Accurate Earth Map in development

Speaking of the map, anyone have any advice for placement of the "stone" resource? Where would I start? (wish this one wasn't a resource... too widespread... there are quarries all around where I live)

Kevn

I suggest that there will be stone wherever a stone wonder exists, focused in mountains. Let's see...

Egypt
Celtia (Southern Britain)?
China
Mesoamerica
Babylon area?
Peru?

Then to fill out holes where stone is unpresent

Somewhere Russia, preferably east
Southeast Asia?
North America
South Africa
Australia?

i have an idea,

Since most computers won't be able to handle this, can you by any chance cut out Europe from your map and release it stand-alone? Atleast computers would be able to play it and it will be used many times by mods and people who just want to play on a europe map.

@TheLastOne36- Sure. This would be a good way to release a playable map and showcase my new graphics.

UPDATE OF THE CENTURY (well the only update in ages):

This is a preview of a preview... this is not yet the preview of the map, just a hint at the upcoming preview =D It still has some changes pending

This picture should give you an idea of almost all graphical improvements that my mod will make. I will let you find them for yourself.



NOTES ON SCREENSHOT(S):
1) I am using the game on lowest quality graphics. Sorry, but I cannot provide richer previews because I can barely handle this graphic level (my computer often randomly restarts from a serious graphical crash)
2) This a .jpeg screenshot. I will move and organize my old screenshots and have them saved as .bmp for better viewing the future. Sorry for the crappy quality of this one.

GRAPHICAL FEATURES TO COME:

For sure: Coral, new resources (in Spain, cork), better height maps for the hills and peaks (if I can), slight modifications, an easier to see difference between coasts and ocean

Maybe: fjords, terraces, other features, slight modifications

Also, I think it's just about time for an updated mosaic

CALL FOR HELP:

The game doesn't recognize the height maps for peaks and hills from Colonization. Does anyone know how I can get them recognized? Do they show up anywhere in the xmls? Thanks


Let me know if you have any suggestions

Previews should start flowing this weekend, as I fill out the missing resources and fix some problems. If not, next weekend.

Kevin

Hmmm, I really don't want to critise all the hard work your doing Kevin, but if I'm honest I prefer the old colour scheme. I don't know how well the sceeny you took captures it but it just looks too orange to me! The new sea texture is an improvement but the rest looks a bit parched (it is Spain though, so I guess that could be intentional ) Could you try another pic of the US eastern seaboard so I can compare it to the old pics from the bottom of page 8? http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=233586&page=8

I don't have colonization, so i wouldn't know about the peaks, infact i didn't even know they had different sized peaks!

I agree it looks a little to orange. Is it because of the graphics settings and stuff or is it actually like that?

@ETM: It's OK, at least it's just the colour at issue It should be no problem to adjust the colour, even if I'm a fan of the really rich tint of Colon. Graphics.

Who knows what's causing it to look more orangey/fake than colon., but at least it's close.

Unfortunately, my BMPs are too big for imageshack.

I have isolated the cause of the orangeyness as the texture for the plains and cliffs (sides of hills). They have been yellowed and unsaturated.

Updates/Requested Pics:







And I know the grass appears flat but just as in colon. it's got a fair bit of detail


Let me know any comments/suggestions

EDIT: Height maps are a no-go
EDIT: I compared my graphics with Colonization graphics, and I'm sorry to say they come nowhere close. Please let me know if you feel the graphics have improved. I feel they have, but I'm not sure which you guys prefer. In the meantime I'll see if I can pick out some of the minor details that make Colon. graphics what they are.

Kevin

Yep, those new pics look fine. If thats waht the finished article looks like ingame I don't have a problem. So was it a graphicial problem that you fixed ingame or did the first screeny not capture it accurately?

Much better! I also noticed the coast is much more noticable! Much better!

I request a new version of the terrien map:
with the updated graphics and all. Also did you ever get the volcanoes working?

--
How's venezuela doing?

@ETM: The quality may be an overall contributor, but as I said, the porting of some of the graphics from colonization didn't work nearly as well as I thought. Consequently they probably looked a little silly as opposed to rich like in Colon.

I fixed it by changing the colour of cliffs and plains, as they were the most orangey.

I will also be reverting back to the old tropical forest, as I realized I only ported the texture, and not the really nice model. With the other trees, although the same problem is present, they look nicer than before.

