teragon maps

[paulj_3]

@bobrpggamer

Hey Bob - count me in for that map! Since Teragon came out I have been almost totally lost in trying to get my head around it. I'm a Nitro/KingGen/Toolz guy, love Gimp and can create and fix any of those maps, but I feel like a real noob with "Big T" - and your map looks exactly like I want one of mine to be.  Many Thanks!
pj

 

[bobrpggamer]

@bobrpggamer

Hey Bob - count me in for that map! Since Teragon came out I have been almost totally lost in trying to get my head around it. I'm a Nitro/KingGen/Toolz guy, love Gimp and can create and fix any of those maps, but I feel like a real noob with "Big T" - and your map looks exactly like I want one of mine to be.  Many Thanks!
pj

OK I will add 2 maps 12K that did not get a preview and the one you want, in both unprocessed and processed. Give me some time to get ondrive up and running and I will give you the link when I am done.

 

[bobrpggamer]

OK here they are:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aql8M7KJmixdaDckKanWH8Agyh8?e=dlV6ZU

Let me know if something went wrong downloading.

 

[bobrpggamer]

Here is a 12K map with massive towns:

51 skyscrapers, one red mesa installation and 1 bobs boars / Carls corn. Only 2 factories unfortunately.

I noticed the rivers are wide but still able to build a wood shape bridge early on.

Same thing as done last time all bridge prefabs are deleted from the prefabs.xml and the spawnpoints are in the forest near at least 3 widerness pois and close to a town without having to cross a river.

Well that sums up my maps for now.

 

[Riamus]

I have beautiful new 10K map (IMO) with rivers connected to lakes.



Prefab.XML has all remnants of bridges deleted and spawns have been changed to be near at least 3 wilderness POIs in the forest and not in the desert, as that would suck from overheating.

Thank you Riamus for the tip.





If anyone wants It, I can add it to my Onedrive for download.

How is your river elevation set?  It appears to be a little deep for the map, but it's hard to tell for sure from the screenshot.  You may want to raise the elevation a bit.  It seems to work best at or close to (1-2m less than) the height of the Flat Terrain Map height.

If anyone wants a Washington, DC area height map, I have this one for an 8k map.

View attachment 27276

NOTE:  This heightmap was made for 16 bit grayscale, and is not 180 degree mirrored.

Is that from Tangrams site?  I've been grabbing a bunch of heightmaps from there and they work great.

If anyone is interested, check out https://tangrams.github.io/heightmapper/ and zoom to wherever you want and click on Export at the top right side.  You will then need to crop the heightmap into a square and resize it to the size of your map (it has to be exactly correct size, such as 4096x4096 or 8192x8192).  These are all 1k maps, so you'll have to bump them up.  This usually works well, but if you are zoomed in really far, you can run into some problems.  It seems that by increase Gaussian Blur to 2.0 from 0.5, you can usually clear up any weird issues caused by having been zoomed in really far.

 

[bobrpggamer]

How is your river elevation set?  It appears to be a little deep for the map, but it's hard to tell for sure from the screenshot.  You may want to raise the elevation a bit.  It seems to work best at or close to (1-2m less than) the height of the Flat Terrain Map height.

Is that from Tangrams site?  I've been grabbing a bunch of heightmaps from there and they work great.

If anyone is interested, check out https://tangrams.github.io/heightmapper/ and zoom to wherever you want and click on Export at the top right side.  You will then need to crop the heightmap into a square and resize it to the size of your map (it has to be exactly correct size, such as 4096x4096 or 8192x8192).  These are all 1k maps, so you'll have to bump them up.  This usually works well, but if you are zoomed in really far, you can run into some problems.  It seems that by increase Gaussian Blur to 2.0 from 0.5, you can usually clear up any weird issues caused by having been zoomed in really far.

You are right of course, the rivers are carved down too much. I noticed it but got back in the game at day 112 and the zombies did not have a chance at my new base, - I almost felt sorry for them.

