PC Discussing custom tiles for making rivers

[Riamus]

Yeah, when I say manually-placing tiles, I mean placing town tiles in a way which ignores the underlying RWG grid. That's a big part of what I want to do.

The underlying grid is in fact why you do end up with large areas around tiles, if RWG can't accept a full town tile, it will leave an area blank, which often results in large spaces between riverbanks or other water features.

That isn't likely to change in RWG or Teragon.

Tile is 150x150 Chunk is 128x128 and Region is 160x160

I haven't looked into it myself, but I am almost positive the region is larger than that.  I think it's around 1000x1000, though that's just a guess.  When I've reset a region in the game, it seems to have reset far more than 160x160.  Someone else who has looked into it can probably give an exact size.

But, regardless of size, that's just how they did it and it works.  And it doesn't really affect how you would make a river using tiles.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

I know and you are right, I was working from the other side of the equation with the random gen.

After reading the posts here, I respect the skill that you all have for figuring out the equation, I wanted

to try to find a way to gen the terrain portion of the rivers, without third party, while you fine tuned the tiles.

Have not given up yet.

 

[zztong]

and Region is 160x160

I'm lost. What's a Region?

 

[Riamus]

I'm lost. What's a Region?

The region files.  It's what is reset using the region reset (rr) command.

 

[FramFramson]

That isn't likely to change in RWG or Teragon.

Nor would I expect it to. That's why all I want is the ability to manually place tiles.

 

[Riamus]

Nor would I expect it to. That's why all I want is the ability to manually place tiles.

I am pretty sure that you can in the World Editor.  And you can buy editing the prefabs.xml file as well.  Placing tiles in Teragon will likely conform to the grid that RWG uses.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

I'm lost. What's a Region?

The pic below shows it better than I could explain. They used to be called cells.

They could be considered a container, or data base, or monitor. 

I haven't looked into it myself, but I am almost positive the region is larger than that.  I think it's around 1000x1000

I could be wrong, The most direct way to test is to gen an 8k map, teleport to any corner, delete the reg file that is in saves folder

then fly in a straight line out of reach of the entities and terrain, set the game to windowed, and small enough to see your opened

region folder. don't vere left or right or your v3 pos will register neighboring  regions. If they are at least 1000 each, then map end

to end should only generate 9 files. because of the 192 overhead, the more generated the smaller the monitored division.

 

[FramFramson]

I am pretty sure that you can in the World Editor.  And you can buy editing the prefabs.xml file as well.  Placing tiles in Teragon will likely conform to the grid that RWG uses.

Right, but if you place (or move) tiles in the world editor, can you then populate the map with POIs? That's the real trouble.

It's kind of funny in that it sounds like I'm asking for something elaborate, but manually placing tiles seems to me like a perfectly intuitive idea when it comes to creating your own cities.

Regardless, IMO, the absolute void of custom maps being put out right now (we're arguably at an all-time-low for modder output of custom maps!) clearly demonstrates we need more and better custom map-making tools with robust options.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

Regardless, IMO, the absolute void of custom maps being put out right now (we're arguably at an all-time-low for modder output of custom maps!) clearly demonstrates we need more and better custom map-making tools with robust options.

If I am understanding correctly, If  it does not matter to you that you would have to do it with third party. Then here is one of two

possibilities that can help. @Riamus this is your tutorial. I knew I remembered seeing something like this before. There is another

one but it is more of placing a yellow box as a poi mask. Cn't remember or find it now. but this may help.

*****

*****  I hopes this helps.

 

[Riamus]

Right, but if you place (or move) tiles in the world editor, can you then populate the map with POIs? That's the real trouble.

It's kind of funny in that it sounds like I'm asking for something elaborate, but manually placing tiles seems to me like a perfectly intuitive idea when it comes to creating your own cities.

Regardless, IMO, the absolute void of custom maps being put out right now (we're arguably at an all-time-low for modder output of custom maps!) clearly demonstrates we need more and better custom map-making tools with robust options.

Repopulating tiles is something that can be done when manually placing a tile using Teragon's Create POI command.  It is not currently an option if you're placing tiles in any other command or when placing tiles outside of Teragon, but it will eventually be possible.

