Generating World Maps

Ichiro · Post by **Ichiro** » Sun Aug 11, 2013 2:41 am

I'm looking to restart work on Synth, and I need a world for the game to play on. Unfortunately, I have no idea what shape the world will take, so I need suggestions for map generation.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Sun Aug 11, 2013 3:36 am

Will the maps always be random? Or do you want a single static map that's the same for all games?

Ichiro · Post by **Ichiro** » Sun Aug 11, 2013 3:40 am

Single world map for all savegames. Something I can generate a map with then eye it copying into CUSTOM.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Sun Aug 11, 2013 3:52 am

Ah, so you're not going to be generating it using the OHR? Well, there's donjon, there are a lot of different generators there. Though it might not be quite what you're looking for. Still, I've found it to be suitable enough for most purposes.

Ichiro · Post by **Ichiro** » Sun Aug 11, 2013 5:25 am

Yeah. I don't think HS has the mathematical means to make a fractal generated map.

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Sun Aug 11, 2013 5:54 am

Ichiro wrote:Yeah. I don't think HS has the mathematical means to make a fractal generated map.

Actually it does, and BMR has done it successfully already

But the real advantage of generating a map in HS would be if you wanted it to be different every time you play, and it sounds like that is not what you want, so it is probably indeed better for you to generate it some other way first.

EDIT: I was trying t find the thread with the screenshots, but not having any luck...

Ichiro · Post by **Ichiro** » Mon Aug 12, 2013 6:31 am

I found a program called Autorealm, which is like a vector program plus you can fractalize your lines. Here's the world I've drawn:

Meowskivich · Post by **Meowskivich** » Mon Aug 12, 2013 3:35 pm

looks cool

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Mon Aug 12, 2013 4:39 pm

I've played around with Autorealm in the past, and it's a pretty nifty program. Though if I recall correctly, once you start getting a bunch of different things (trees, cities, mountains, whatever) on the map, it gets to be unbearably slow. Then again, that was years ago, so things may have changed a lot since then.

Meowskivich · Post by **Meowskivich** » Mon Aug 12, 2013 4:41 pm

Things have changed quite a bit since Windows 2.1

;p

Ichiro · Post by **Ichiro** » Mon Aug 12, 2013 5:00 pm

BMR wrote:I've played around with Autorealm in the past, and it's a pretty nifty program. Though if I recall correctly, once you start getting a bunch of different things (trees, cities, mountains, whatever) on the map, it gets to be unbearably slow. Then again, that was years ago, so things may have changed a lot since then.

Yeah, alas, it still seems to use WMF/WinGS.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Tue Aug 13, 2013 10:11 am

I am tempted to write a world generator... One where you can create a world, and then copy the appropriate files into your .rpgdir to have a base overworld map to work with. Hmm... I'm more than tempted, I'll definitely be making this. But not right now, some time in the future perhaps.

Post by **TMC** » Wed Aug 14, 2013 7:07 pm

Thoughts:

-There will be a menu for importing and exporting maps/map data eventually (it's already half finished), including, I hope, import from a BMP minimap image
-We could add more advanced tools to the map editor like random heightmap or coastline generation, and random placement of saved brushes (eg. multi-tile trees)
-Running scripts in the map editor would be doable (nearly all script commands would be disabled)

Nathan Karr · Post by **Nathan Karr** » Wed Aug 14, 2013 11:13 pm

Yeah, that's something I've always wanted. :3