I decided to give it another go with 3 height rivers and change the seeds for towns and do 8K, 10K and 12K, all at the same time. Should max out my i7 9700k.

Yeah, CPU is 100%, I noticed that doing one map uses about 30 - 40 % CPU so 3 maps at one time should be done not much longer than 1 or 2 maps - about 4 hours with roads. Memory usage is 28Gbs out of my 32Gbs, temps are about 70c one each core which is not too bad I guess.

I am hoping to get more factories and possibly two super corn POIs, and at least one Red Mesa Installation. I never seem to get more than one (sometimes none) Red Mesa or super corn POIs, and I get way more skyscrapers than factories. I am unsure what setting would spawn more POIs you want, it seems to be that same each time I create a map, no matter what the seed is.

 

[bobrpggamer]

From an update preview, is seems the 3 height rivers are at sea level, which is better than I had but it should be far above sea level at that height.

I may try setting it at 1 to see what is going on with it. The setting might be affected by the subtract heightmap setting, I do not know.

 

[Riamus]

From an update preview, is seems the 3 height rivers are at sea level, which is better than I had but it should be far above sea level at that height.

I may try setting it at 1 to see what is going on with it. The setting might be affected by the subtract heightmap setting, I do not know.

River elevation should be close to the height of your flat terrain map height.  3 or 1 is definitely too low.  For example, if your standard ground level is 25m above bedrock and you set river elevation to 3, that means the riverbanks are going to be 22m high.  You want a higher elevation, not a lower elevation.  You should also have your flat water map level set to at least the height of your flat terrain map (and potentially higher depending what you're doing).

For getting specific POI in towns, it's going to depend mostly one what tiles are used.  If a POI is only available on a corner tile, for example, then it will appear less often than one that is on an intersection tile (cross of T) in a large city because you have far more intersections than corners.  Remember that POI sizes vary and each tile is set up to accept specific sizes, so not all POI are available on all tiles.  It will also depend on what you have for districts.  If most your districts are residential, you'll have fewer POI that only appear in downtown, for example.  You can adjust what districts are allowed in each size town in both center (anything not touching wilderness) and outskirt (anything touching wilderness) in the town property list.  This can help some in getting things to appear, but most of your problem is likely whether or not the tile(s) the POI can fit on are ones that will appear often or not often.  You do have the option of creating your own tiles that allow use of specific POI that you don't see as much and adding them to the town property list and the POI property list to help increase how often a POI appears.

 

[bobrpggamer]

River elevation should be close to the height of your flat terrain map height.  3 or 1 is definitely too low.  For example, if your standard ground level is 25m above bedrock and you set river elevation to 3, that means the riverbanks are going to be 22m high.  You want a higher elevation, not a lower elevation.  You should also have your flat water map level set to at least the height of your flat terrain map (and potentially higher depending what you're doing).

For getting specific POI in towns, it's going to depend mostly one what tiles are used.  If a POI is only available on a corner tile, for example, then it will appear less often than one that is on an intersection tile (cross of T) in a large city because you have far more intersections than corners.  Remember that POI sizes vary and each tile is set up to accept specific sizes, so not all POI are available on all tiles.  It will also depend on what you have for districts.  If most your districts are residential, you'll have fewer POI that only appear in downtown, for example.  You can adjust what districts are allowed in each size town in both center (anything not touching wilderness) and outskirt (anything touching wilderness) in the town property list.  This can help some in getting things to appear, but most of your problem is likely whether or not the tile(s) the POI can fit on are ones that will appear often or not often.  You do have the option of creating your own tiles that allow use of specific POI that you don't see as much and adding them to the town property list and the POI property list to help increase how often a POI appears.

So if my flat height map is 30, I should use a 26 river height to get the rivers 4 blocks down? This seems backwards but I will try it.

I want to keep my water height and flat terrain map about the same because I like the look of the map at theses settings.

