The Atlas Project

oh holy ****....!!!!!
You are an awesome guy....!!

nah, just coded 2 days on it, but i´ll definately continue working on it, it´s a good project with personal motivation to raise my cpp skills and learn a bit opengl....

about the highmap stuff etc..i´ll do my best and try to add as much things as i m able to.
From earlier projects i know i can never stop going deeeper and make everything perfect.

but this is junuxxs thread

 

I wish I was better at Java or I would try to modify this, but I'm only a 2nd year-CS student. It looks great. What IDE did you use to make it? I use Eclipse because it's what my school uses.

I tried to import the .jar into a new project so I could look at the code and try to learn some things, but when I tried to look it only showed the function names and parameters (no code to show how the function works). How can I take a look at the code?

 

The new version with the .jar file works! Thanks.

Also, the new screen shot at the start of the thread showing what the custom map looks like in game is just awesome! You can really see how the forests and deserts look MUCH more real than in maps generated by civ4!

 

Some quick notes for future usabilty.

Have some presets that mimick the internal civ4 map maker when it comes to size. That is, small, large, huge, etc. Still allow people to create their own world size should they want, but having some presets people are already familiar with will make them feel better about using it.

One thing i'd really like to see duplicated here is the ability to define what kind of mountain ranges you might or might not want. If you've ever tried the higlands map, it gives you a few different options that can create anything from a few mountains here or there to complete mountain chains that span continents. Again, I think this is something that's probably already IN the atlas program in the ratio part, but using some predefined presets as a starting point for people would give them a better idea on how to tweak those numbers in the ratios.

 

@Gr3yHound:
Your tools seems really useful. Good work!
A function that would be nice is a file corruption check. Have you had any experience with tweaked WBSes that froze or crashed Civ4 when loaded? I had quite a few and it would be cool if a tool said "Hey, there's a tab missing on line 300" or "Terrain = TERRAIN_SNWO? What's that?"

@Rabbit_Alex:
Thanks. I'm only a 3rd year AI student myself, actually, and this is the first time I've taken it so far to be honest. I just tried and really learned a lot.
I wrote most of the code in Notepad, and some of it in JEdit. I'm not really into the fancy IDEs, really.
I'm not sure about releasing the source code yet. Some of it is really messy... Need to clean it up and comment it decently first

@Visceral Monkey:

Ah, it finally works. That's great!
I'll add a couple of presets soon, it's a good idea

 

Junuxx, Looking really nice. Heres some points I'd like to mention

1) The terrain's of desert, forest, jungle, and plains works great. Once learning the color code it's very easy to read on the map that's generated. There well placed(generated).

2) Your plotting of land produces little pockets of water. This seams much more life like and can add some strategy in games with land wars. Cool stuff. You got the right mathematics put in on the generation process.

3) The polcar caps are showing up on top and bottom now. Very nice work.

4) I just have to add I am super siked by this whole project.

Some stuff I noticed that might need to be addressed.

A) I think this is a feature but when the focus leaves the map. Say to play Civ4, or copy the map to the civ directory and then you go back to Atlas the default map is back. Could you possibly load the Atlas.Civ4WorldBuilderSave map(if one exists)?

B) The mountains are not being produced but I don't see anything in the new features portion at the start of this thread. Which kinda leads me to number D) below

C) As for the issues with the install stuff. A couple of things here for ya, the shortcut on the start menu should point to the .bat file in the map generator directory. The latest install didn't create that. No big deal but nice to have.

D) From everything I see though the application looks good. Only telling what features currently work and don't work seams to be an issue. So maybe changing the colors of the features that are currently not fully functional might eliminate that. Maybe a darker shade. I don't know if this is possible.

Good work! I have to get to bed now. Thanks for the props in the About!

Tbear2520

 

goooood idea! that´s the next thing i´ll do!

 

Can't wait.

 

It is a shame that naval units cannot navigate rivers. If they could, it would be neat to be able to add a Build Canal improvement which would then potentially allow continents to go from pole to pole without damaging naval play. The time and technology needed to be able to build the canal would be a reasonable approximation of the difficulty for ships until the Suez and Panama canals were built.

I'm guessing that this will have to wait until the mod developer pack is released !

 

Well, the program runs just fine for me, it creates maps, etc. It looks great! However, if I try to actually use the map it makes in Civ4, it crashes the game shortly after choosing the map. Anyone else having this issue? (btw, game runs fine on standard maps, just nothing this makes)

 

Could you please attach the file it created, or e-mail it to me? Then I can check if there's something wrong with the file. It is possible, of course, that the map you created is simply too big. Note that a huge map normally is no larger than 104*64, and a huge Terra 128x160.

 

Version 0.23 is ready! Wrapping around the dimension(s) of your choice is in, as well as some presets. Functions that aren't implemented yet are now greyed out to avoid confusion.

Over 1400 lines/43 KB of code now!!

Anyway, see the first post for the new download

 

Very nice Junuxx, easy to use and easy to tell what is currently working and what's not. 1400 lines of code

Here's some things to note.

