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[Lord_Phoenix]

quote:Originally posted by Gaulgath:
<STRONG>Page up and Page Down to view different z-levels.</STRONG>

Yeah, I just saw that on the front page.  Should be added to the navigation instructions on the fortress view pages.

[Turgid Bolk]

Slick. I like how the layers go transparent the farther you get from them. One suggestion: is it possible to show which level you're viewing at the moment? I can't tell if I'm near the top or bottom layer.

[sinoth]

Awesome release!  The DFMA is an invaluable tool for the community.  My only gripe is that '<' and '>' aren't use for going up and down levels.  Is there a reason behind this?  Also, can't wait to violate your fdf-map files with my 3D viewer   :cool:

[Zemat]

I have a performance problem with the new viewer. On the first try the viewer completely froze my browser (Firefox) for 30 seconds for every action I made like moving on the same level, changing level, or zooming. Then after some minutes it began doing things faster but still it takes like 5 seconds or so to complete any action.

Any idea why this might be?

[Markavian]

Thanks for pointing out that oversight, I've added:

Change layer:

Page Up / Page Down

To the Map instructions box. I'm planning to add visible control interface in the top left or top right corner in the next version. This will allow you to view the number of layers and the actual layer depth (as reported by DF). I'll put zoom in, zoom out, move up layer, and move down layer buttons on there as well.

The Firefox and IE versions of Flash should work the same (they do for me!), sorry the keys weren't more obvious. I'll remember to mark <and> (and , and .) as valid keys in the next version, since thats what I use when playing DF. (Stairs up, stairs down...) ... are those the default? sinoth, the only reason <and> don't work at the moment is because I pencilled in the shortcuts months ago before DF even looked like it was going to be released, and have been used to using Page up / Page down ever since... it never crossed my mind to make the viewer more like DF   ::doh::

Fun fact: Shift+Arrow key moves faster around the map

Any other suggestions or preferences for keys shortcuts are welcome, there are plenty of keyboard combinations after all.

If you -are- using FireFox, and you click on the Add Point of Interest link, you will see a working Select menu that displays the current layer, and the number of layers. The javascript I've used for for Select menus doesn't work in IE though.

[Markavian]

quote:Originally posted by Zemat:
<STRONG>I have a performance problem with the new viewer. On the first try the viewer completely froze my browser (Firefox) for 30 seconds for every action I made like moving on the same level, changing level, or zooming. Then after some minutes it began doing things faster but still it takes like 5 seconds or so to complete any action.

Any idea why this might be?</STRONG>

Hey Zemat, which map were you viewing? Did you zoom all the way out?

The biggest challenge with the new viewer was trying to manage the memory usage of flash so that it wouldn't crash lower end computers, like mine. Each layer is a huge, fully decompressed image. It hurts, it really does, and I'm abusing your processor as much as possible to rerender blocks as quickly as possible, but there needs to be a trade off between performance and memory usage.

The memory manager runs every 4 seconds, looping through all blocks, in all layers, to see what it can clear out. It is possible to go over the maximum number of blocks limit by switching up and down through the maps quickly, rendering more tiles then your computer can handle and quicker then the memory manager can clean them out.

At the moment, the maximum number of blocks is 2 x map width * map height... so that at least two full layers can be held in memory. On big maps, this is double what the old viewer would handle, and this may cause significant pain. However, the viewer has also been improved to -only- render the blocks that are visible, so, as long as you don't move around too much (say, only viewing the Points of Interest) you should find it nippy. I may, if more problems are reported, reduce the maximum number of block to 1 layer's worth at the cost of more re-rendering of tiles.

There are plans for an even newer version of the viewer that supports zoom-level caching, which will be much more memory efficient, but I don't know when I'll have time to implement it.

For now, please test your forts, and get back to me or SL with any problems! I think SL has done a sterling job with his compressor, its even easier to use then ever, and he's integrated my viewer in so you can preview maps offline.