I am also trying to figure out how the smoothing works. I went from smoothing 1200 to 100 and I noticed the river had more layers (contours) of height which also seems backwards.

 

[bobrpggamer]

So if I want to change the town property list, what setting should work with this:

count;center:tile_type1,tile_type1,...;outskirt:tile_type1,tile_type2,...

Should I change to this to get more outskirts?

count;center:tile_type1,tile_type1,...;outskirt:tile_type1,tile_type2,_type3,...

For more factories, what should I change here?:

regular_town;7;any;center:downtown,commercial,industrial;outskirt:rural,residential,countrytown

small_town;3;8;outskirt:residential,countrytown

oldwest_town;1;4;outskirtldwest

this one does not seem editable to me and will more than likely CTD if I fool around with it.

 

[bobrpggamer]

River elevation should be close to the height of your flat terrain map height.  3 or 1 is definitely too low.  For example, if your standard ground level is 25m above bedrock and you set river elevation to 3, that means the riverbanks are going to be 22m high.  You want a higher elevation, not a lower elevation.  You should also have your flat water map level set to at least the height of your flat terrain map (and potentially higher depending what you're doing).

For getting specific POI in towns, it's going to depend mostly one what tiles are used.  If a POI is only available on a corner tile, for example, then it will appear less often than one that is on an intersection tile (cross of T) in a large city because you have far more intersections than corners.  Remember that POI sizes vary and each tile is set up to accept specific sizes, so not all POI are available on all tiles.  It will also depend on what you have for districts.  If most your districts are residential, you'll have fewer POI that only appear in downtown, for example.  You can adjust what districts are allowed in each size town in both center (anything not touching wilderness) and outskirt (anything touching wilderness) in the town property list.  This can help some in getting things to appear, but most of your problem is likely whether or not the tile(s) the POI can fit on are ones that will appear often or not often.  You do have the option of creating your own tiles that allow use of specific POI that you don't see as much and adding them to the town property list and the POI property list to help increase how often a POI appears.

You are right about the rivers, I get shallow to mid deep with the settings you suggested.

 

[bobrpggamer]

What is going on with the time to create roads? is used to take 4 hours, now look at it:

This may look exactly like the last few I did but I added craggier mountains and shallow rivers.  But the time taken to create roads is ridiculous. granted I have 2 maps creating roads at the same time but I have done that before.

At this rate the roads will be done in 3 1/2 days!

 

[Riamus]

So if my flat height map is 30, I should use a 26 river height to get the rivers 4 blocks down? This seems backwards but I will try it.

I want to keep my water height and flat terrain map about the same because I like the look of the map at theses settings.

I am also trying to figure out how the smoothing works. I went from smoothing 1200 to 100 and I noticed the river had more layers (contours) of height which also seems backwards.

Think of it as the height of the river above bedrock.  I haven't tested smoothness settings, so can't say how that works.

So if I want to change the town property list, what setting should work with this:

count;center:tile_type1,tile_type1,...;outskirt:tile_type1,tile_type2,...

Should I change to this to get more outskirts?

count;center:tile_type1,tile_type1,...;outskirt:tile_type1,tile_type2,_type3,...

For more factories, what should I change here?:

regular_town;7;any;center:downtown,commercial,industrial;outskirt:rural,residential,countrytown

small_town;3;8;outskirt:residential,countrytown

oldwest_town;1;4;outskirtldwest

this one does not seem editable to me and will more than likely CTD if I fool around with it.

You would need to find out what district has the tile(s) you want and make sure those are in the correct area.  For example, if the POI is only available on a downtown tile and you wanted it to appear more often, you could make the downtown district more widely available.  For example:

regular_town;7;any;center:downtown,commercial,industrial;outskirt:rural,residential,countrytown,downtown

small_town;3;8;outskirt:residential,countrytown,downtown

oldwest_town;1;4;outskirtldwest,downtown

You could also put something in center if it isn't there if that will help.  Just keep in mind that this applies to all POI that are set to that district and so can make your towns feel like they don't make sense in how they are laid out (e.g. having a house in the middle of skyscrapers would look weird).

