ReadL2 Util

xjussix · Post by **xjussix** » 2002-03-05 05:45:00

I think what codec posted in the "autotiling thoughts" thread sounds quite sensible to me. Something that I didn't quite understand is, should the utility read every tile in a (l2?) file and based on them create that database? Or what?

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 07:55:00

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
I have always just wrote there like "afghanistan" and hit save or enter. Then it saves nicely "afghanistan.L2" hmm, thats the v1.20

PMC TFW
Snake Man

That looks like previous versions, where you had, indeed, to put the file name without the extension.

In the version you tried, do you have "Browse" buttons, which open a Microsoft Dialog box ?

Regards.

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 07:56:00

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
I just tried out the tile randomizer, this is the config lines used:

#
# generic background tile randomizer
#
TileRule=1 1640 382 (382-48-49-50-64-65-66-67-256-257-258-259-260-96-97-98-99-544-545-546-547-548-549-550-551) * * * *
TileRule=1640 6560 46 (45-1808-1819-1828-1835-1836-1837-1838-1839) * * * *
TileRule=6560 11481 480 (480-240-241-242-243-244-245-246-247-248-249-250-251-252-253-254-255-273-274-275-276-277-278-1670-1671-1672-1673-1674-1675-1676-1677-1678-1679-1680-1681-1682-1683-1684-1685-1686-16 87-1688-1689-1690-1691-1692-1693-1694-1695-1697) * * * *
TileRule=11481 99999 496 (496-1504-1505-1506-1507-1508-1509-1510-1511-1512-1513-1514-1515-1516-1517-1518-1519) * * * *

Uh that might be a bit long for the forum but... you'll get the idea.

It works great! No problems what so ever on 128 segment map.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Damn, I would have not thought you would do something like this (really long list there)

But if it works, I'm happy

Regards.

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 08:01:00

Some more thoughts :

- I'll see what I can do about "creating" the O2 file with the L2 file

- Same thing about heights of 0 or 1 foot. WidowMaker should tell us also what he thinks about this.

Ideas for another program : I have, I think, all the infos I needed to start a BMP reader.

IMHO, the idea would be :

- xjussix could do a program to paint a bitmap, with an UI allowing the user to associate a colour to a tile number. That program would save the bitmap, and create as well a conf file listing colours/tiles associations
- I'll do the Bmp2Lf program, which would read the said BMP, and read the configuration from the previously created file.

What do you think, guys ?

Regards.

xjussix · Post by **xjussix** » 2002-03-05 08:15:00

Sounds quite good to me. A few questions:
Hmm, does this mean one had to do this procedure to EVERY bmp? How many bmps there are generally in a theater?

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 08:19:00

No, the idea would be to draw one bmp for the whole theater, where each pixel would represent a tile.

Read some posts above (WM gave the size of the bitmaps IIRC, regarding terrain size.

For example, a 64x64 terrain needs a 1024x1024 bitmap (64x16).

Am I clear enough ?

Regards.

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 08:24:00

In fact, this BMP is a map of the theater. And, IMHO, a godd enhancement to this program would be to take a real map and find a way to resize it and "recolour" it ...

Regards.

xjussix · Post by **xjussix** » 2002-03-05 08:31:00

DUH DUH DUH DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All clear now, sounds like a really good thing! I will see to it..Do you need that BMP file format anymore?

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 08:35:00

No, I've found what I wanted.

But let's wait for SnakeMan's and WidowMaker's ideas before you start anything

Regards.

xjussix · Post by **xjussix** » 2002-03-05 08:41:00

Heh, don't expect anything to be released within a week

You know how it is with a little child and a wife

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-05 08:46:00

Very nice to hear you guys are on it, but here is some facts from my perspective.

Graphical program where we can draw/paint the map with different colors which we simply choose to go with certain terrain types sounds like an awesome util to have...

However I am totally satistfied if I just take paint shop pro or similiar painter program, draw/paint the theater terrain map into 1024x1024 bmp image. Then just scan the bmp with "bmp reader" which outputs config file to CATE. This config file then says which colors were used on which pixel when I open CATE.

But of course the ultimate tool would be to have one program that associates the colors we paint/draw with the terraintypes and outputs that CATE readable config file.

I'm just wondering, would it be faster and easier to code only the "bmp reader" and the CATE function to read that bmp reader outputted config file? Maybe we could do the fancy pants ultimate tool a bit later when we get all functions working.

