Ryandor.com

Everything you said sounds good, Dragonfire, and as for #1 I say edge the swamp like water.

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The fastest way to a woman's heart is through her ribcage.

Have you consider that, with the palet limitations, that instead of having a z index for each layer, having scripts that transition heights up through combo layering of 2 colors? IE, your base of your hill is a dark 1 pixel border, and the next layer is a light color 1 pixel, then the next layer is the base again, and so on up to how many layers you want. Each layer would render in a 1 up, 2 up, or 3 up pixel size, depending on the adjacent color. So instead of having 15 colors for z index 0 through 90, you could have a color for 0, a color for 5, and a color for 10, colors 0 and 5 next to each other could translate into up by 3, and so if you used that in multiple layers each new layer would go up by 3. Just a thought... *smile* Oh and I'm new, so feel free to tell me how this wont work..

Sounds good in thoery, but I see two problems.
First, as I mentioned, I can't program, and this would have to be programmed into the program. At least I would think it would be. I can't see how this could be scripted.

Second, it could be a problem when you specifically need to have a certain z value for any given location. For example, there's times I use hills in towns, and having it "average" out the z would be bad. Granted, if it was possible to do it, I'm sure there would be an "override" of sorts for that type of situation.

I don't discount the idea, but I think it's well beyond the capabilities of Dragon.

Keep up with the new ideas though, as this just gave me a thought on SMC. Because of the way the z is "drawn" in greyscale, using the paintbrush allows this type of z being drawn. Since the edges of the brush are anti-aliased, it's semi-automatic to do something like this. I will include this in the tutorial for it.

-Ryandor

Well, simple question, since I can't really script in this yet, how do you set the z index on the color, is it simply with the script? And how does it use the edging with the z index properly?

*scratches chin* there is always a way.. But you could be right on that programing thing

-Larvantholos

Setting the Z value for any color is in the maptrans.txt:

It's the second number. As you can see in this example, 000, 002, 005, etc is the z value.

Just remember that the colortable.bmp will not show your change unless you edit that too.

Most of the scripts are commented so you know what to change. Play around with them as you see fit, just make a backup copy in case you mess something up and Dragon complains.

-Ryandor

Hey Ryandor, is there an estimated time before this new colortable is released? I don't mean to rush. I'm just working on a map that could really use some of this new terrain and I'd like some idea of when I can use it.
Thanks a lot,

Well, by popular request I was asked to focus on some of the more advanced features first, so a new mod with a new colortable is going to be a while.
What was it in particular that you were looking for? I could make some plug-in stuff sooner that could go with the existing colortable.

-Ryandor

The one feature that interests me is being able to add cliffs/ridges to my world. It's a really important feature to my map. I tried using the grassbumps but it can't work properly.

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Radroot

I'll see what other type of cliffs I can add.

As for the grassbump, please read this:
http://www.ryandor.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=752

-Ryandor

Ryandor, can I have more information about TBC/SMC?
What is, and where can I found ?

Thanks in advance.

Patience.
I'm still putting the package together with at least a readme to get started for it. The tutorial should follow closely behind it.

I guess I've kinda gotten people a little worked up over it, sorry about that. A few days yet.

-Ryandor

Oh and Ryandor, I have a suggestion for another terrain. How about a "prairie" that could be normal grass but with lots of different grasses (the static ones) placed all over it? And a "plains" in the same way except the base tile would be desert.

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The fastest way to a woman's heart is through her ribcage.

Both of those are good suggestions, and they technically don't need another color. They can use the existing colors and just defining the area in the items.txt.

Could you provide a list of vegetation to be used for each of them? I can then make an item script so they can be used.

-Ryandor

0cb0
0cb5
0cb6
0cc5
0cc6
0cb9
0cba
0d32
0d33

0cc6, 0d32, and 0d33 should be used the most, because they are the most common types of grass. For plains you might also want to use:

0c55
0c56
0c57

I appreciate it.

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The fastest way to a woman's heart is through her ribcage.