Regards,
- Markavian http://mkv25.net/dfma/

[Zemat]

It seems to be slower on multi-tiered maps like your first example, Axegear. The more levels, the more painfully slow it becomes. On single-level maps it flies just like the last version.

It also seems to go slower during the first minutes of watching a map regardless of not changing level at all or if I zoom or not. Then after some time it still goes slow but faster.

[ November 09, 2007: Message edited by: Zemat ]

[Shadowlord]

As a side note, I'm investigating the possibility of making the compressor able to notice if you're asking it to read rather large images, and to process parts of it at a time if that's the case.

Right now if you tried to feed the compressor an exported image or images from a max size fort (~450 MB here), it would very likely run out of RAM and virtual memory while attempting to read and process the image (even though it only keeps the data as long as necessary and then frees it, and only reads and processes one image at a time) - but not before Windows had forced everything else into virtual memory in an attempt to provide more memory. (Yes, I actually tried it to see what would happen. I only have 1 GB of RAM, however, so it MIGHT work if you had 2 GB or more.)

P.S. You don't have to worry about overloading the compressor by asking it to process 29 layers of images. If it can handle one image, it can handle just as well 29 images which each have the same filesize as the first image.

[Markavian]

SL, I'm tempted to do something similar with the Viewer for large maps. The artificial limit for the number of visible tiles is still causing problems for low end computers on some maps. I might limit the zoom level by a small amount and restrict the tiles in memory further.

(Its either that, or spend a lot of time rewriting the way the viewer handles zoom levels, which I don't have the time for right now.)

[Markavian]

Zemat, what processor were you running the viewer on? The lowest end machine I've tested it on is a 1.2GHz AMD. To cycle through all the tiles when doing memory checks may take up to 100ms, (which happen every 4 seconds); that might be causing a visual display lag (along with all the rendering of visible tiles). Switching up and down through layers too quick definitely causes problems.

(This was meant to be an edit of the above post).

[ November 09, 2007: Message edited by: Markavian ]

[Zemat]

It's a 2.20GHz AMD double core with 2GB of RAM.

To be honest, I run a lot of crap at the same time, all the time (Winamp, Bitorrent, Firefox, DF, Programming IDEs and research experiments), so maybe that's why the viewer is slow. But still it's only the viewer. Every other flash app I deal with runs just fine. Even the old viewer.

I will give it a try again. Maybe my machine is on a bad mood and needs a reboot (can't do that often because of the experiments).

[Markavian]

quote:Originally posted by Zemat:
<STRONG>To be honest, I run a lot of crap at the same time, all the time (Winamp, Bitorrent, Firefox, DF, Programming IDEs and research experiments)...</STRONG>

Heh, that's ok Zemat, if the old viewer didn't cause problems, theres no reason this new one should either. I'll see if I can make it move to an 'idle' state where its not trying to do any work if you've got it open in the background. At the moment, its set to check the memory usage every 4 secs, which is fine while using... but probably over the top for an idle state.

Updates!
2007-11-12

Added much needed support for comments to movie pages

You can now add and edit comments for movies like you can for maps

TODO: Modify browse comments page to display map and movie comments

2007-11-10

Plans in place for improved Map Viewer - a visual indicator for number of layers, and current depth required

Logical error identified: Point of Interest sharing has been implemented badly - PoIs shared across forts with a differnet number of layers won't work properly, updating will break current PoIs... (will probably perform a manual update)

New mod rewrite rules: Try dfma/moviegroup-wizards or dfma/movie-pump, the first searches by group, the second by name

Manually removed 31 cases of -region from the end several fortress names; I know, it auto-fills -region some times from maps, but please just submit the name of the fortress

No time for the map viewer this week, not if my conciense and work ethic for uni have anything to say. (appologies in advance).

I finally curbed into the pressure of not having a comments section on the movie player. Even I was finding it frustrating not being able to add my banter to the submissions. There's a load of new movies on there, I can barely keep up with watching them myself (but its always a pleasure to see something new!). There are some neat forts going up as well, check the Recent Maps page to see!