As far as maps go, it depends what you're expecting.  People are making a lot of maps with Teragon.  But most are using them for their own use or the use on their own server and are not sharing them.  If you're looking for maps being shared, that may be lower than in the past.  But the reason for that may be that it's become much easier to make your own maps rather than finding them elsewhere, so map makers aren't making as many maps to share.  When it was harder to get good maps, then it was necessary for maps to be shared to have good maps.  When maps are easy to make, there's less need for them and you mostly see shared maps that are handcrafted maps of some theme.  Obviously other maps are shared as well, but I think that's the main reason you're seeing a difference.

Besides, you aren't going to get more robust options than Teragon has.  It is still in development and will continue to get better, but for something that still has a lot of development left to do, it still offers great maps if you're willing to learn it.

2 hours ago, 4sheetzngeegles said:

If I am understanding correctly, If  it does not matter to you that you would have to do it with third party. Then here is one of two

possibilities that can help. @Riamus this is your tutorial. I knew I remembered seeing something like this before. There is another

one but it is more of placing a yellow box as a poi mask. Cn't remember or find it now. but this may help.

*****

That is specifically for group POI, which would be a different thing.  Though the command being used can be used to place tiles.

 

[FramFramson]

Repopulating tiles is something that can be done when manually placing a tile using Teragon's Create POI command.  It is not currently an option if you're placing tiles in any other command or when placing tiles outside of Teragon, but it will eventually be possible.

As far as maps go, it depends what you're expecting.  People are making a lot of maps with Teragon.  But most are using them for their own use or the use on their own server and are not sharing them.  If you're looking for maps being shared, that may be lower than in the past.  But the reason for that may be that it's become much easier to make your own maps rather than finding them elsewhere, so map makers aren't making as many maps to share.  When it was harder to get good maps, then it was necessary for maps to be shared to have good maps.  When maps are easy to make, there's less need for them and you mostly see shared maps that are handcrafted maps of some theme.  Obviously other maps are shared as well, but I think that's the main reason you're seeing a difference.

Besides, you aren't going to get more robust options than Teragon has.  It is still in development and will continue to get better, but for something that still has a lot of development left to do, it still offers great maps if you're willing to learn it.

I mean we do use Teragon, but ultimately we went with Grim's map when it came out because we were so tiered of fighting Teragon to get what we were trying to do (I am not the mapmaker for our server, but we do have one). I'm not saying it doesn't have a lot of options, but not everything about it is as comprehensive as some aspects of it are. Does it beat RWG? Yes, very much so.

I do sincerely believe that fewer maps are being made for sharing these days. A good, handmade map will always be popular and RWG simply does not compare. ESPECIALLY with how on-rails the RWG biome/trader progression remains, and modders being happy to share their work isn't really something which changes much over time. If mods are being made, they're being shared.

It's difficult, if not impossible, to get proper data, but anecdotally it seems like mapmaking is more difficult than ever. I see fewer posts asking for advice or recommendations on creating custom maps than I ever have before in various dedicated modding channels or forums, and based on what I've seen for years in other modding communities I'm very skeptical that this is because mapmaking is easier, rather than harder.

Anyway, I do look forward to the potential additions to Teragon you mentioned. New options and tools are always going to be welcome.

 

[Riamus]

Remember that Teragon is a random map generator.  If you are trying to do something very specific, it isn't going to be the right tool for the job.  It may be possible, but it will normally take a lot of adjustments to accomplish.  If you are making a random map and aren't trying for a very specific thing, then it can give you great maps without much effort once you learn how things work.

As far as people asking questions... if something is hard to do, you ask questions about how to do it.  If something is easy to do, there's no need to ask questions.  We have a lot of people on Discord who are making maps regularly.  Maybe not as many are making maps.  Who knows?  But there are still a lot of people making maps these days, but as I said, most people using Teragon are making maps for themselves or their own servers rather than sharing.  Most shared maps are handcrafted, which aren't done with Teragon (or if someone uses Teragon, it's only for specific things), and handcrafting maps hasn't changed.  It's still done using the same tools as always... image editors.  If anything, updates to the image editors being used may make some things easier.  But in general, handcrafted maps are made in image editors and then people place towns with World Editor or whatever they choose (some use Teragon just for placing towns on a handcrafted map).

Anyhow, how often people make maps isn't really related to how to make rivers with tiles and as you said, we don't have data to know for sure anyhow.