Ryandor.com

True-color SMC - It's a simple map convertor that converts two RAW images into a map0.mul. Different than dragon in that it supports true-color images, and thus you can litterally "paint" any tile in UO directly from your favorite paint program.

You can download it source and all at http://www.sydius.com/downloads.shtml

I think it'd be interesting if someone put that code to use in a more user-friendly program. If I got enough support, and no one else wanted to, I'd even be willing to do so. But I'd like to see some opinions about it, either way.

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

I downloaded it the other night, and honestly, I must be dense, because i had a hard time getting it loaded with correct paths to the files it needed. I hate admiting somthing like that, But i was excited to see what its like. If i had some help, I would definetly put it to the test

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Forget what you know, know what you forget.

erm it would probably be a good idea if you used a full path and had no spaces (spaces screw it up).

Like I said, very un-user-friendly, heh. No error-checking what-so-ever.

Anyway, my reccomendation is to put all the image files into a folder on your C drive like: "C:\maps\" then in the program, enter the full path. At least if you're in XP...

The tiles file (I usually use tiles.raw) should be 6122*4096*3 bytes, and the altitude file (alt.raw) should be 6144*4096 bytes. Make sure they are both the right sizes.

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

I made a slight update to TSMC today that should make life slightly easier on the user.

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

Just a quick note that someone may find interesting: tsmc compiles and runs cleanly on Linux

I figured it would. Nothing too API-specific there. Why don't you upload the Linux binary?

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

Im not sure what this program does like ermm can you explain it a bit more indepth?

please thanks

Azure

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*Yes. I Am Back*

I didn't upload mostly because I can't do it automatically by myself and I'm too lazy to open a mail client, dig up addresses and everything associated with submitting binary packages, code contributions, etc. However since someone somewhere might benefit I did upload it to a webserver just in case

http://beniam.virtualave.net/files/tsmc.gz

Linux users, enjoy.

I had a quick look at it and here I shall supply my comments!

And hopefully this will help explain (if you can understand what I am saying) what the program is about and what it does to those who are asking, although some things I may have missed. My glance was very short.

- - -

It's interesting and overall from what I can see it's a very simple program, and even if it supports true color image files i doubt i personally would use it at such a stage.

- The program only supports map0.mul editing, which rules out static work. Of course, someone could easily just edit the source to support static editing! even so...

- There are no automatic map transition support (ie: grass2forest that connects them smoothly) alike Dragon. You simply use colors that symbolize tiles which need to be defined in the colors.cfg and they are directly written to the map0.mul (along with the specified altitude which are specified in another image file).

So if you are using this program soley, to make a map, you will need to define each and every tile used in such transitions as grass2forest to a individual color in color.cfgs and draw each color representing each map tile on the image file seperately and then set their z on the seperate file. Basically, it is just like editing in Worldforge, yet with colors for each tile instead the tiles themselves as displayed in the Worldforge map edit display. However Worldforge does limit the work area greatly (which is bad) and there are no such things as the tools you can get in graphics packages which will make, making hills and large expanses of land easier at least.

I guess you could use this program to map out a basic map without any transitions and then use a transition program to join all the different tiles together for you or then use worldforge.

- - -

The thing I like about Dragon is that it's simple and most of the heavy work is done for you, you just have to put colors down and be sure you're putting the right colors down. Even through its limits you can get very good results out of it if you edit and clean up the scripts to your own specifications.

I also think the whole point in image to map conversion programs is this simplicity, of which I don't think TSMC has at this early stage.

The good thing is, TSMC is open source, which is always good. And it's new so I suspect there are many things to come of it as to improve it.

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- Thaal

Okay, sorry about the long reply but I have so many things going on at once...
Do i need to create an initial Tile and Alt.raw files? or is there one somewhere.
If i need to create them, what do i need to put in them to just get a start, and how do i do this.
I will play around a bit more as well..
Also, i am stuck with PSP atm, will have PhotoShop soon, but untill i do get it, its PSP for me.

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Forget what you know, know what you forget.

Well, it really is about as simple as it could be, but I guess that's why it's so confusing, heh.

You need tiles.raw and alt.raw (or alternitively named files).

tiles.raw is a true-color image (24-bit RRGGBB format) that represents every tile in the map. Look in colors.cfg to see what colors equate to in tiles (the readme has more info on the format). So, for example, 0 255 0 might be grass (that's pure green).

alt.raw is a 256-color grayscale image that represents the altitude at each given tile, 127 being 0 in game.

Anyway, no, it doesn't do anything about transitions or statics (and editing the path to statics will just cause problems), but it was never designed to be a full-featured program like Dragon, for a very important reason: With TSMC it is fully possible to take an existing map0.mul, convert it to an image, edit it, then convert it back without any loss of detail from the original (hint: look for a "15MB Download" that Ry was talking about in one of the messages on this board, heh).

There are DOZENS of tools out there that will generate transitions, shores, and statics for you, that work just spiffy with TSMC.

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

heh Nice Sig Sydius

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*Yes. I Am Back*

If it would work both ways, I'd use it for altitude and tile touchup, as I find the altitude control in Dragon bulky.

Just would like to say nice work I am learning c# now,and barely at reading binary,and once I learn it I think I can help ya with some stuff.
I know quite a bit of vb but I tried to make a map creator thro it and I got to say slow as hell. So im gonna try c# anyway cya and keep up the good work.

All I want for TSMC is to convert map0 to raw, map0 to raw.. Ohhh.. All I want for T S M C is to convert map0 to raw.. map 0 to raw.. *Sings*

Um heres a stupid question is raw format like bitmap or what cuz i didnt understand.Same for the altitude.

RAW files are a "generic" file that are not really a format. It's just the "raw" information (in this case) of the rgb values of each pixel (map.raw) or the grayscale value of each pixel (alt.raw). You could say it's a bmp with all the extra info stripped out of it (like a header that says it's even anything)

You'll need Photoshop to view this file (not sure if Paintshop Pro can too) and you'll need to tell Photoshop what kind of file it it.

That's about the best description I can come up with. If anyone else can expalin it better, please do.


-Ryandor

Oh hehe, I guess I should have read this thread sooner. I have had a program that converts the reverse way, so I guess I'll release it, ermkay?

Look for it on my site in a while.

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