[Alpha 21 Dev Diary]

16 hours ago, crazywildfire said:

 

Empty jars will no longer be in game. You can drink from water sources pushing E to drink with a chance of getting sick. You can find glass water jars in loot and trader. But once you drink it the jar vanishes and no longer puts empty jar in inventory. At some point you can learn to make a dew collector that will give you X amount of glass water jars every X amount of time. Again once you drink it the jar vanishes.  I believe that is all we know so far. I might be missing something but that pretty much it I think. 

 

Thanks mate, that's what I thought. Seems that early game is going to be very difficult for base builder types unless the due collector is available very early.

[Alpha 21 Dev Diary]

Hey all, could someone point me to how this new "No Glass Jar" thing is going to work? 

 

I'm sure it's listed in here somewhere, but I'm just being lazy. 

[A19e Nitrogen - UNSTABLE]

Hey mate,

 

Trying to get Nitrogen to work on a Server Core VM, with only the dedicated server installed. Managed to get Java installed, had to change your batch files to point directly to java.exe. App runs, can't edit the output folder and clicking the open button throws and exception (no explorer.exe installed on Server Core). When I try and generate, it complains that it can't load resources and says the working directory looks wrong.

 

Can you please point me in the right direction. Also, would be good if the output folder text box wasn't locked so I could edit it.

 

Cheers.

[A19e Nitrogen - UNSTABLE]

Not used here, but a very interesting demonstration of using erosion on a Unity terrain ... if you want to try out dynamic erosion.

 

and the github source:

https://github.com/SebLague/Hydraulic-Erosion

 

 

Yeah, I found that repo too, downloaded the source (it's mostly the Erosion.cs) and then tried to apply it to my bitmap code, but it took some tweaking to get it to compile, and then doesn't seem to work. Like, it doesn't seems to erode properly, so I'm not sure. I might have to write it from scratch, which wouldn't be a bad thing I guess as I'd fully understand what's going on.

 

For A* there are lots of tutorials. Its quite straight forward here:

-have a hightmap representation in memory

-scale it down to a usabe size (I have used a quarter of the hightmaps resolution)

-mark the position of POIs and other areas that should be avoided (by increasing the hightvalue on those areas)

-make a path between POIs (between towns), the heuristic used here are distance and elevation change.

-follow the path, and smooth the terrain along the way on the original hightmap

-in parallel draw the road splatmap pixels (there are only 2 road texture types I know of, so 2 pixel colors for the splatmap). There are some random pixels left out to make it a bit more jagged and looking overgrown.

 

Yeah, since posting I did some reading on it. And I can see why it would be slow. Even still I'm going to give it a shot.

[A19e Nitrogen - UNSTABLE]

Hey mate,

 

Looks really awesome, I'm definitely going to download and try.

 

Hey, I'm up to doing the road generation in my program, could you share any insights as to what to research for the path finding? Like is the algorithm called something specific? Also, it looks like you're using some kind of erosion algorithm? something I've also struggled to find a decent example of.

 

Cheers mate.

 

[Edit] Yeah, nevermind on the path finding, what kind of name is A*!!

[A19e Nitrogen - UNSTABLE]

Awesome!

 

Would love to chat with you regarding your generation approach. I'm still actively working on my generator too, I've gone down a detour a bit because I thought it would be interesting to generate a map with a maze in it, but I'm pretty much up to generating roads and towns, would love to hear your thoughts.

[Editing Height Maps]

thank you for the offer. I think i need he practice as I want to eventually develop video games.

 

Well if that is the case, and you know C#, the code for my app is on GitHub. You can grab it and generate stuff yourself. It's a bit messy atm, but all the pieces are there to hack what you want.

 

PM me and I'll send you a link.

[Editing Height Maps]

i really just want to make the entire game flat except a bounding box of steep mountains that keep the player from getting into the rad zone. so that the tops of these mountains are the snow biome, the outside is wasteland and the inside is forest and the forest extends into a mottled plains and the plains into desert, and then there is this oasis of meadows around a giant lake in the center with a smattering of birch and maple trees.

 

Hey SlicksGirl, I can make this for you pretty easily with my generator app. If you give me the world files you want to use, well actually, just give me the size and the prefabs.xml, and I'll generate you a flat map with cliffs and also adjust the prefabs to the correct height.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Hey Gummycur,

 

Yeah, so after my refactor to 16bit grey scale, it still didn't work. I still have stepping. So as you say I might need to work out how to write the raw files. Any clues?

 

Also, does PSP load and save the raw files ok? Because if so I might shell out for a copy.

 

Cheers,

 

Squishy.

[Editing Height Maps]

I can't speak for png, those are compressed, but for .raw files, yes. I think it's the compression that kills it, either going from 16 to 8 bit, or straight up using a compressed file like a .png.

 

The game supports/supported .tga's, which had an option to NOT be compressed, but I don't know crap about file formats but I don't think .png is lossless.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Looking at your pics, you're doing biomes, which CAN be compressed, so the "steps" should have nothing to do with that. Only the dtm.raw (the actual height map) would cause that as far as I know.

 

 

Ok, so I've found out the PNG isn't lossy. I've also found out the that my app was generating 8bit colored PNGs for the dta.png. 8bit is fine for the Biome.png as you say. I found this out by opening in Krita. I ended up having to throw out the code I was using to write the png file, and find a better way (not so easy), but I think I've done it. Krita is now detecting the dta.png as a greyscale 16bit PNG. Hopefully I'll get a chance to test it out tonight in game. Fingers crossed it works.

 

If this does work I wouldn't be surprised if TFP aren't using the dta.tga anymore, it's not exported anymore and it's a difficult format to write to (little support).