But I think the main issue is how many and type of tiles allow a certain POI.  As I mentioned, if a POI is only available on a corner tile, then it won't appear anywhere near as often as one that is on an intersection tile because there will be far fewer corner tiles on your map.  You can make custom tiles that accept various POI and make those more available, such as making a POI that currently is only available on a corner tile also available on a custom intersection tile.

What is going on with the time to create roads? is used to take 4 hours, now look at it:





This may look exactly like the last few I did but I added craggier mountains and shallow rivers.  But the time taken to create roads is ridiculous. granted I have 2 maps creating roads at the same time but I have done that before.

At this rate the roads will be done in 3 1/2 days!

Time to create roads will increase dramatically the larger your map is and how difficult the terrain is to work with (more lakes, rivers, rough terrain, etc.).  Also, if you have it set to Complete like you do, it will take a really long time compared to Incomplete.  I'm sure road generation will improve over time, but that's just how it stands right now.

 

[bobrpggamer]

Think of it as the height of the river above bedrock.  I haven't tested smoothness settings, so can't say how that works.

Smoothing does not do much. I have had it at 100, 600, 1000 & 1200 and there was not much difference.

I would like to see a width setting and with a random width setting that can give the rivers more or less width at different positions along the rivers. Also I would like to see an easier branch setting for a simple integer like 3 branches or 10 branches.

Time to create roads will increase dramatically the larger your map is and how difficult the terrain is to work with (more lakes, rivers, rough terrain, etc.).  Also, if you have it set to Complete like you do, it will take a really long time compared to Incomplete.  I'm sure road generation will improve over time, but that's just how it stands right now.

I have had it at complete almost every map I made, and the longest it took was 6 hours, most were 4 hours, even a 12K map did not take this long at complete, so the time on these 10K maps does not make sense.

You would need to find out what district has the tile(s) you want and make sure those are in the correct area.  For example, if the POI is only available on a downtown tile and you wanted it to appear more often, you could make the downtown district more widely available.  For example:

regular_town;7;any;center:downtown,commercial,industrial;outskirt:rural,residential,countrytown,downtown

small_town;3;8;outskirtutskirt:rural,countrytown,downtown

oldwest_town;1;4;outskirtldwest,downtown

You could also put something in center if it isn't there if that will help.  Just keep in mind that this applies to all POI that are set to that district and so can make your towns feel like they don't make sense in how they are laid out (e.g. having a house in the middle of skyscrapers would look weird).

Skyscrapers are dark green tile and industrial is light pink tile.

I could try putting industrial in small_town and also add more outskirtutskirt:rural which I think holds Gun Stores, Schools and Bobs boars / Carl's corn:

small_town;3;8;outskirtutskirt:rural;industrial

I could also strike out with // the tiles that are the same as bobs boars / carls corn, like the sawmill which I never bother with anyway. I like the gun stores, bobs boars / carls corn, schools, and housing development, I am not too into: drive ins, house_old_mansard_06 whatever that is, But I definitely do not need sawmills and that is the same tile as the others mentioned.

I cannot even try until the roads are built, which will be 3 days!?!

Thank you again for the tips.

 

[bobrpggamer]

You would need to find out what district has the tile(s) you want and make sure those are in the correct area.  For example, if the POI is only available on a downtown tile and you wanted it to appear more often, you could make the downtown district more widely available.  For example:

regular_town;7;any;center:downtown,commercial,industrial;outskirt:rural,residential,countrytown,downtown

small_town;3;8;outskirtutskirt:rural,countrytown,downtown

oldwest_town;1;4;outskirtldwest,downtown

You could also put something in center if it isn't there if that will help.  Just keep in mind that this applies to all POI that are set to that district and so can make your towns feel like they don't make sense in how they are laid out (e.g. having a house in the middle of skyscrapers would look weird).