I dont know, you guys are the coders

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 08:54:00

I can do relatively quickly one basic program which reads a BMP, a conf file, and translates this into a L2 and O2 file (provided I've understood everything about L2 and O2 ...

). And this should not be CATE, IMHO : CATE reads and modify a L2 file, this one needs to read a bmp, and create a O2 and L2 file.

Problem will be that each time you want to do this, you have to create the config file with all your 256 colors associated to tile numbers. That's where xjussix could do something : load tile numbers from

, and let you associate these numbers to your colors, and at last create the said config file. This program could be later enhanced to be a small paint program as well ...

What do you say ?

Regards.

xjussix · Post by **xjussix** » 2002-03-05 08:57:00

quote:Originally posted by Skyfire76:
load tile numbers from , and let you associate these numbers to your colors, and at last create the said config file. This program could be later enhanced to be a small paint program as well ...

Yes, I can handle this but like Skyfire said, WHERE should I load the tile numbers?

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-05 08:57:00

quote:Originally posted by Skyfire76:
- I'll see what I can do about "creating" the O2 file with the L2 file

Simply copying from the input L2/O2 is ok, that should be simple. And that feature is not even a high priority, its just user friendliness.

quote:- Same thing about heights of 0 or 1 foot. WidowMaker should tell us also what he thinks about this.

I can live with the "if alt<1 then alt==1" but Widowmaker wants to be able to produce 0 altitude (ocean) also.

quote:I have, I think, all the infos I needed to start a BMP reader.

Great. That is going to be one bad util I tell you, it will help the tilers SO MUCH.

quote:- xjussix could do a program to paint a bitmap, with an UI allowing the user to associate a colour to a tile number.

- I'll do the Bmp2Lf program, which would read the said BMP, and read the configuration from the previously created file.

Like I said in the earlier post, this would be the dream scenario, not necessary at this point in my opinion, but it would be very very sweet.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 09:06:00

SnakeMan, here's what I propose :

For CATE :
I'll force the user to use the browse buttons, as well as use and ".l2" extension for l2 terrain file, then copy the old O2 file (eventually saving previous one under another name).

For altitudes, I'd like to avoid parameters with variable lenghth. So, I'll create an update so that :
M-200F will behave as before
M-200G will do the same thing but will keep altitude above 1 foot.

These two features will not take me long, and after that I'll start a Bmp2Lf program.

Copy that ?

Regards.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-05 09:11:00

Tile number reading is not an issue.

Here are the example default terrain type tilenumbers: in vietnam the wet farmland tile is #160, dry farmland #48. In Desert Storm the desert tile is #382, light brown mountain is #46, dark mountain is #244. So you see these are all changing according to the tilemaker of the current theater.

We definitely do not need 256 different terrain types. I think the basic colours would be maybe like: green = farmland, dark green = forest, brown = mountain, white = snowcap... etc.

Widowmaker posted it like this, first would be the tile number and next would be the color palette:

quote:Tilelist:
16 0,0,0
48 0,10,0

Its up to the user not to mess up the palettes and colours, but like I said we can live with that for now. Being sharp with these configuration is nothing compared to the excessive workload which is required to tile a 128 theater.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-05 09:14:00

quote:Originally posted by Skyfire76:
I'll force the user to use the browse buttons, as well as use and ".l2" extension for l2 terrain file, then copy the old O2 file (eventually saving previous one under another name).

Yeah there is no point to save terrain.L2 files to anything else except <name>.L2

quote:I'll create an update so that :
M-200F will behave as before
M-200G will do the same thing but will keep altitude above 1 foot.

Very good.

quote:These two features will not take me long, and after that I'll start a Bmp2Lf program.
Copy that ?

Roger!

PMC TFW
Snake Man

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-05 09:19:00

One important point for the terrain type bmp reader...

Lets assume we have autotiled L2 file with roads, rivers and basic terrain types (basic, like from the DEM2L2 etc). But we want to change some regions not by altitude (CATE) but our own pleasure. For example in Iraqi desert there are swamps which sounds totally crazy to me.

Anyways we paint the areas and bmp reader reads etc etc. Then when CATE will implement this new "area" of different terrain type, it would apply it to the existing roads, rivers etc because if it just applies it to the plain and simple terrain type tiles, the basic CATE operation does not knowledge it at all as it runs it over like bulldozer looking just the altitude rules.

Am I making any sense, its bit difficult to explain?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

xjussix · Post by **xjussix** » 2002-03-05 09:23:00

Hmm, somehow I get this feeling I should have a fixed tile list "inside" my proggie.

