dobdriver's maps

[Swordmaster]

Yeah, the reason we all love Dobs so much is not just because he makes great maps. He makes your maps, too.

I don't think you need to apologize for your way of doing things, by the way. The time frame in which you release maps should be entirely at your own discretion.


Congrats on OSITM and great batch of maps again, of course!


Cheers
Willy

[metarvo]

While mappers may not be constructing buildings or showing pictures of cities, the work they do is equally important IMHO.  Without a map, where would cities be built?  Congratulations on the well-deserved OSITM, Dob.

[sim_link]

Congratulations on a well deserved OSITM, your work and dedication never fails to impress! 

[RickD]

You know what the problem with your maps is? They always make me want to quit my current project and start something new. 

Just kidding, keep up the great work. 

[portlandexpos04]

Thanks Dobs!!!  Congratulations on the OSITM!  Well deserved!  Best maps ever, amazing quality and the rate you turn them out is simply amazing!!!   

[dobdriver]

G'Day Devotees,

Welcome to OSITM 2.

The map-o-matic has just received her monthly service and is chugging along out the back.

I recently got an email from Epic asking what happened at the silly server and they were no longer serving geotiffs et al  from their site. I went along and sure enough only esri arcgrids and floats were available. Now I haven't used or been to the silly server for over three years so it was a bit of a shock to see. It's not quite as clunky as it was but still a bit of a slow monster.
I have used arcgrid files for all US maps from the beginning converting them in global mapper, it is a 32bit floating point raster file and finding free software to open proprietary files is like finding the proverbial rocking horse kaka. Anyhow having searched the big wide etherwebby for the last couple of weeks and trying out all sorts of crapware last night I finally found an open source GIS program that can open arcgrid and hgt files (the main dem files to use) and export them as 32bit or 16bit geoTIFFs. 3dem is very good but is limited in not supporting esri files and the author has long given up the ghost unfortunately.
My goal of eventually writing a tutorial (with all bits in one place) with free or cheap (do you think I can find a free editor that edits 16bit images? Nah) software is almost ready to hit the stands.


JM, Robin, Hellken, Noah, Serkanner, Eugene, Vortext, Art, Willy, Metarvo, Sim_Link, RickD and Portie, Thank you all for your kind words and the support you and everyone here at SC4d has given me over the years, Without it I probably would have stopped a long while ago.

Heyyyy

While mappers may not be constructing buildings

 


Of course there is a show to follow,


This map is one I have long wanted to produce and recently developing my helper mod for the Palestine map allowed me to accurately map this data too.



Death Valley is 69.632km x 98.304km.


Death Valley was late last year recognised as having the highest temperature recorded on our dear Earth.



This next map is courtesy of a request by Grstudios, Thanks mate.



Tel Aviv is 36.864km x 53.248km.


Life on the east Mediterrean Coast.



Oh yes I finally got a round tuit and finished rendering the BrisVegas map ;<)



Bris Vegas is 81.96km x 73.728km.


With better scaling than the old 8bit map it has lost a row of mid sized tiles along the bottom but only shrunk 0.27km and has grown almost 2km wider for the same 20 tiles.


That once again is all for today.
Thanks for looking and have a great day.


Cheers
dobs

[Kergelen]

Thanks for the tutorial! A few years ago I tried to learn how to make real maps but I was missing information.

Congrats on the OSITM.

[epicblunder]

Excellent, the tutorial is on it's way!

That little screencap tool for google maps should be great, i HATE the time it takes to take 100+ screencaps and stitch them together in PS.

Also, i do believe quantam can handle the .flt files: i haven't taken one all the way through the mapping process yet but the program was able to load a .flt file i had sitting around.

[Swordmaster]

Good to see you doing this, Dobs. I once made a map with DEM data so it's not entirely new to me but I see there are many tools I never would have found on my own. (Not that I intend to make any more maps, why, you've made all the ones I would ever play )


Cheers
Willy

[dobdriver]

G'Day devotees,

Oh Look OSITM 3.

What a nice surprise it was to find Wouanagaine has worked hard at updating Mapper and we can only hope he will find some time to update Terra also. I have been known to be a bit of a critic of both mapper and terra about many of their issues and bugs, but this new mapper deals with them and cuts down on resource hogging marvellously and adds some great new commands to boot. Today while rendering the maps I noticed the new colour scheme reminds one of a water colour, Quite a pleasing look I thought.

It will open maps up 212.992km per side or 52tiles without being patched, the Cornwall map is a doddle except I used a very custom height plug so it sinks in mapper a little.


Thanks Kergelen, that is just the start I shall complete it over the coming month.
Cheers

Thanks Epic, Yes GMS is a great time saver.

take 100+ screencaps and stitch them together in PS.

That is exactly what I used to do, used to take hours. Now the most I have had to take is about 9 and while it's sucking in the images I am doing something else ;<).
Yes quantum will convert float files I tried last night, no probs at all. I also had a good read of 3dem's manual as I caught somewhere it said "and most common types of dem". It will open both float and arcgrid but they are not coded to the format that 3dem is looking for and it jumbles them unfortunately. So quantum it will be.
Cheers

Thanks Willy, I have been thinking of another of your suggestions too,  a catalogue of my international maps. Probably without pics though,
Cheers


And what would it be without a show? A no show.
But wait there's more.

After making that rather large map of Cornwall and Devon, certainly the largest map I have made and dare I say perhaps the largest map ever made for SC4.
I decided to do a little hacking and dacking on it and have produced five little lovelies from it.



Bideford is 45.056km x 40.96km.

Westward Ho!


Penzance is 53.248km x 53.248km.