Also:

Recent Movies

- Markavian
http://mkv25.net/dfma/

[schm0]

Thanks for all the hard work on the viewer, as well as thanks to Shadowlord for his hard work on the compressor. Keep up the good work!

[Armok]

Suggestion:

I know this sound ambitious, but it might be easier (or harder) than it seems.
In addition to maps and movies, I think it may also be good whit an world/seed section at The Archive, depending on how thoroughly you implement it it will most likely be an copy-paste job, as this is actually technically very possible -and even done by uploading the world map as a fortress map and including the seed in the map description, however, as I have understood it based on mostly the names of data entry fields this is not proper use of the DFMA.
This could reduce forum clutter and make seeds easier to find by collecting them all in one place, replacing treads like "The perfect seed"(good place for initial content if you implement this)

This would as I said probably not need a new application, the old pre-Z map viewer would probably be the best choice considering the world maps 2D nature.
The seed archive should probably contain:
-    The seed (naturally)
-    The name of the world it generates
-    Any parameter exept the seed that may affect the outcome (theorized parameters in this category; custom name(y/n), OS, DF version)
-    General description of the world

Maybe a "starting sites" in addition/instead of "points of interest"?

I have a some more ideas on this if you are the slightest interested, just ask me in this very tread. (unless I forget them)

Also; on both this suggestion and the normal map archive; it would be nice if the poster could include an link to an eventual save on some [whatever it called, somewhere you upload, rapidshare is a bad but sufficing example], this would not be required by any means, but might be useful in case there is already an save file anyways, for example a succession game.
If my seed-archive suggestion comes true, this will also be of great help to people that have a different OS or for some other reason can't generate the world properly.

just my +copper coin[2]+.

Great job Markavian!  

[Markavian]

Update

Added movie comments page to display recent comments, and to search and filter through old ones

See: http://mkv25.net/dfma/browsemoviecomments.php

quote:Originally posted by Armok:
<STRONG>Suggestion:
-    The seed (naturally)
-    The name of the world it generates
-    Any parameter exept the seed that may affect the outcome (theorized parameters in this category; custom name(y/n), OS, DF version)
-    General description of the world

Maybe a "starting sites" in addition/instead of "points of interest"?

...

Also; on both this suggestion and the normal map archive; it would be nice if the poster could include an link to an eventual save </STRONG>

Hey Armok, I can't say your idea isn't a valid one, but I'm struggling to see the benefit. It may be better to deliniate fortress maps from world maps. World maps could then have information about their seed number. The name is already covered, but a field for "Dwarven name" (for forts and worlds) is probably required. Points of interest would be same. Description is covered, but Parameters could a separate be the txt file that comes with the map. The view itself is backwards compatable, no need to go back to the old viewer or compressor.

Mapping 'seeded' world maps to the existing map structure is most sensible way to go about it.
My next point: is it worth it? Do we really need a library for specific seeded maps? How many people would that benefit? How many people would view them? (Time spent viewing is arguably time well spent).

My personal opinion is that generating seeding maps, and map previews, (for download?) defies the point of having seeds, and that the seeds are likely to change massively depending on player mods and thus become invalid very quickly. Documenting seed maps then becomes a case of 'look, a cool map, if you don't want to go exploring for a decent map, use this' ...  does that need documenting?

I think current maps and movies are a good way of showing user centered game play, oddities, bugs, clever design, and funny stuff. Seed maps... just seem a bit pointless. I'll entertain the idea as long you like though.

If anything, I'd prefer to do a unified upgrade, where any new features benefit world maps, fortress maps, and any other type of tile based map you can think of. (Potentially the compressor and viewer has a scope outside of DF).

RE: Your point about a download link, you can bbcode to descriptions on the map archive, including links [ url ] or [ link ]. Read about them here: http://mkv25.net/dfma/bbcode.php

If people want to put a file on rapidshare and then link to files, they are more then welcome. I don't think its something that needs to be added to the upload form.

You can also use [map=idnumber] [/map], [poi=idnumber] [/poi] and [movie=idnumber] [/movie] to form internal links around text.

- Markavian
http://mkv25.net/