@LastOne36: Venezuela is first on my map editing queue. First I need to draw up a list of traits for Grishnash, then upload my settler-map-creator.

But here is the terrain strip as requested:



Ignore the poor water quality in this screenshot, i had animations frozen.

Kevin

The Swamp looks fantastic Kevin

Yah, before the Swamp looked a little to much, but now, it's great!

I also like the new Tundra (i think it's tundra, the one next to the snow) it looks much more realistic!

Also what happened to the Volcanoes?

While you're answering questions on terrains, will swamp retain an underlying terrain type, or will it be on it's own?

Swamp is a terrain type, not a feature. You can have a marsh feature if you like it. Not sure about the semantic between marsh & swamp, maybe a scale factor.

I'm asking because in the very first post he said he'd try to make it a terrain feature, with an underlying terrain if possible, but if not it would just be a terrain in it's own right. Has this since been cleared up?

Can you put resources on mountain tiles and edit out their impassability? Just a thought as then we would have more room for things like stone, gold, gems, etc. that you often find in mountainous areas.

EviltheMonkey said:

Can you put resources on mountain tiles and edit out their impassability? Just a thought as then we would have more room for things like stone, gold, gems, etc. that you often find in mountainous areas.

Click to expand...

I want two different types of mountains, one being "peaks" which would be impassable, and another being more like "mountain ranges" which can be possible and have resources on them, but i don't think it is much of a problem honestly.

kevinman4404 said:

GRAPHICAL FEATURES TO COME:

For sure: Coral, new resources (in Spain, cork), better height maps for the hills and peaks (if I can), slight modifications, an easier to see difference between coasts and ocean


Let me know if you have any suggestions

Kevin

Click to expand...

Well cork it isn't coral... Cork it's from Quercus suber - Cork Oak, a tree! Only grow at one place in all of the world. It's in this small region between Iberia Peninsula, south of France and North of Africa near Marrocos.

BTW One of the most famouse Wines in the world is Oporto, on the Douro region. You could put some grapes on the hills near Douro.
Also you can put some grapes on the region South of Tejo, near Palmela (south of Lisbon) that have also a great region of wines (try Moscatel) quite different.

@Zenon_Pt: I know cork isn't coral; I am currently planning on including both as new resources. Cork will be a cash boost and maybe a slight prod. boost, and each tile of coral (it will be grouped into the world's coral reefs) will provide 1 gold to represent the boost to tourism. I am reluctant to add food to coral, as I don't think it's a huge food source for humans, and I would have to add it to each of the many coral tiles, so somewhere near a large coral reef, like mexico, would have highly overexaggerated food levels.

As for the wine, I'll look into it. It's not the quality, which I'm sure is great- I am going to have to look at regional production numbers.

@TheLastOne36: I'd love to do this too, but we will have to see. If anyone has/in the future found out/finds a way to import height maps, this would be easy to do, as colonization peaks are almost as short as hills. If this doesn't work, I have no way of making the peaks flatter, as far as I can tell.

@Moopoo: It will work largely the same as in RFC. However, this time, the graphics are terrain-only, though I may still have to use an (invisible) feature for the effect. However, I may be able to do this terrain-only. I'll look into it and let you know next update

@ETM regarding stone/building materials: I am in agreeance with you that the stone/marble resource alone is kind of silly; at the same time, generic building materials has the same problem- that is, that they are found pretty much anywhere in the world. This would include, stone, clay, gravel, lumber, straw. These are found on almost all of the liveable planet. Plus, I kind of want clay to be its own resource, as it is useful for pottery. So we would need a solution that is narrower in scope.

NOTE on graphics: In the last image, you can kind of see the borders of the texture, as if it doesn't fully line up. If you have animationss unfrozen, or perhaps if you start the map unfrozen and then freeze the animations, it will be absolutely unnoticable.

IN QUEUE:
-Fixing Venezuela
-Compiling a list of traits
-Updating civ information
-Europe-only map (beta)(hasn't been started yet)
-Wintermod/Summermod

Kevin

For the stone issue ( alongside gravel, tar, lumber, ... ) what about having the quarry or sawmill let a good chance to get the resource (mine-like) and redraw these improvements''s terrain prereq plus add a 1 tile min distance between each. This way you choose where it's more profitable to quarry or cut trees. [I don't include Cedar or Marble though. ]