Minimap

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Dr Wahl
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Minimap

Post by Dr Wahl »

I am not very fond of the current minimaps that are used in TMW. The minimaps seem too small (zoomed out too far) to be useful and they lack acurate detail pertaining to the map and the players on the map. I would like to see something that might contain these features.

A. Zoom the minimap in/out to resize the area that can be seen on the minimap.
B. More accurate to what is actually contained in the mapt the player is curretly in.
C. Supply information as to where NPC's are that the player has previously spoken with.
D. Display which direction party members/guild members are from in relation to the players current location.

Is this something that is going to change with the new server? If all that is needed is for the minimaps to be redrawn, I would like to try to begin work on that.
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Falcata
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Post by Falcata »

Right now, the minimaps are handmade, with each pixel representing a tile. To support those ideas, TMW would need to be able to dynamically generate the map. Either that, or someone could develop a tool to generate minimaps.
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Dr Wahl
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Post by Dr Wahl »

I'm not entirely sure that the minimap would have to be made on the fly. Anything that is not 100% static (buildings, walls, etc.) can be drawn up with each tile representing a pixel. To put NPCs/players on the map, there could be an overlay that relates to the grid that the minimap uses for pixels (x,y cooridinates) and places a glip as an overlay on the map.
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5t3v3
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Post by 5t3v3 »

The problem with some minimaps, is that the include the edges of the map, where we can't go eitherway. If it would just be the walkable center, it could be zoomed in more. Perhaps a more efficient way, is to start with an image of the collision-layer only?
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Jaxad0127
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Post by Jaxad0127 »

Something else that has been talked about is using vector graphics. That way, it can be resized. It could also store layer information and overlays, including npcs.
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5t3v3
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Post by 5t3v3 »

here are two examples, of how I made a minimap, in less then 5 minutes with Koulourpaint (that's the KDE version of Ms paint) by basing it on an image of the collision layer. I admit they aren't looking to fancy. But they are much easier to read, and faster to make.

Mountainpassage:
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Mountaincave:
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Edit: I made the pixel representing entrances a red one, but apearently that isn't very visible against the black background, so I changed it to grey, and also put two pixels for caves, since they have two tiles anyway. So, how does this look?

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PS: If everybody feels that these minimaps cut the mustard, I'm more then willing to make them for all existing maps
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Falcata
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Post by Falcata »

Cut the mustard? Never heard that expression before. Anyways, I do like the new minimaps. As you said, they are easier to read.
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Crush
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Post by Crush »

They are easier to read but quite ugly, in my opinion.

You could offer them as a custom zip. So players can choose if they want usability or eyecandy.
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5t3v3
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Post by 5t3v3 »

How do I make a customzip, I guess there's more to it then only putting the images into a zip-file right? Like, how does the client know where to put which map and so?
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Crush
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Post by Crush »

1. Create an empty directory structure in the same way as the hierarchy of the tmw clients data directory somewhere on your hard drive. (you needn't add folders that contain nothing you want to change)
2. Put the files you want to replace into this directory hierarchy where the original file is usually found.
3. Zip the whole directory hierarchy with WinZIP or another compression program that supports the ZIP format. The filename doesn't matter. It just has to end with .zip.
4. Put the zip archive into your user folder ("Documents and settings\username" on windows, "~/" on unix-like operating systems) in the subdirectory /.tmw/customdata/
When the folder customdata doesn't exist you have to create it. Folders beginning with a "." are hidden on some filemanagers so make sure that showing hidden files is turned on.
5. When you start the game the files in the custom zip will override any files in the TMW data directory or the updates.

You can find an example file (this one replaces an existing map and adds a new tileset) here: http://www.crushnet.org/TempFiles/tmw/tictactoe.zip
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ElvenProgrammer
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Re: Minimap

Post by ElvenProgrammer »

Dr Wahl wrote:A. Zoom the minimap in/out to resize the area that can be seen on the minimap.
Not that much of an issue, it could be easily done even on the current server and ported to the new one without much work. It could require minimaps of different zoom levels or we could just scale them (loosing our high quality minimap standards :P )
Dr Wahl wrote:B. More accurate to what is actually contained in the mapt the player is curretly in.
I don't think I understand what else you need, anyway the new map format will contain pretty much all the infos regarding a map so it should be pretty easy to map them on a minimap.
Dr Wahl wrote:C. Supply information as to where NPC's are that the player has previously spoken with.
Hard, and not so useful in my opinion, what we really need is to know where NPCs are.
Dr Wahl wrote:D. Display which direction party members/guild members are from in relation to the players current location.
That would be interesting, but since we will introduce parties/guilds only with the new server, this will have to wait.

NOTE: on the current server you already have quite some infos, the problem is they're limited to your view range, and I don't know if this is going to change with the new server.
Habari
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Re: Minimap

Post by Habari »

4. Put the zip archive into your user folder ("Documents and settings\username" on windows, "~/" on unix-like operating systems) in the subdirectory /.tmw/customdata/
i tried to create .tmw directory in win xp and got error message:" you need to type a file name"
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Jaxad0127
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Re: Minimap

Post by Jaxad0127 »

Habari wrote:
4. Put the zip archive into your user folder ("Documents and settings\username" on windows, "~/" on unix-like operating systems) in the subdirectory /.tmw/customdata/
i tried to create .tmw directory in win xp and got error message:" you need to type a file name"
It should already exist. Make sure you're not in your My Documents folder.
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