using the 3D in terraformer, you can get a sense of the mountains from the valley. The view is quite impressive.

Anyways, if you can hang on until late next week, that is the planned release date.....



EDIT: Jeroni, it would be an honor for you to try Chetwoot. I was having great visions of where the highway system would travel, and the ridge along the center of the map has me wanting to try it as well....

Having learned much of my building style from you.... well, it would be awesome to find out. As long as your PC can handle large maps!!

[Shadow Assassin]

Hmm, that's nice and flat!

It won't be too much of a problem for me, don't you worry. I find it easier to build on rolling hills or at least maps that have some form of elevation change because it gives me nicely defined boundaries.

There is no rush -- I can wait as long as necessary -- besides I have RL for the next few weeks, meaning no time to play on the map, anyway.

[moganite]

You were always better than me at doing rugged terrain. How do you do it?
Combining my water technique and your mountains one and we will have all round winners.

building like on a map like that is no problem for me expensive yes but doable.

[Shadow Assassin]

Just wondering, any status changes on this map -- is it in progress or no?

If you've got RL issues, that's fine.

[beskhu3epnm]

Should be a GO for tomorrow by either mid-morning (EST) or late afternoon (EST) depending on how the morning goes....

Should be the ultimate RL challenge map though.... There's maybe 4 or so SC4 players that can turn this into a wonder.

Oddly enough, you are one of them!

I will prepare a showcase here as well. Maybe a little more detailed than my previous showcases. All I really have to do is change tiles over. 12x12 large tiles? There goes half of the potential downloaders right there... too big?!?!

Anyways, check back in about 12 hours (if you are in Australia.... check when you wake up in the middle of the night!!).

[Shadow Assassin]

Funny, I thought it was 11x11.  My current region's... 11x15 at the moment, so that's about the same number of maps. (though, admittedly, about a third is just water)

But people should know that only like half the map's buildable, unless they're one of those people who like building on mountains.... Either that, or a mountain goat.

[beskhu3epnm]

heh heh.... 11x15 huh! 165 to 144... your map's got it beat.

I must say 12x12 is my absolute maximum as a RL map creator. Everything goes up proportionally when you make a map bigger. You only realize what a headache it is to release a huge map after you release a small one (easy!).

btw about 35 minutes until release. Been a busy day. I had originally alotted 45 minutes to change textures. Took twice that long. As you probably know, each tile takes longer to save the larger the map is.... (sigh). Just preparing download package at the moment. Of course, NHP's quality standards prevent me from just throwing anything on there.

Also, about the comment regarding building on mountains.... there is a section of this map where 2 plateaus exist on the SW edge of the valley overlooking everything.... They can be reached by transportation networks through the smaller valleys at the rear (even highway if I remember correctly). They are about 1000m up on everything.

You have to look, but you can build in a lot of places.

You will soon see!

[beskhu3epnm]

AH

Hit a bit of a snag... the file is over 10MB (10.5).

I have to find out if Jeroni wants to waste some bandwidth for my poor map... (argh). If not, I can always host at Fileden or similar having a link from here. I will send a PM giving the positives and negatives of hosting this map here. I'd like to make it a LEX exclusive....

[Shadow Assassin]

I'm not sure, but I think he's fine with it as long as it's an exception to the norm. After all, there are a few prop packs on the LEX that are hovering around the 10.5MB mark.

As you probably know, each tile takes longer to save the larger the map is.... (sigh).

Unfortunately, yes... but I figured out quite a while ago that the size of your plugins folder plays an important part in how long it takes to load. On my current region, with an empty plugins folder (well, almost empty - only NAM, water mod, terrain mod, tree controller), it takes about 10 seconds to open an empty map. About a minute with a 2.2GB or so plugins folder. Note that my plugins folder has not been compressed with DATpacker. I had problems with it so I didn't use it. It'll be rebuilt for this region, though. Hasn't been organized in about three years, actually.

[beskhu3epnm]

Yeah! Gotcha on that one. Here's the deal with changing tiles. I generally empty my plugins folder except for a special folder I have called terrain mods (seperate folder - easy to modify). In there are only the necessary items used for changing terrain textures. It's about 8MB. My main folder is at 2.4GB, and you should see when I try to open a developed city tile on a 12x12 map....

I have SATA RAID 0 stripe running on my system with a high level AMD chip.... still it takes over 3 minutes  to load everything if loading a fresh tile. HD's are just buzzing along at max speed trying to open the plugins... you should hear it!

I can open an empty tile with the bare minimum plugins (terrain textures) and save it (saving takes way longer) in about 40 seconds. Multiply that by 144...... On a small map with 16 tiles, it happens almost instantly.

Anyways, I think I will go ahead and try to upload it and see what happens. I now know who to contact on this matter, so the issue should be resolved sometime today 100%. I will now proceed with my showcase a little later on in the AM (here - next 3 hours). Make sure to check in!

[beskhu3epnm]

Showcase: NHP Columbia River Valley by beskhu3epnm

Essentially you can see many of the comparison shots of this map on the previous pages of this thread.
Page 2 1/2 way down
Page 3 Bottom
Page 4 Throughout

We can start with a quick mosaic:





On top of that mountain/ridge would be a great place to build, I think. You can access that summit using standard transportation networks through the small valley at the back.

A 3D shot west of the main valley while travelling...

A 3D shot from the Summit of Mt. Nelson (3313m). The valley is 20km away.

Obviously I edited the sky to get rid of that eye-damaging blue that is used.

For the next and final set of images, I will compare the CN Tower (553m) to the Mt.Farnham basin and main mountain. I've used the mayor mode screen so you can see the elevation relief on the map in some places:


Obviously there is no comparison.

Anyways, this is a pretty ambitious project. I don't expect a lot of downloads of this one. Instead I will measure the success with the hapiness of the maps user base. We shall see! You should see this on the LEX sometime today, but it is around 11MB all said and done. I will post an update later if I manage to get it posted there. If not, I can link it to fileden or some file hosting site like that.

[jeronij]

Simply HUGE  ¡¡

It makes the version I am actually playing look like a child's toy  .... not sure if I will have the time to play that one, but just in case, I am adding it to my list 

[HabLeUrG]

OMG thats really impressive, excellent work i really like that 

[Shadow Assassin]

Beautiful work!

Shame the grid ruins the image in SC4T.

[beskhu3epnm]

If our world-champion programmer would ever come back I may request that he take those down (grids).

Of course, I must pray, as he is in fact - The Lord.... of SC4TF.

At any rate... waiting patiently. Tried uploading - no dice on LEX as it is too large. Waiting for special instructions at this time.

I'm thinking of hosting and linking to this thread. Which means I will only get 2 DL's. Heh heh!

[Shadow Assassin]

If our world-champion programmer would ever come back I may request that he take those down (grids).

You can actually turn them off.

According to the readme: Wired.bmp, is the texture used for showing grid, if you change it, leave a 2 pixel black border or the grid won't show.

If you change that file, it'll make the grid go away forever.