I Might try:

small_town;3;8;any;center:residential,industrial;outskirt:rural

and strike out with //:

sawmill
drive In
house_old_mansard_06

Which should give me more of what I want.

Another POI that never spawns is the Hospital.

 

[spud42]

the reason roads take so long isthat they basically only use 1 thread. it skips from core to core but seems like only 1 core at a time.

press ctrl+shift+esc  then the performance tab then on CPU. i have a 5800X with 8 cores and 16 threads. you can watch the load when generating roads etc. the initial part of generating the maps uses multiple cores.

should have time this weekend to try a few more maps....trying to download height maps from tangram .

 

[paulj_3]

Downloaded your two maps, Bob. Many many thanks! They look like 'perfect' maps to me - I had hoped that they would give me some concrete direction toward making my own, but so far it's been limited to the addition of some patches of burnt forest in the 10k map. (I use 1x sulfur, 1x charcoal and 6x p. nitrate to make gunpowder The b. forest supplies the charcoal from the terrBurntForestGround, with sulfur coming from the terr_stone layer everywhere else.) 
On a more negative note, though - I have to express some disappointment with Teragon. KingGen is an almost perfect interface for the average map-maker, with Nitrogen not too far behind, but Teragon requires a skill-set - plus a time commitment - that's several frustrating levels above them both, and - I may be wrong here - but the number of people participating in this thread tells me I'm not the only one who thinks this way. My head hurts when confronted with the complexity of the "Expert" settings!  You guys are heroes here - and so is Brad with his video's - but I can only see an opportunity for a few folks - like Capt. Krunch - to create and provide maps for the rest of us. Making my own maps this way is probably over for me, and that's a pity. Thanks again, (and a bit of an apology for the small rant.)
pj

 

[Riamus]

small_town;3;8;outskirtutskirt:rural;industrial

I'm sure this was just a typo, but in case not, you have two outskirt: in there.

On a more negative note, though - I have to express some disappointment with Teragon. KingGen is an almost perfect interface for the average map-maker, with Nitrogen not too far behind, but Teragon requires a skill-set - plus a time commitment - that's several frustrating levels above them both, and - I may be wrong here - but the number of people participating in this thread tells me I'm not the only one who thinks this way. My head hurts when confronted with the complexity of the "Expert" settings!  You guys are heroes here - and so is Brad with his video's - but I can only see an opportunity for a few folks - like Capt. Krunch - to create and provide maps for the rest of us. Making my own maps this way is probably over for me, and that's a pity. Thanks again, (and a bit of an apology for the small rant.)
pj

Teragon definitely is a more advanced map maker than many people will be comfortable using.  On the other hand, RWG works well now and speed there is improving in the next alpha, so that should work fine for most users not interested in using third party or more advanced map makers.  Honestly, Teragon isn't all that difficult once you get a feel for how things work, but it does take time to get there.  Once documentation and descriptions are completed, it will not seem so difficult.

 

[Evil_Geoff]

Is that from Tangrams site?  I've been grabbing a bunch of heightmaps from there and they work great.

Actually, no. 

I went to the US Geological Survey site and downloaded the region maps I needed.  Edited them to make a composite that was like 21k x 12k, with QGIS and GIMP, then cut down/scaled to make the 8k x 8k version.

I also have heightmaps for the Boston and Las Vegas areas...

 

[Evil_Geoff]

... Teragon requires a skill-set - plus a time commitment - that's several frustrating levels above them both...
 

Not gonna lie, this is true.  However, please keep in mind that Nitrogen evolved over time with a lot of user feedback and input to get where it was.  KingGen was well on it's way and if KingSlayer had been able to continue to devote time and energy to it, I am sure that it would have gotten even better.

I'm sure that there are many improvements, bug fixes, etc. already on the way.  We are ALL in this together as bug-testers for Teragon at this point.  Shake it, rattle it, do things to it that Pille has never imagined users doing to it... break it.  Then provide feedback to make it even better.