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[Markavian]

DF Map Archive Update:
2007-12-24

New map format, encoded with enhanced information about each tile

New map viewer, has a fullscreen button, and new buttons when viewing enchanced maps

See the demonstration enhanced viewing mode map, with a toggle button for some of the new information available

Possibilities: A 3D isometric viewer. Automatic counts of visible items in your fort (statistics).

Soon to be released DF Map Compressor (3.18) also has new friendlier features and is capable of removing black-banding from corrupt maps

All this means the way is paved for new developments in map viewing quality. When the new version of SL's compressor is released I encourage you to use it to upload your maps such that there is an improved quality and quantity of maps for future versions of the map viewer to make use of. Certainly the prospect of 3D viewingness would be very cool; and the data is there, but the interpreter is not.

Oh, and check out the fullscreen mode. Thx Turgid and Silveron for the prompts. Now you can make the viewer take up YOUR ENTIRE SCREEN. (Manic laughter).

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

[Markavian]

Thanks Zemat and all for the kind words.

As for Zemat, lots of ideas there, I'll tackle what I can manage:

Stuff looks sucky from the side: totally agree, the new map information that can be encoded with SL's compressor should allow me to improve the side views, but it will take some time to do all the proper mappings.

Sinoth's recently released awesome 3d visualizer: is super. If I wasn't so worried about bandwidth I'd put up an image uploader and let people share screenshots from the proper 3D visuliser, but for now you can always upload screenshots to your own site and include them in posts and Points of Interest using the [img] bbcode tag which is supported by the DFMA parser. I encourage everyone who can to try out the visuliser at least once! My only critique of the visuliser is: "if only it was easier to use" - being selfish; I also think sinoth could support the fdf-map format now, and do the reverse: download maps from the DFMA and have them open up his 3D viewer- wouldn't that be cool? A common format could benefit us all.

Adding POIs onto maps as little icons: and why not, I simply wish I had more time. You've noticed I've started playing with overlay controls, and I've merged the PoI info box with the viewer, these are all steps in the right direction for a more interactive experience. I'm already making a huge assumption that people have Flash 9 player in order to view maps... but at the same time this guarentees a minimum level of functionality and fun.

Its always fun thinking through the possibilities, keep 'em rolling, some day they might happen! And tell me what you most want, I work on a whim.

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

[Mithaldu]

quote:Originally posted by Markavian:
<STRONG>I also think sinoth could support the fdf-map format now, and do the reverse: download maps from the DFMA and have them open up his 3D viewer- wouldn't that be cool? A common format could benefit us all.</STRONG>

Wouldn't work as is, sadly, the terrain data in the fdf map just isn't there, for example if a dwarf is standing on a staircase, then you can't see it, thus it'd be invisible in the 3d viewer as well.

We could however use the maps to supplement the memory terrain data and have a cheap and easy way to get buildings and creatures visible. It would not be perfect by a large margin and a lot of guesswork would be involved, but better than nothing

However that is only a dream, as the creator of the fdf format objects to it being public, which means i can't create a script to read it. Maybe sinoth could do it, but he honestly has better things to do with his own code imo.

[Markavian]

quote:Originally posted by Mithaldu:
<STRONG>Wouldn't work as is, sadly, the terrain data in the fdf map just isn't there, for example if a dwarf is standing on a staircase, then you can't see it, thus it'd be invisible in the 3d viewer as well.</STRONG>

Good point, but you don't know until you try. Its as least as good as looking at the bitmaps we already have, but in 3D. I think that's workable. I am suprised and angered at your lack of vision.

 

quote:Originally posted by Mithaldu:
<STRONG>...the creator of the fdf format objects to it being public, which means i can't create a script to read it. Maybe sinoth could do it, but he honestly has better things to do with his own code imo.</STRONG>

More over Mithaldu, ask and you will receive. There is plenty of information available about the fdf-map format.

File format for fdf-map v2 (by SL)

Summary of fdf-map formats v0, v-1, v-2 (by Markavian)

DFMapDecoder g1.as (v-2 compatable) - Flash AS3 Implementation of multi-version file decoder

DFMapDecoder f2.as (v-1 compatable)

...

