Ryandor.com

Alrighty let's see here:

1) Static Files. What a pain. I have heard of ways to make my map easier to look at and test by removing the statics by;

a- Using new, blank Static Files
b- Using a Program to wipe Statics from my current ones

Now my question is, how do I do this? I need it written in idiot form, because I don't really know too many terms here. I'm new at this .

And how do I go about making my own Static Files? Once again, step by step if it's possible.


2) Using the Dragon Mod 9+, The color for Forest0, after Dragon-ifying the .BMP file, comes out al level 2 or 5 or something. Point is, it's not 0. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?


3) Is there any way to make Northern, Northwestern, and Western sides of Mountain Rocks look normal instead of jagged and unnatural?


Thanks for anyone who takes the time to help me out with anything at all. Sorry for my foolishness.

Also, how do I remove all these freaking NPC's all marching around asking me what I need? And the messages about being under a Town's Guard are a bit bothersome...

In the Color Table in the Modified Dragon, A lot of the tiles turn out to be the same color after level 35... What the heck?!

First off, for whatever reason you would want to look at your map with no statics, just run DragonSP, dont choose any static options, and click yes to clear statics. ( btw, Dragon will generate new statics0 / staidx0 files if you dont have them, just put the dir in without the statics file listed for it to read from )

making mountains more natural.. sure, takes practice.. thats about all i can say.. other than dont use that spray can so close to the edge.. and really, no poit in useig it at all in most cases.. just be more detailed to the elevation changes.

Removing npc's.. depends on the emu you are useing, last i checked, this was a map making forum not an emu suport board.



huh?

_________________
Forget what you know, know what you forget.

Well why would I want to be looking at OSI statics in a map that i created. Everything is all over the place. About the mountains, I just need to know how to make the sides that you can't go near not jagged. It's the same issue as the shores having all the pointy brown stuff around em (which by the way, I could also use some help with). I added in the question about the NPCs because they are on the map, so I figured someone would know what file to delete. The colortable problem I just have poor eyesight, don't mind me.

In the tutorial there's a step by step for drawing the mountians that works rather well, as long as you follow it precisely. Using the contract tool and "stepping" the color will prevent the jaggedness in most cases. Final tuning gets rid of the remaining 5% or so.

When running DragonSP, you'll have the best results if you select water2x and x2water only, and yes for clear statics. This will clear everything plus put in a coastline to cover those brown tiles.

The NPCs are from your server. It's not related to your map at all. The server worldfile needs to be cleared.

-Ryandor

Thanks a lot Ryandor! What is the worldfile though? Also, I use MS paint, not Photoshop

The world file to the UO EMU you are using.. like, UOX.. Sphere, etc..
whatever one you have, is probly all set up for the osi map, deco and vendors, etc.
You need to remove the items, and mobiles files so you can create your own when you are done with your map.
Could help you more if you mentioned what one you are using.

And as i said, your jagged mountains are happening from making to great of an altitude change.. Probly with some type of splatter efect, spray can, or whatever. Try to limit those to a 5-10 altitude min change.

_________________
Forget what you know, know what you forget.

I would highly recomend getting even a trial copy of Photoshop. MSPaint is really limited and doesn't have the editing possiblilties as Photoshop. You can also use I.Mage (in my downloads). That's even better than Paint.

-Ryandor

I am using Sphere. I don't use the spraypaint feature to make mountains though, I kind of just layer them... Let me see how to insert a picture here... damn well I don't have a website, so I hope this is a good enough description:

First I make say a 500 pixel radius circle with Rock20, then a 450 pixel radius circle with Rock 25 goes inside that, then a 400 pixel radius circle with Rock 30 inside that.

That's how I make my mountains. Is that the wrong way?

You've got the right idea, but those 50 pixel incraments are a bit much. You need to go in like 1 to 5 pixel increments. Once you get to a z of 60, that's where the spray painting can come in. Or you can use the unevenly.txt file to do it for you.
This would be a good like for it:

06 0100 0000 0000 6143 4095 002


-Ryandor

Dang, I wish I could explain the situation better. There is no way to post an image from my computer is there? It has to be an image that is on a web page?

There are several imaegs in the pdf version of the tutorial. Maybe one of those? Or make a quick yahoo page?

-Ryandor

Here is how it looks in the BMP file (The bottom left is the mountain I show in the next pic)





Here is how it looks in game.
Tell me anything you can about the
poor skill of my mountain construction.
They aren't coming out right.
Thanks a bundle for the help guys.

could be a few things

-you're mountain drawing technique may need improving to make better mountains. There should be a tutorial around somewhere, that shows you how to make semi realistic mountains. check one of the other boards for that

- it could be the actual mountain scripts used to make the translations between snow and mountain. I know that you may not be able to get rid of those square edges to a degree where they are not noticable. I do however have some scripts that make semi-perfect osi-like mountains. I'll try and get it out but sadly it needs a a bit of changing and moving around bits of dragon.

but first, look for that tutorial on mountains.

_________________
- Thaal

Quick and dirty:

draw your mountain shape with Rock 10
then select the area and contract by 2 pixels.
Then fill that with Rock 20
select that and contract by 2
then fill with 30.. contract, fill with 50, contract, fill with 60
Then selct this final area and spray with 65.

That, in a nutshell is the tutorial. That's what you need to do. Basically you're starting out too high.

-Ryandor

Sorry to be such a pain in the ass, but what about these questions?

Also, where can i get a free copy of a trial versionor something of Photoshop?

Trial versions of anything suck, and downloading commercial software for free is a Bad Thing(tm). I suggest http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/. It may not be photoshop, but there is a mod9 palette for it, it works on Windows and best of all it's completely and totally free.