Theater.map Editor

F4Browse, CATE, Tacedit, Terrainview & TheaterMaker etc utility related

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monster
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Theater.map Editor

Post by monster » 2008-07-28 04:15:52

Hi guys...

Doing a search yesterday in the forum, about terrain normals and Lx data values, came across some posts, in which, the "palette color" byte meaning in Lx was questioned, and on which palette this value refers to.

Being there sometime ago, I'd like to share a small utility that I made, to read the whole theater.map file, including the palette it holds. You can download this utility from here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/165727952/MAPEditorv1.1.rar

This is rather simple and straightforward, you can just edit every single color of the palette, or export it (or import it) as a bitmap.

I haven't reached any conclusions yet about what are the best colors to use in this palette, but I'm still experimenting on that in conjunction to custom tiles that we are planning to use with our theater, the East Mediterranean Front (EMF).

I hope you find it useful.

EDIT: Link updated to the latest version
Last edited by monster on 2008-11-20 19:14:40, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Snake Man » 2008-07-28 06:11:50

Hi monster and "welcome" to the forum, first post since been registered from 2005 :)

Great to hear there is someone still creating utilities for Falcon 4, I thank you for that.

Do you have any interested of coding additional utils? If so, please check out this topic: C/C++ coder wanted - Terrain Rebuilder tool project.
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monster
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Post by monster » 2008-07-28 15:06:56

Thanks Snake Man for the welcome. The truth is that, since I joined the forum, a lot of things happened and my time was extremely limited, so I couldn't be actively involved in theater "research". I had to divide my little free time between EMF development and my other project, Online Squadron Collection (F4AWACS and staff).

I have a pretty good idea about how Falcon4 works and I'm thinking of making more utilities in the future, especially now that I have more time available. Nevertheless, I have some questions about some things that maybe somebody in here might know the answers.

There is one small drawback. I'm coding in Visual Basic, and as you may know, is rather slow comparing to C++. Let's hope that this won't be a problem :lol: .
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Luk
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Post by Luk » 2008-07-28 18:56:02

Dream has become reality... :shock:

Epic
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Utility

Post by Epic » 2008-07-29 16:47:29

Thanks for sharing Monster! :D

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Luk
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colouring

Post by Luk » 2008-08-07 20:09:48

Hi, I had few minutes time today and have tried small colour test. Our new util works fine, I think. :)

at first, I have changed palette a little bit:

Image

Then changed violet to light green:

Image

good, now we have vertex-colouring inside F4!
But we must handle it carefully - to avoid flickering
I am looking forward to use it more seriously.
Colourfull mountain rocks will be beautifull...
Thank you again Monster!

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Post by Phoenix711 » 2008-08-14 00:32:21

And who says world is a monoton place :)

Well done guys.

Closter
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Post by Closter » 2008-09-08 11:30:45

What an achievement! Thank you,monster!
Closter wrote: Somebody said that palette is stored at the end of the .map file, but I have not been able to extract it or simply check it.
viewtopic.php?t=21366

Now that has changed... we now will be able to improve the colouring look of the terrain, at least by hand.
Image

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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by Closter » 2008-11-18 22:24:29

Monster,

Making good use of your tool, I was able to achieve this:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=19224#p179400

But now, could you possibly add to Map Editor the ability to export true palette files? Like .pal or .act. Don't looks hard, perhaps I am wrong.

Turning your palette bitmap files into a real palette, keeping the order of the tones one by one is a real pain in the... nose.

One question: what's the role of the alpha channel? I see every value to be 255- I can't figure anything out of this.
Image

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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by monster » 2008-11-19 23:39:39

Closter wrote:Monster,

Making good use of your tool, I was able to achieve this:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=19224#p179400

But now, could you possibly add to Map Editor the ability to export true palette files? Like .pal or .act. Don't looks hard, perhaps I am wrong.

Turning your palette bitmap files into a real palette, keeping the order of the tones one by one is a real pain in the... nose.

One question: what's the role of the alpha channel? I see every value to be 255- I can't figure anything out of this.
Hi Closter,

I'll try to add the true pallete export feature, it shouldn't be very hard. As for the Alpha channel, that is normally the transparency of the colors (whith the value of 0 to be completely transparent and 225 opaque). I don't know if it is used in the MAP file. I know that in the HDR file, that has the colors of the models, it is fully used. I guess with little experimentation we can come to a conclusion about it.
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monster
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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by monster » 2008-11-20 19:13:10

The new version of MAPEditor (v1.1.0) is available. You can download it at http://rapidshare.com/files/165727952/MAPEditorv1.1.rar.

In this version I added the function to export and import the colors as PAL and ACT files , as requested...

Hope you enjoy it...


*First post is updated...
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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by Sherlock » 2008-11-20 19:16:25

monster wrote:The new version of MAPEditor (v1.1.0) is available. You can download it at http://rapidshare.com/files/165727952/MAPEditorv1.1.rar.

In this version I added the function to export and import the colors as PAL and ACT files , as requested...

Hope you enjoy it...


*First post is updated...
Thank you so much for taking the time to provide us with another utility. It is definitely appreciated!
Sherlock
Victurous te Saluto

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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by Closter » 2008-11-21 12:37:42

Thank you very much, monster! Really apreciated...
Image

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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by Polak » 2009-01-18 02:20:07

I have read through the entire thread and did not quite got it what is this all about. :idea: :?:

However, being little curious if I could remove all coloration from ODS in order to test the new tiles in completely neutral colors I changed the entire ODS Theater.map to all pure white 255, 255, 255. It worked for a while and I could test all new tiles in their real colors. But later when in order to find what all this is about I started changing 1st color to purple I got CTD. :(

I made mistake and I did not copy ODS theater.map Can someone be kind to send me?
My PM ktpcm1mathotmaildotcom . I'll appreciate.

