Mapping out The City. - by Digital Nightfall
Beleg Cúthalion on 2/11/2010 at 12:59
Can't wait for them to introduce the concept of the main river running east-west. :p
Briareos H on 15/11/2010 at 21:29
Stop reminding me that I never resumed work on that >_<
If I were to start again today, I would put a huge emphasis on making a very clean, layered, self-contained SVG version of the map that anyone can open for a similar end result. Pretty graphics and map navigation can be added later (Google Maps API V3 would be simpler to use than OpenLayers btw).
Basically, there would be six basic vector layers:
* Terrain (a vectorised version of the map outline, detailed enough for any level of zoom)
* Area delimiters (quarters, OM/FM limits)
* Landmarks (roads, bridges, city walls)
* Canon buildings (as detailed as they are using dromed top view and raster maps from the games)
* FM buildings
* Filler buildings (placed logically from a urbanist and thief lore point of view)
Creating layers in that order would allow a parallel workflow with refinement at every step, it would also mean that the file is usable from the early stages by people who want to gather or add their own info.
A big unknown for me is the ability to work efficiently with large SVG files. Last time I tried, Inkscape already struggled with what little there already is in my map.
Iceblade on 19/11/2010 at 05:25
Couldn't you also use the dromed 3d view for the maps and take screenshots from a high-up eagle's eye view.
jtr7 on 19/11/2010 at 06:06
No. We could, if we could disable the parallax displacement, or if the whole map was actually viewable at once, which it isn't by a long shot.:erg: And then there's the issue of looking onto untextured or arbitrarily textured surfaces that weren't meant to be seen, as well as the geometry and parts of objects that project beyond the maps' edges, also never seen or meant to be in-game, as well as geometry and objects above that obscure the map below, distant geometry and objects being rendered in front of near geometry and objects, and the fact that the sky is an illusion and is really often a chunk of air separated by solids that seem to be air, and so on. Otherwise, believe me, something so simple would've been done.
Here's the last two areas of the Keeper Compound, Training Mission (I couldn't even point the camera straight down):
Inline Image:
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i106/jtr7/TrainingMissionAerial3D.gifIceblade on 19/11/2010 at 06:42
Sky? What sky? This is a top down view. And while yes it wouldn't be something you could just do in one or two Printscreens, but it wouldn't be too problematic....
Looks at picture... oh crap, you mean everybody who uses dromed 1 has this problem? I was hoping that was just a problem with my Thief 1. So you would have to import the missions into Thief 2 to take screenshots for the T1 missions.
Let me take a look....damn skybox (one huge air brush coming right up) I see what you mean about seeing stuff you shouldn't like one big fat empty Jorge texture over Bafford's (from T2 conv). Still it's not meant to be perfect, just provide something more detailed than those colored squares.
Okay, so it would be a little time-consuming for the T2 missions, but it would be possible for the city based missions. Craigsclist would be a mess sense little of it is outside.
Edit: Dang it, Dromed's viewer doesn't let me go up high enough without crashing. Hmm...I wonder if it would render everything if I went to world view at max height before crashing. Probably not.
nicked on 19/11/2010 at 13:30
Yeah, even where you can get a birds-eye view of some maps, you hit the ~1000 poly count pretty quickly.
Iceblade on 21/11/2010 at 06:21
Guard at Bafford's Mansion: Say, you ever wonder how we get back to the city?
Other Guard: What do ya mean, back? We're already in the city.
G1: No, I mean getting away from here ... you know back to .. other ... places like...I don't know, Wayside.
G2: Oh...Wayside? There's nothing there but ... oh... uh, hehe. *clears throat* Well how did we get here in the first place?
G1: Uh, I don't know. All I can remember is waking up here working for Lord Bafford.
G2: Huh, well I can't remember anything before dinner.
G3: Shut up you two, I thought I heard somethi...ompf
G1/G2: Huh? ompf, ompf
Garrett: *chuckles to himself* Looks they won't be remembering this conversation either.
*Garrett walks off into the night with his invisible and weightless bag of loot.*
Seriously, though, did they not give any thought into how this area was connected with the rest of the city. It seems to be completed blocked off by other buildings, and none of them look like good candidates for pass-thru buildings. Am I missing something here?
This is relative to mapping as an examination of the map connection points would be useful to tying the maps to each other.
MorbusG on 21/11/2010 at 23:12
Quote Posted by Briareos H
I would put a huge emphasis on making a very clean, layered, self-contained SVG version of the map that anyone can open for a similar end result. Pretty graphics and map navigation can be added later
In case this has gone unseen: (
http://whitecortex.net/~mikko/wip_citymap/thecitymap.svg) SVG-map
Quote Posted by Briareos H
A big unknown for me is the ability to work efficiently with large SVG files. Last time I tried, Inkscape already struggled with what little there already is in my map.
Inkscape sucks indeed, too bad there isn't a good SVG editor around.
Scorpion12 on 22/11/2010 at 05:39
Umm, my computer can't seem to connect to whitecortex.net, would it be possible to find this map elsewhere?
