ClaytoniousRex Posted July 2, 2006 Share Posted July 2, 2006 EDIT: At Dark's request, these utilities have been removed. Dark_au has kindly decided to share his fractal terrain generator with the community. You can get it here. It only runs on Windows and requires the VB runtime to already be installed. It's a very cool work in progress and makes an excellent starting point for DropTeam terrains. You can probably direct questions to him here in this forum topic. Thanks, Dark! [ August 14, 2006, 10:17 PM: Message edited by: ClaytoniousRex ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_au Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 I've got an Updated version of this. Partly cos I just discovered that the .raw file is bieng produced upside down. Oooops... don't think it mentioned orientation in the docs. Also added shadowing and a readout of the cursor position at current spacing(for positioning items in the scenario). I'll email it to Clay and ask him to update the file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tankibanki Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 I like your generator Dark_au. However I can't open the raw files, even though xnview is supposed to be able to open them. What program do you use to open them? Are you thinking about a different output format? So far I've had to use a screenshot program to get at the heightmap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaytoniousRex Posted July 3, 2006 Author Share Posted July 3, 2006 Tank, the .raw files are not raw images, they are raw elevations. They won't be useable by an image viewer. They are what you need for the elevations file for a scenario. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaytoniousRex Posted July 8, 2006 Author Share Posted July 8, 2006 New version from Dark posted today. Use the same link above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tankibanki Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 Thanks. I've downloaded the new version even though I don't know what the new features are. Let's see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toby Haynes Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 I know Dark_au was looking for some PNG wrappers for VB. This link might help. http://www.thevbzone.com/files/VisualBasic/LIBPNG_VB.zip And there is more information on http://www.thevbzone.com/d_DLL.htm From what I can see, it looks like these are Freeware DLLs under a BSD-like license, so they should be usable. Cheers, Toby Haynes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_au Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 Ok I've emailed Clay with an update to this. Added a couple of new functions. One is a basic vector object system that can do circles, rectangles and roads. It will also allow you to save a mask file from it for building your mission mask. Also added a basic mission assistant side. What this does is to allow you visually place objects and then create a text file which you can copy and paste into your scenario file. This does Objects (buildings etc ), Procedural objects (rocks only until I understand them better) and Trees / Groves. It works ok. You can check the results in a Mission that I've also posted to clay called "A Tough Nut". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tankibanki Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 That's awesome, I was just going to ask for a road feature. I would like to be able to select a start point and an end point and the programme would create a straight line of specified width between those 2 points. Is that what you have done? I wonder if my description is comprehensible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_au Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 not quite. this allows you to set a list of points as a road of set width. For each segment you can set a rule ( either level or ramped) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tankibanki Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 But the ramp feature is exactly what I was looking for, it's perfect! One more thing though. Is there a way to select ramp mode as default mode. This way I wouldn't have to change every waypoint individually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_au Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 I suppose I ought to write a few instructions really. I hate writing them so it will be short and then I'll just answer questions. The changes. Main Page:- Height is input using the same system as Dropteam Scenarios (% of 65535). there are 4 options for what a click on the heightmap image will do. 1. Zoom ( a fractal zoom in on the area. you can only zoom in and after 2 or 3 zooms the data will be too smooth) 2. Edit Basic drawing tools for the Heightmap 3. Vector Objects ( roads and areas) 4. Scenario Objects Vector Objects Logic types:- "equals" on roads that will make the second point the same height as the first. In areas it will set the height to the height of the center point. "Forawrd slash" (roads only) will form a ramp "Less than" (areas only) will set all heights to lowest point in area "Greater than" (areas only) will set all heights to Highest point in area" "Less than greater than" (areas only) Will set all points to the statistical average height. " "1" (rect only) will use the height of point 1 (x1,y1) "2" (rect only) will use the height of point 2 (x2,y2) Scenario Objects:- Left click sets current x,y,z into the Proceedural objects box and x,y into the objects box. Click on an item in the objects list to make that the current object. Clicking add will then add an object of this type at last clicked location. Same with the Procedural objects. To add to the