1) I noticed an issue with the refresh after reviewing the about. It leaves a display of a close up of the generated map from the left bottom part of the original map that is already created(after you close it). You won't notice it if you keep the original size. You can easily work around it by hitting refresh on the terrain. But what's wierd is that, say if your on a 150x150 then hit the about you exit and you notice it and then switch to a 25x25 and hit about and say OK. The map is still part of the larger 150x150. hehehe some sort of refresh\focus thing going on there.

I messed around a bit with the install and had some wierdness happening to me. I tried to use pkunzip and pkzip with the pkzip -r -p and pkunzip -d switchs but wasn't having much success. I then altered the link for the start menu and figured I would zip everything up and possibly create a install.bat to unzip it all in the mapgenerator directory. I don't know if it's the beer but I don't think so. I even tried the zip2exe thing with the -d -o. Winxp doesn't like any of it . Basically says it unzips it and then does nothing. And the names inside the zips were getting trunkcated with ~1 symbols(The norm...) I know that Visual Basic has a tool that will auto create install programs for VB applications. I wounder if something along those lines will work for Java.

FYI, in order to get the program to work I have to extract the files into the directory of the mapgenerator and run the batch file that calls the

start /min java Atlas

But it does work.

Later dude

Tbear2520

 

Hey tbear,

First, a very important note: you don't have to extract the Atlas.jar file! It is an executable jar. To start Atlas you can simply double-click Atlas.jar. Mapgen.bat is no longer needed, nor included. I suggest you delete all the files from previous installs and try again

Then on the refreshing issue. Good to know. It seems to be the same issue as with alt-tabbing and with pressing clear all first, then generate terrain. It goes back to the previous map.
The best way to get rid of the freaky lost map parts seems to be Clear Misc, Generate Misc. But I will look for a better solution.

What did you think of the presets?

 

It's GREAT!

Sorry for a stupid question but it's doesn't have any resource random generator yet, right?

Anyone with any ideas how I populate them randomly.

TIA

 

That's probably it then. I tried 200 X 150. I'll scale it down a bit and see if that works.

 

That's right, resources are currently not placed. I'll add my to-do-list to the first post so people can see what feature are coming soon.

You can add resource by hand with the WorldBuilder. But that is quite a lot of work with big maps.

 

Junuxx, Sorry I had to get to bed on my last comment. Well I've played a little more with the controls and the presets work great.

1) You might want to put a medium in there and for sure a huge. A Huge that should mirror the exact size of the Huge outlined in the Civ4. This would allow for a basis of the size your creating. Exspecially when picking larger map sizes.

2) I haven't played to test the X/Y axis but by the generation is looks like the lands position themselves to work. I plan on giving some detail to this portion over the weekend.

3) The Randomize doesn't seam to randomize the Wrap feature. This is probably a feature and probably left the way that it currently is.

4) Looking forward to the terrain portion to come into play. I feel that this will allow for the structure to test out the basis of the resources once they get in. Which to me is crucial but must come in it's own time. You don't put gas in a car before the engine.

5) It's pretty odvious the difference in the Islands types and what they produce on the map, which is great.

6) What about seperating the presets in type. (I.E. Small, Medium, Large, Huge, Gigantic Vs. Micronesia, Continents, Pangaea). There might be others you could put together. The whole ring, wheel and what not is not that big of a deal to me. I don't think in single player mode I have ever played one of these. hehe (Added comment... I think that a size preset should control the Horizontal and Vertical and a land type preset could control the other settings )

7) The Pangaea isn't there. I think this one would be the easiest to create. With a layout of the land being a single large continent. Of course each one of these continues to complicate the land generation process. But I think by now it's a select source kinda of call in your code.

8) Oh yea Rivers, should be in place after the mountains and before resources. I think this will ensure that the layout conforms to gravity based principals.


I know that's a lot of stuff to comment on. Hope it helps having an additional perspective on this project. Sometimes I worry though my comments might be critical. I don't know the coding going on so if my requests or ideas prove to much at the current time, just say so.

The error I am getting while trying to run the .jar file is "Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: C:\Program Files\MapGenerator\Atlas023/jar" Yes that's /jar and not .jar. It's a quick flash of a black screen. Now after some looking into it I found this

http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/24300/fid/165

What's your thoughts on this? Remember it does run from the batch file that declares the class.

Thanks Junuxx for your effort in producing a Quality map generator which should of shipped with Civ4.

Oh and the customization in this fashion has never been possible in any other Civ game. On NO map generator ever before have I seen the seperation of land and terrain. Granted I thought of it, it was you that put my idea to work. Awesome team work. Firaxis I am sure will take note of this and scratch their heads woundering why their team never did such a thing. You programmed it in one night, I think. Gamers rule! It shows that maybe Firaxis should expand there current Beta testers.

Tbear2520

 

Mine dowsnt work

 

If it doesn't work then just export everything, including unzipping the .jar file and from a command prompt change to the directory that the files are in and type

start /min java Atlas

Hit enter and it will launch. Note: You can put this in batch file in the directory where the app is located and then use a shortcut to launch the program.

Tbear2520