Pirate Haven!


Hugh Town is 16.384km x 16.384km.

Nothing Scilly about these Isles.


Plymouth is 53.248km x 53.248km.

Shall we have one more game on the Hoe?


Torquay is 49.152km x 69.632km.

BASILLL!!!


And there ended another chapter.


Thanks for looking and have a great day.


Cheers
dobs

[Swordmaster]

Nice West Country series, Dobs. I would like a cider now


I think a catalogue with pics would be even better - my bias would go towards the mapper images instead of the rendered ones. I essentially have all these in a single map so I can quickly take a look at them. It's really an advantage. Let me know if I can help with it.


Cheers
Willy

[dobdriver]

G'Day Devotees,

This is OSITM 4.

While writing the tutorial, it got me thinking about the many ways to prepare dem for maps. I don't know, I have about a dozen or more ways to make maps these days. One thing I am always on the lookout for is a faster way to capture water, but alas I haven't found any yet. Leaving one's 'puter to differentiate water, land, islands, rivers etc is a bit like giving a baby some crayons then trying to fit the scrawled mess onto the map. What looks different to the human eye is not necessarily different to the 'puter.

Anyhow getting back to the dem I prepared Washington by three different techniques, loaded them into terra and took some 3d snaps and produced this image.


The grey areas are matched, the three different colours (yellow, cyan and magenta) are the areas of mismatch. The differences are not great but which one is correct? Without going there with a jigger or theodolite I couldn't really say. Actually the differences are caused by the different algorithms used by programs to interpolate data when sampling up and down, some are better than others but all are a little different.

I have been working on Noah's Siilijoki map extension and have basically got it ready. I am now just waiting for him to send me his game generated map file and directions about where he wants it cut 

Now here is something I don't normally do, show working projects   Something different for a special request in a special month.

While scaling it to fit Blade's original map I found it to be rather out of scale, shrinking 10km in one direction and 3km in t'other. So I may release a full version of this without the mid band of medium tiles. Hmmm we'll see.


Thanks Willy, mmm a cider would go down a treat. If you can make a perfect facsimile of your atlas in basicColors.ini I will display them with that ;<)  Cheers.



And for today's show we have strange bedfellows indeed.



Thanks to Vmiujcadet09 for this request.



Tehran is 53.248km x 53.248km.


Bring ya water bottle, not a lot of that stuff here.



This one is courtesy of Portie, thanks mate.



Washington is 57.344km x 36.864km.


Only in the game.


And there we leave you again.
Thanks for looking and have a great day.


Cheers
dobs

[jmdude1]

great updates and a great tutorial. it must get boring when you need to make an in game pic, loading all of those city tiles for each map....ugh. 

[sunv123]

I think i'll give my water bottle to the map o matic, don't want that to break down.

Oh yeah, and great work with Death Valley, very good for my evil ones.

[noahclem]

Absolutely phenomenal work here 

So much top-quality mapping work and a great tutorial as well! Not to mention the project going on in my little neck of the words. Expect a PM from me shortly.

A K-point for your tutorial and request taking 

-Noah

[epicblunder]

it's going to be so nice to have a full tutorial all in one spot for handy referencing.   

Also, dobs, in the tutorial you forgot the bit between saving the first .png and scaling in TF about avoiding the Terraformer bug that tops off the initial .png above 6000m.

[sunv123]

Hey dobs, it's me again.

Maybe you could do one of Daytona Beach in Florida? Maybe from Ormond Beach to Port Orange? It's maybe a little big, but I guess it's worth a try. I'm trying to make a large beach city for my MD and the elevation is almost perfect for what I'm looking for.

Anyways, keep up the great work dobs, we all truly appreciate it.

PS, I love how you can see the highway trenches in your maps. Perfect.

[Swordmaster]

Great work on these capitals. A difficult couple indeed

For Daytona Beach, I think Ormond - Port Orange is only 20km so it could be a good tad bigger. Rotated version looks desirable, and if both that barrier island and the mainland shore could fit into a single large tile that would be great. Just a thought.


Cheers
Willy

[dobdriver]

G'Day Devotees,

Hey, I'm up to OSTIM 5

Well everything is runnin' hot and bothered this way, the mercury is sitting on 36 celcius inside and out. Anyhow I got plenty of projects on the road and thought I can crack this one out in between, so I did.

Thanks JM, Oh I pretty inured to rendering these days. Done a few. Cheers mate.

SHhhhhiiiiiiiisssshhhhhhhh!!! oh that certainly cooled her off, Thanks Sunv. Cheers.

Thanks Noah, Project Siilijoki is bubbling. Cheers

G'Day Epic, thanks mate. Nah I didn't forget, it's that this particular map doesn't show the bug so I will add it to an addendum along with finding the lowest point if not making a coastal map. thanks and cheers.

Oh Sunv again ;<), Daytona Beach and speedweek. Motors are hot, babes are cool, sounds like my kinda place! Thanks mate.

G'Day Willy, Thanks mate. Interestingly not so long ago they were quite cosy, how times do change and not necessarily for the better I might add. I'll look at rotating it for you. Thanks and cheers.


While I do have a couple of maps almost complete, I have been working on the other projects a bit. Currently making pics for the catalogue.
I still have a show though and without further ado.


Thanks to Sunv, thanks mate


Daytona Beach is 20.48km x 20.48km.


Just who can do the biggest rooster tail?


That's it for today.
Thanks for looking and have a great day.


Cheers
dobs

[sunv123]

Oohh, that looks great.

Perfect, Dobs, gonna get right to downloading after I'm done with mobile.

And that was really fast. REALLY FAST. I must thank you for that speed!