 

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

You're in uncharted territory, my friend; I think you're on your own. =)

 

Awesome! That didn't take long . With my generator, I'm aiming to create some truely interesting "biomes". And I mean that in a sense that is seperate to TFP "Biomes". The first one is the DesertCanyon one that I posted a pic of, then a more flat desert one. Each of my "Biomes" will have it's own Biome.png that can contain multiple TFP biomes, in the case of the Desert ones, I intend on adding some green oasis. Each of my biomes will have it's own dta.png, splat and prefab.xml.

 

Right at the end of the generation process, all the biomes will be mixed and blended together. (That is going to be tricky).

 

I figure this process will take ages to generate, but if your a dedicated server hoster, or someone that just likes a good seed, then you wouldn't mind generating overnight.

[Editing Height Maps]

That, I wouldn't know.

 

Ok, so I've gone with the PNG format and it's been working well. Now the only issue I have is that even though I'm writing 16bit png files, it's still stepped. Guppycur, are you saying that when you do a hand drawn PNG, with enough blur, it doesn't generate a stepped map? If that is the case it would indicate that I'm some how outputing the wrong kind of PNG file.

 

FYI : Created a thread for my progress in Tools : https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?112889-Squishy-s-Random-Gen-App

[Editing Height Maps]

Hey GuppyCur,

 

So I've got to the point now with my app I'm writing that it will reconfigure the prefabs to the correct height (haven't tested it yet) and there is still more to do as I'd need to smooth the terrain for the prefab to sit on etc, etc. But for now I'm leaving that and moving on.

 

So my next proof of concept is to generate my own noise, instead of relying on 3rd party tools (I'll be relying on 3rd party libraries instead ). But the issue is I'm struggling to work with tga format in code, it seems to be a very old format and not a lot of documentation out there. Do you think it would be safe enough just to output PNG? The only thing I'm concerned about is that isn't the PNG upside-down whereas the tga isn't?

[Editing Height Maps]

I'm having that issue currently. Care to explain how you worked it out?

 

Mate, I was loading the map through New Game or Continue Game. Instead of through Editing Tools -> World Editor. You basically have to copy the generated map from the %appdata% path to the "...\steam\steamApps\common\7 Days To Die\Data\Worlds" path under a subfolder named for your world.

Then you can do smoothworldall from inside the world editor (using the console).

 

Having said all that, I did find that it didn't work on one of the heightmaps I was using, but I'm not sure if that was because the heightmap itself was jagged. I'll need to do more testing.

[Editing Height Maps]

Never mind, I think I worked it out

[Editing Height Maps]

Also, when I load the map and run smoothworldall I get an error "Could not find part of path "<snip>\steam\steamApps\common\7 Days To Die\Data\Worlds\<world name>\heightinfo.dtm

[Editing Height Maps]

I own 99% of what I use, but I can't abide by adobe's intrusiveness and current pricing scheme.

 

Amen to that.

 

Hey mate, I need some help on the smoothworldall front. I used the height maps I generated with L3DT tonight, and they're all Alpha2\minecrafty, Is that because they're 16bit? or do I need to use smoothworldall? And if so, how exactly do you use it? Do you load up the game map first? But then delete the region files?

 

Cheers.

[Editing Height Maps]

I picked Gaia up for like 5 bucks on a humble bundle deal once; suits my needs and I'm not great with change.

 

But I find it only good for the initial random generation of terrain plus the stamps, after that I'm using straight unity to flatten, raise and lower terrain.

 

The workflow from start to finish is intense, and is a driving force behind me waiting til gold to do another tut.

 

I got tired of free apps for photos so uh, acquired Photoshop just for this purpose... It's just easier.

 

Yeah fair enough, I'll have to keep an eye out to see if it goes on special at all.

 

I bet, which is why I'm going to try writing a program to (at the very least) do the heavy lifting. I mean at the end of the day I wanna play too.

 

Each their own, being a Dev I eventually steered away from that practice especially when (up until now maybe) Gimp, Blender etc do everything I needed.

[Editing Height Maps]

I think the raw files are 16bit; I got Minecraft blocks when doing 8bit.

 

Great, thanks mate, I'll try with the files straight out of L3DT then and see how I go.

Incidentally, I've put the heightmaps on my google drive : here

 

I use http://terrain.party to grab a file, and edit THAT file, doing a save-as in Photoshop... Always editing the open file, never the saved file... Delete .rg files, test, repeat.

 

Ok, I don't have Photoshop. I'll try with Krita instead, but given I don't need to convert to 8bit I won't need to edit initially.

 

Also, Gaia (a unity app) also exports height maps, and it's kind of nice for terrain terraforming, AND it's close if not the same to what madmole says they're going to use.

 

Looked up Gaia, looks like it's a paid app yeah? L3DT Pro is essentially free (perpetual 72 day trial), have you tried it? I'm just getting started with it, but it does have 3d editing capability.

[Editing Height Maps]

Yeah fair enough Guppycur. I've moved away from wanting to edit the generated heightmap now. I'm now using L3DT Pro for creating the heightmaps. It exports in 16bit png's though.

 

I haven't as yet got a chance to do it, but thinking to follow these steps?

- Generate a world of the right size (8192 in this case).

- Delete the raw file.

- Plug in a dtm.png file (which must be an 8bit PNG greyscale image)

- Remove any region files (if they exist)

- Load up the game and launch the map

 

Sound about right?

 

After I get this working I'm going to see if I can write an application that will (using the png heightmap) go through all the POIs and elevate them to the correct height.

[Editing Height Maps]

Hey, I don't seem to have a dtm.tga file in any of my generated worlds? Just the raw file.

[Editing Height Maps]

1024 is 1k, so...

 

Thanks Guppycur

[Editing Height Maps]

Does anyone have any idea the rough in game dimensions of 1 pixel, e.g. 1 pixel = 10m2?