tree list from the object list use the +/= key to remove an item from a list use the backspace key. Use a right click on the heightmap image to put a grove location. OH and I nearly forgot. You will need to make a file in the same folder as quickfrac.exe. Make a file called qf.dat and using a text editor make its one and only line a path to your dropteam/data folder with a carriage return on the end Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaytoniousRex Posted July 19, 2006 Author Share Posted July 19, 2006 You should be careful that you don't accidentally end up with a first class, commercial-grade height editor that you could eventually sell for profit, Dark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_au Posted July 19, 2006 Share Posted July 19, 2006 Money is not the root of my evil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hub Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 Money or not, great job - mapmaking just got a heck of a lot easier. Is there a way to rotate the .raw file so that it will match up with the shadow, texture, and mask (these I can do) so that all the shadows show the same exposure as the vehicles (lit from the north aspect)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_au Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 no but i can probably do something Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hub Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 That would be super if you could, Dark_au, then for me at least, QF would be the one-stop solution for map and scenario creation. My last question (I promise)- you don't seem to have any problems with the way the shadows come out after you resize the files to 2048 x 2048 from 512 x 512. Mine don't always seem to look quite right - too blocky or something, hard to explain. What settings do you use? I noticed on opening a couple of your files that the DPI displayed as 200, not 72, as most seem to. Does that make a difference? I had been saving mine as jpegs with the highest quality settings with the best filtering...thanks for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_au Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 Hub, I use Paint shop pro to resize and I use some of its filters to improve the images. Shadows - Gaussian Blur level 2.0 Shade:- Add noise (20% gaussian, Monochrome) then a Gaussian blur level 2.0 I also use another little program I wrote called Tiler. This makes fractal tiles based on RGB ranges and clipping. I usually use one of these for the ground image and I do the same filters as for the shade layer. The shade layer is then introduced onto this colour tile as a 60% transparent overlay layer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hub Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 Thanks for the info Dark - I'll give it a try... Cheers, Hub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_au Posted July 22, 2006 Share Posted July 22, 2006 OK I've updated Quickfrac and emailed it to Clay for upload. Added:- menu items to the main page for rotating the height field left or right. Added invetory creator in the scenario object page. This is based on the format of the archapelego scenario. The left hand list is the names of items listed in the default inventory.xml. The right hand list is what will be written to the inventory txt file. It is populated at start by the numbers in the default setup. You can remove items from this list using backspace. Add items to the list by enterng values for team one and team 2 and clicking add. This will add the selected item from the left list to the right list with the values. Alternatively you can select an item from the right list. edit its values and click update. This will remove the item. reset its values and re-add it to the list ( at the bottom) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_au Posted July 22, 2006 Share Posted July 22, 2006 Sorry meant to add a question too. Clay if you use an inventory list in a mission does it mean that any items not listed are not available to either side or that they are available in default amounts?. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hub Posted July 22, 2006 Share Posted July 22, 2006 Thanks, Dark. Gets better all the time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_au Posted July 22, 2006 Share Posted July 22, 2006 OK the latest version is uploaded... Thanks Clay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_au Posted July 23, 2006 Share Posted July 23, 2006 Another Version uploaded today. (same link) This corrects an error in the Inventory system. Also uploaded a copy of the fractal tile generator I wrote for myself. Tile Generator. The 3 top entry boxes are for the min and max range for RGB. The copy R>G etc copy the bitplanes from one layer to another. the clip entry allows you to limit the ranges ( and produce holes / plateaus in the bitplanes) the get colours button allows you to select an image to get the colour ranges from ( say to want to make the colours sympathetic to one of the hi-res textures). The redraw button will redraw ( and save ) the image with any changes you've made. Images are generated as img{number}.bmp and start numbering at 0 every time the program starts. It saves them to whichever folder the exe is in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_au Posted July 23, 2006 Share Posted July 23, 2006 Yet another Version uploaded. Thanks Clay. This one solves a few problems I found while making my latest scenario. Also added a height clip mask (the < and > buttons on the main page. This is for finding where water will lie etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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