That won't work though because of the way items are placed. I tryed creating a second desert to be used as beach but I couldn't get the item placement right. You could define a different script to be used in different X,Y coordinates. Not to mention it would be a waste to define another row of colors for the same basic terrain type, just with different statics. Would be better to have more altitude variations on existing groups, entirely new groups(like wood floors), or more transitional types(ridges, etc).

I have no intention of adding more colors for this, but instead an optional item script that people can use. Kind of like the graveyard script is now. It's not actually used unless someone puts it in.

Speaking of colors, I am seriously thinking of dropping the "rock in grass/snow/sand" colors on the bottom row. Any objections? ... Didn't think so
Those will become (most likely) wood floorboards.

-Ryandor

Ive never used the rock in snow/grass/sand colors.
Ive tested them lots. They just look like crap and I cant see where you would want or need to use them. No offence to anyone who made them!

So for my vote Ryandor.. feel free to drop them

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Dragonfire
http://www.tragena.net
New screen shots added!

Yeah the rocks suck. Darus put them in, probably because you do see them strewn about the OSI map. I've never cared for them myself.

Hehe the graveyard script. I don't use it either. I did it on request from someone over at UOCM. I've actually played with using different scripts for different areas of the map. Maybe a tut on using items.txt to advantage is in order. I might do some more custom scripts. Anyone got any requests?

Why no 0z water? I was thinking some of my coastline would come right up to the water instead of the small cliff look everywhere. This would be useful also for shard that would use my map that would also use "swimming" scripts. (yah theres ways to do it)

Also concerning rough grass. I'm not actually picturing rough grass at the moment(could someone please post a pic of rough grass?)

But perhaps one could use it everywhere and not the regular "mowed grass"(that would be for around cities mostly) Which would mean switching rough and mowed grass and perhaps a -2 and +2 swamp to create sloping swamp land as it pours into rivers lakes and oceans(or even perhaps out of).

Eh, just throwing stuff out. I'll probably want to be using the new program thats going to be coming out(whenever that might be)

Water 0 is something I was thinking about actually, but since the normal water doesn't allow you to walk on it, it would not be useful for swimming. There is water tiles that you can walk on, however, being that 95% of water needs to be at -5 it would be more useful for the walkable water to be at -5 as well. As an example, there is a river in the Ish map that has a ford that you can cross. I was thinking of putting in a single color (or changing one of the existing waters) so that it could be used. Additionally, you could easily change one of the existing waters and change it to 0.

The problem with swamp tiles is they do not stretch like most of the other tiles, which prevents the effect you are looking for (at least last time I checked, which was some time ago).

As far as the roughgrass, take a look at the Brit map around the big swamp east of Brit. It uses the rough grass quite well. Or you could wait till Monday afternoon (Tuesday at the latest) for me to post the new Mod 9 Plus, which will have it.

-Ryandor

The water tile you say can be walked on. Can that be fished from as well? That could be a transition tile for coasts.

Whats the reason you would want most water at z-5? What would happen if the default water was at 0 or -2?

The boats would be screwed up (atleast in UOX) and it will be at the exact hight of the rest of the land (unrealistic).

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The fastest way to a woman's heart is through her ribcage.

Water at -5 is basically the "standard" across everything. OSI shards have it at that level and it's what people are used to. Putting the coastline at 0 doesn't look even remotely correct, at least to me. One alternative is if you want the water to be closer to the land, is to bring the land down to the water. Using -2 grass or similiar would get you the same results. Of course you'd have to tweak the scripts a little for that.

As far as fishing, I have no idea, but I would think that you could fish from it. (But then I never fished even when I played on OSI)

-Ryandor

You can pretty much fish from any water. Hehe there used to be a bug where you could fish from a barrel!

Actually a walkable water tile at 0z would be really handy. Beats laying them by hand!

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Dragonfire
http://www.tragena.net
New screen shots added!

Well, I thought it was a landscape tile, but it's not. The walkable water tile is a static tile. Therefore I'm not going to add this. It can be added ingame just as easy.

-Ryandor