But then questions :?: remain - what is this Theater map all about. What is the mapping of all positions of the 256 palette here? What is the real and practical purpose of it?

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Luk
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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by Luk » 2009-01-18 08:55:36

This file stores palette. This palatte is linked with a data/value inside terrain mesh file. Originally this X value is probably for haze colouring (?). But in F4AF it looks, this value is able to colour a polygon directly. The same like vertexcolouring in DirectX, openGl or WRML. I have an idea to make some variation in terrain look, using this polygon-colouring. Not by hand, automaticaly because CATE can handle it.
F4 terrain has 5 resolution levels. The engine is changing them as LOD (levels of detail). You can see small L0 square, larger L1... etc. L0 and L1 meshes are really near. We can not to larger their visibility as I know. So I have an idea to paint a bitmap in L3 resolution, then change it to L2 and perhaps add some more details - but only rarery and colour should be interpolated. Than you will not see terrain levels changes.
I have plan to use it for variations. It will make terrain look better, especially from high.
Imagine - colorfull mountains, rocks, grassland areas, riparian woodland, parched fields, touch of snow on forrests and fields under the "ever snow line", shallow and deep waters(cant wait for Jadran isles)....for desert theaters it will be amazing - imagine all the variations you can see in googleearth. And all (about 250) colours with only authentic tileset.
I have it tested in AF only. I can not wait to see the result, but clientele is pusuit me brutally last half year and I dont have time. :cry:
Luk
P.S. small note - perhaps L2 resolutin bitmap will be good. I am not sure. YOu can see some coloured tiles quite far away on the above images. Of course it will be better to have more detailed variations. L3 downgrade is only an idea, if it will "blink"...

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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by Luk » 2009-01-18 12:30:02

I remember, there is a function for lowering terrain texture distance in Falcon4. When it is set to lower values, you dont see tiles far from you. You see only shaded solid colour. I thing it is the tile colour - X value we are talking about. Perhaps this X value has nothing to do with haze from the beginning....or.... It is possible, the haze is derivation of this value, but managed by some hidden algoritmus.
I thing the original purpose is realtime rendering optimalization. F4 was developed during 1993? -98...
Luk

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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by Polak » 2009-01-18 19:54:07

Interesting, I will now read all with attention. Can someone email me ODS Theater.map to ktpcm1mathotmaildotcom. I do not want reinstall ODS only because of that file. Thank you.

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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by Polak » 2009-01-21 00:58:34

So far, for rather obvious reasons repaint of the ODS terrain is not particularly pleasing as seen from higher altitudes. Unfortunately this is where the player spends most of the flying time on the missions. Any idea leading to improve effect of repeating and rather monotonous terrain using Map Editor would be welcomed.
For now I am using Theater,map edited to have all colors 255, 255, 255 which makes no shading on the terrain whatsoever. This is to test tiles in their natural colors ( and makes the day brighter :) )

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Luk
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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by Luk » 2009-01-21 14:54:56

Do you can post some screenshot please? Is it "white=pure texture" really true?
Luk

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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by Polak » 2009-01-22 01:53:00

Luk,
I gladly give the screen shot, meanwhile please try to change all colors of map palette to 255,255, 255 and see the difference. Make a backup of course first of your existing file.

I do not know nearly anything about this *.map file, but wonder what significance, if any, has a each particular color location/position on 256 palette.

PS. Luk, are you by chance from Poland? or Slovakia?

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Luk
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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by Luk » 2009-01-22 16:31:05

I will look at it as soon as possible.
BTW- I am Czech and I live about 40km south from Prag. There is also Bohemia Interactive hq and planned XBR radar station quite near...

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Luk
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export extension

Post by Luk » 2009-05-03 13:50:26

Hi Monster.
Your tool is excelent. But it is still tedious work to paint large area. I have tested L2reader util for automatic terrain colouring (from BMP), but it can handle 64 theaters only. 128 theaters have updated X1 value, but messed segments (when L2reader is used).
The next util is CATE. But we need config files for it.
May I ask you for an other export format please?
It is simple text format (but it can have "conf" filename extension)
It should look like this:
-------------------------------
[Rules: 0]
Color=252,18,38
ForceFog=0 * *
[EndRules]

[Rules: 1]
Color=68,79,45
ForceFog=1 * *
[EndRules]

[Rules: 2]
Color=0,255,160
ForceFog=2 * *
[EndRules]

.
.
.
. etc.
.
.

[Rules: 255]
Color=0,255,168
ForceFog=255 * *
[EndRules]
----------------------------------------------
Exported file will be CATE config for large bitmap painting.
Color=R,G,B - values from our palette according to position in color table
position number = rule name = colour number

Thank You very much.

Luk

monster
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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by monster » 2009-05-03 18:50:00

Hi guys,

I didn't have time to make a setup file for this update, so I just created a patch. Just overwrite the exe file of the installed program, with the one you'll find inside the rar.

Download link: http://rapidshare.com/files/228783751/M ... _patch.rar
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Luk
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Re: Theater.map Editor

Post by Luk » 2009-05-04 02:52:26

Wow! Thanks for fast response.
I can say new export module works well. I have used it with 4byte cate and have updated whole Eu128 theater quite fast.
The result is smooth - no "blips". I can say colouring in L2 resolution is a good choice. :D
Luk

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