Ryandor.com

I need a hand with coasts and water tile types. I'm running mod11. My understanding is that you "should" have oceans at a z of -5, and shallower water near the coasts at a z of 0. My problem is that dragon doesn't seem to transition between these, as shown in the image below. I know there are two types of water tiles, deep and shallow, but the particular color map (maptrans.txt) only has one water group, ranging from -5 to 40... Any ideas? I'd really like to avoid going to WF or bringing in another program if I can help it... This is the last hurdle between me and a "perfect" nature map.

There is no transition between water at different Z levels, so all water in a specific area must have the same Z level. Default Britannia uses -5 for it's oceans (both along the coasts and further out).

_________________
-= Ho Eyo He Hum =-

Well Xuri, I read your post, and swore blind you were wrong. See, I've been dabbling in UOL as well lately, and there, you're supposed to draw shallow water around the land... Apparently I'm just confused (the normal state of things when I'm trying 17 billion programs to do the one thing)...

Let me see if I've got this straight then... I have two options. First, I can make it easy and run deep water tiles straight up to the coast have no shallow water at all. Or second, I can lay out shallow water tiles a few deep around the coasts and maybe fill in lakes and such... But either way, I need to keep a constant z of -5 for anything contiguous with the ocean (or patch by hand any differences)?

I hope that's right now...

I think perhaps it's the concepts of "shallow" and "deep" water which are confusing here. "Shallow water" probably means static water tiles (items!) with the brown coastline-tiles underneath - saved to statics0.mul and staidx0.mul (if it's the first map-set you're editing), while "deep water" means water added directly to map0.mul.

Both should still be at the same Z level though. Yes, you need to keep any water contiguous with the ocean at the same Z level as well.

_________________
-= Ho Eyo He Hum =-

I'm seeing what's going on now... I've been playing with the map through all this, and now I'm wondering if there's any advantage to using shallow water (statics) at all? Will this make a difference with boats? fishing? I'll probably check on that another time since it's getting late here...

You've been a great help, Xuri. Thank you.

The coastal water tiles are for the transition to land while the ocean tiles are for the open sea. This creates coast lines some what like those in UO but the shore lines will be a little different in appearance.

Stormcrow designed the various tiles for water like this to provide a little smoother shore line after compiling the maps and it does work much better. The only problem is that the shore must be the specified height to blend with the water.

Dev

_________________
"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

The shallow area is important on some servers, but does not matter on others. It depends on what you use. The usual difference is in how the fishing skill works.

_________________
Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

I think you've got yourself confused between programs.
For UOL yes, the water is already automaticly offset by -5 so that land 0 next to water 0 produces land at 0 and water at -5.

Dragon does not have the offsets. The water needs to be 5 lower than the land. The higher altitudes of water I included for lakes and such in the hills. I was in process of working on waterfall trans when I lost interest in the project. The ocean (or deep water) is fixed at -5 and is a different terrain group from water. It should only be next to water -5.

_________________
This space for rent.