File format for fdf-map v2 Same as above, but from SL's website

Is that any use?

- Markavian

[ December 24, 2007: Message edited by: Markavian ]

[Red Jackard]

Har! That'll show him for the constant naysaying.

[ December 24, 2007: Message edited by: Red Jackard ]

[Mithaldu]

quote:Originally posted by Markavian:
<STRONG>Good point, but you don't know until you try. Its as least as good as looking at the bitmaps we already have, but in 3D. I think that's workable. I am suprised and angered at your lack of vision.</STRONG>

Actually, you're right, i'd forgotten about the slicing option. So as long as one doesn't mind not being able to properly traverse vertically, it'll work.  

quote:Originally posted by Markavian:
<STRONG>More over Mithaldu, ask and you will receive. There is plenty of information available about the fdf-map format.

File format for fdf-map v2 (by SL)

Summary of fdf-map formats v0, v-1, v-2 (by Markavian)

DFMapDecoder g1.as (v-2 compatable) - Flash AS3 Implementation of multi-version file decoder

DFMapDecoder f2.as (v-1 compatable)

...

File format for fdf-map v2 Same as above, but from SL's website

Is that any use?</STRONG>

I asked, i received, i cautioned my code will be open source, i was asked not to use it. Unless i get told otherwise i will honour that.  
If you can point out however which files are solely your intellectual property, i'll be able to use those. =)

[Shadowlord]

My main objection to it becoming open source is mainly that I don't want the format or compressor to get forked.

In unrelated news, for anyone who can't run the .NET version of the compressor due to not being on Windows XP or Vista, I just tried running the latest version of the C#/.NET version of my compressor (3.2.1, currently) with the latest version of Mono (1.2.6), and it ran and was able to compress a multi-level map properly. (I tested it by running mono --debug DwarfFortressMapCompressor.exe)

The only question is whether it'll still write out a compatible fdf-map if your computer has the opposite endianness of windows. I think so, but I'm leaving momentarily and can't check now.

(However, the integrated flash viewer will not work - Mono cannot run COM/ActiveX stuff (at least not yet). If you try to preview a map)

[Markavian]

quote:Originally posted by Mithaldu:
<STRONG>If you can point out however which files are solely your intellectual property, i'll be able to use those. =)</STRONG>

As far as I know, SL has come up with the initial file format. I've asked for additions and changes so that it was possible to work with Flash. The second text file is a summary of the first used for comments in my actionscript files.

The two actionscript files are my intellectual property, but I don't mind them being used as bases for writing similar applications using the fdf-map format- that's why I've made them available off my site. (The code I want to keep to myself are the other parts of the map viewer.)

[Mithaldu]

quote:Originally posted by Shadowlord:
<STRONG>My main objection to it becoming open source is mainly that I don't want the format or compressor to get forked.</STRONG>

seeing how i'm only writing a DEcompressor and won't even get close to attempting to write a compressor, there's a really low chance of that ever happening.  

Markavian: Thanks. =)

[Markavian]

Updates for http://mkv25.net/dfma/

2007-12-29

Added favourites system for registered users

Favourites let you bookmark interesting or funny items found on the site

Logged in users will see links like 'Add to favourites?' below maps, movies, and points of interest

The user favourites page summarises favoured items

Favoured items show the number of people who favoured them below the entry

Updated development page

Merged display of comments across map series

Greyed comments are posted to another map in the same series - should make discussions that span multiple maps easier to follow

Please make use of the new favourites system, have a browse through old entries if necessary and pull out some of the gems from earlier in the year. At somepoint in the future I may make user favourites public so we can see each others lists.

The display of comments has been changed so that they are visible across an entire map series. This means comments posted in 1050 will still be visible in 1054, but greyed out to show they were posted to another map. As stated, this is to help track discussions that span multiple maps. It means there is more clutter on the comments now (more to read) but there should be less 'missed comments' when people submit new versions of maps.

Also, not noted in the above update, two pages Edit Movie Entry and My Movies have been added, so can now edit the title and descriptions of movies and view a summary of all your submissions.

