Land Editing Tools

[Sorrontis]

Hey V

So, I was thinking, building land can be time consuming, and there's a few land shapes that people "often" use - like pyramids. Rather than having 4PRL do it, would it be possible to have built in palettes for basic land shapes. This would allow non-4prl users the ability to make these shapes without using nodes.


Off my head, I have the square and circle pyramids. But I'm sure there's other shapes you could think of.
The way I see it you could have the following parameters.

Check box for square/circle
Check box for inverse pyramid (so it makes a hole)
Starting Height
End Height
Starting Radius or Size
End Radius or Size - That way the top of the pyramid would have a plateau or a point

The map maker could then press where ever to make it and the palette turns off (or not - depending on efficiency).

[knucracker]

Yeah, I plan something fairly similar to this.  I'll be doing it for my own benefit, to be honest :)

I'll also likely support import of a map/texture_type as well.  Like a comma separated value type of thing.  That would allow somebody to create a terrain using some external tool.

[ShadowDragon7015]

something interesting would be if you could load a map layout from crpl. Would be pretty cool for some long challenge maps.

[Grabz]

something interesting would be if you could load a map layout from crpl. Would be pretty cool for some long challenge maps.

If we get something like `SetTerrainBulk` then you'll certainly be able to build a map from a string in RPL.

In CW3 this is not feasible because there is no bulk terrain functionality, but I believe it exists in PF.

[Csimbi]

I have not tried map editing to be honest, but I wonder if importing a bitmap image could work.
You know, allow setting the colour weights (for example, brown is high elevation, green is low elevation) and let the game figure out the rest.
Tada. You can import real world maps, faces, flags, etc. in a nice height map.
I wonder if the max height could be changed to allow for a higher scale and more depth/height (like 0-25 instead of 0-10).
Just a thought.

[Sorrontis]

Hi Csimbi,

Someone, somewhere, made a CRPL script that does just that. It will probably be done by the community rather than spending Virgil's time doing that.

[FOXX]

The original Image to Land Script -> https://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=23906
The PF Version -> https://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=24504

[knucracker]

So map generation from image import is something I'm building into CW4.  I've experimented with two methods.
One is similar to the "convert to a B&W image then treat the resulting gray levels as a height map".  Works fine and I allow the red, green, and blue coefficients to be tweaked with sliders.  I've also added a smoothing function so noisy terrain can be quelled.

Another method entirely (still evaluating) is to use color quantization to reduce an image to some maximum number of colors then the let each color represent a terrain height.  For instance, choosing a set of 16 colors to represent an image and then let each of the 16 colors be a terrain height.  And as with the other method, smoothing can be performed.

Each method seems to have an advantage in some cases.  The 'height map' method works when you have an image and you want the bright places to be high and the dim places to be low.  The quantization method works when you can't sort an image by brightness but instead want to sort it by color.  So you might want purples to be low and reds to be high with grays in the middle, for instance.

I'll either include one or both methods in the game.

One additional interesting note about either import method.  Allowing the feature means that an image editor (photoshop, gimp, paint.net, photopea, etc) can essentially be used as a map terrain editor.  For instance, create a 250x150 image then start painting in gray scales.  Use the photo editor to make shapes, apply effects, filters, etc.

[Sorrontis]

Oh wow. That's pretty awesome, I didn't think you'd go that far. But I like it! Expect Dachshund maps everyone!

[Grabz]

I love this idea. I just hope it isn't going to cause a tenfold increase in maps based purely on images of objects/memes, these are cool occasionally but ultimately they ruin the immersion IMO.

[FOXX]

For me this is a beautiful build-in Tool. :) Awesome.
Making the Land Layout in Paint ;)