Best regards,
- Markavian

[ December 29, 2007: Message edited by: Markavian ]

[Markavian]

Updates for http://mkv25.net/
2008-01-20

Fixed bug displaying non-square maps, pointed out by Lacero, (thanks)

For example, Mountain Banners - Bridge Tower (side), is now visible correctly

Recorded new bug: Map viewer recenters on incorrect map coordinates when switching view between top/front top/side when viewer first loads

2008-01-19

Added new BBCode tags [wiki=Page]link text[/wiki]

For example: [wiki=User:Markavian]my user page[/wiki]

Result: my user page

Bugs still with the map viewer, haven't found the cause of the viewer glitch yet. Plans are afoot to make use of the new encoded data, but uni priorities prevent me from working on new versions of the map viewer. Bah.

- Markavian

[Shadowlord]

I uploaded a new version of the map compressor last night which produces smaller filesizes (if the images are in your DF folder, so it can find your init file and font bmp), and can better handle images which have abnormally high levels of color variance (e.g. your white statues do not look like what they mathematically SHOULD look like, and there may be more than one white statue image in the exported map images, which are not pixel-by-pixel identical, but are similar). The color match threshold is user-modifiable, and the compressor will detect a moderately high unique tiles ratio and ask if you want the color match threshold turned up to compensate in case it's this kind of an issue.

I've also included more detailed instructions on running it with MONO for people who aren't on Windows. For those of you on Ubuntu, I would suggest getting it directly from the Mono website - they have a .bin installer - so you KNOW you're getting what they wanted to release for 1.2.6. If you just try to get Mono from your package distribution thingy you wind up with 1.2.4, but won't be able to run the map compressor at all. There are possibly devel-tagged versions in the ubuntu package dist system but who knows if they are the beta or the final versions, and they're tagged with warnings that they MAY NOT WORK ON UBUNTU BLAH BLAH ETC. I'd say just get it from the Mono website.

P.S. The filesize improvements did not require a change to the fdf-map format, only an improvement to the program itself - specifically, it is able to identify the random ,.`'% tiles in the blackness, and change them into black tiles, and so compress those all more effectively. Since that doesn't require a change to the file format, it doesn't require a change to the map viewer either. There is another filesize improvement which I coded, but it is disabled until Markavian has time to update the viewer to support it, at which point I'll release another version with it enabled.

[Armok]

[generic praise]

Suggestion: We have an archive for fort maps and an archive for movies, maybe we shuld have one for worlds?
The data would include:

• The compressed bitmap like the fort maps, but from an exported world map.
• comments and so on like both movies and fort maps have
• separate POI system and starting sites system, the starting sites one shuld have an set "form" of its properties (biomes, features, sites etc.) so you can easily search all worlds for the starting site you want
• the seed and whatever future worlgen properties are added, also a warning of eventual mods
• the data exported whit the map in a interpreted easily readable way. for example a expandable list of all the gods
• whatever info you could extract whit memory editing or form the save files

These are just suggestion on what COULD be in it, some of these might be harder to implement than I thought, and there are probably many ideas that never crossed my mind!  

[ February 05, 2008: Message edited by: Armok ]

[axus]

I like the archive a lot, thanks for providing it

[Markavian]

Hey Armok,

Good suggestion with the world maps, I'm not sure about all the information, such as gods and such like- alot of that seems buried in the game at present, to be explored by the player, I guess Toady intended it that way. So far I've tried to make the representation between normal maps and worldmaps as seemless as possible, but perhaps a reskinning of the upload form and viewer to make it easier to link multiple fortresses to a single world. I could always add an extra field for map type that makes a difference betweens worlds and fortresses, and any other types that we can think up.

Another suggestion was to have a tileset archive, or a mod archive along side the current maps, though I'm not sure if either are necessary.

I'm hoping to add hotspots to the maps in a future release, i.e. visible clickable points of interest on the map that say what they are when you hover or click on them.

Thanks axus for your comment.
Back to work as a student for the time being, more updates planned.

Regards,
- Markavian