Let's say the proggie scans a given bmp pixel by pixel. It checks the colour of each pixel and if the colour corresponds to a rgb value in the tile list the pixel is then associated with the tile number of that rgb value. It then writes the config file.

Am I right? Should it work like this?

xjussix · Post by **xjussix** » 2002-03-05 09:26:00

Yes, you are making sense. I got the hang of it..Hmm, gotta think about it.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-05 09:30:00

quote:Originally posted by xjussix:
It checks the colour of each pixel and if the colour corresponds to a rgb value in the tile list the pixel is then associated with the tile number of that rgb value.

Yeah that sounds right. There would be list of tile numbers and matching RGB values. Of course nice error checks that if there is color in the image which is not listed in config file etc.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

xjussix · Post by **xjussix** » 2002-03-05 09:35:00

Which leads to this: Is it a problem that terrain makers that want to use this little proggie are forced to use a fixed tile list?

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 09:36:00

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
One important point for the terrain type bmp reader...

Lets assume we have autotiled L2 file with roads, rivers and basic terrain types (basic, like from the DEM2L2 etc). But we want to change some regions not by altitude (CATE) but our own pleasure. For example in Iraqi desert there are swamps which sounds totally crazy to me.

Anyways we paint the areas and bmp reader reads etc etc. Then when CATE will implement this new "area" of different terrain type, it would apply it to the existing roads, rivers etc because if it just applies it to the plain and simple terrain type tiles, the basic CATE operation does not knowledge it at all as it runs it over like bulldozer looking just the altitude rules.

Am I making any sense, its bit difficult to explain?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

What makes sense here is that you're calling CATE a bulldozer

I'll try to explain a little bit how I see things :

Hopefully, we will have :

1 - A program made by xjussix that will allow to create easily a conf file for Bmp2Lf (and maybe some other features)

2 - Bmp2lf : will read a BMP map, the above conf file, and will create O2 and L2 files accordingly

3 - CATE : will modify tiles in any L2 file, according to rules (you know which ones)

Now, as you say, up to now, we have absolutely no idea of paths (rivers, roads, and so on).

How can this be taken into accound and where ?

Regards.

xjussix · Post by **xjussix** » 2002-03-05 09:55:00

Skyfire, let me know the config file format whenever you have sorted it out.

Widowmaker · Post by **Widowmaker** » 2002-03-05 10:00:00

quote:Originally posted by Skyfire76:
What makes sense here is that you're calling CATE a bulldozer

I'll try to explain a little bit how I see things :

Hopefully, we will have :

1 - A program made by xjussix that will allow to create easily a conf file for Bmp2Lf (and maybe some other features)

2 - Bmp2lf : will read a BMP map, the above conf file, and will create O2 and L2 files accordingly

3 - CATE : will modify tiles in any L2 file, according to rules (you know which ones)

Now, as you say, up to now, we have absolutely no idea of paths (rivers, roads, and so on).

How can this be taken into accound and where ?

Regards.

sounds all very cool
as for the bmp manipulator very nice indeed
we can do it with psp or photoshop
but to have a all in one dedicatesd proggie would be nice indeed

basically it should be able to work with
1024
2048
4096 bmp's

as for terrain features
for airbases it will be best to read out a cam file.. as Snakeman pointed out theat the 'original' point data is too rough for it

roads river cities can be 'simply'
read from point and line data we got.

Coast and Transitions need to be read from the L2 directly using a tilelist

now we need to gather info on how point and line data is ordered (pretty simple)

cam file I got no clue about

and scanning the L2/O2 for transitions is gonna be the hardest bitch..

as for the M-200F M-200G proposal for the 0 or 1 feet minimum
I'm all for it

Widmak

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 10:06:00

Updated CATE version is already sent

I think (tell me if I'm wrong) that transitions should be done within Bmp2Lf.

But for now, I'll try to produce a simple version, which will do BMP -> O2 and L2, based only on pixel color. If it works, I'll try to add features (such as transitions) later.

Regards.

xjussix · Post by **xjussix** » 2002-03-05 10:10:00

Aren't you the hasty one!

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 10:12:00

quote:Originally posted by xjussix:
Aren't you the hasty one!

Hum, I'm bored at work ...

BTW : go to Frugal's, I've left you a PM there ...

Regards.

Widowmaker · Post by **Widowmaker** » 2002-03-05 10:15:00

this is how the Terrain definition files
are structured
this one is a road.tdf
the coordinates are coodinates on the grid

the first number is how many coordinates are in that row
the rest is coordinates on were there is road on the map

ROAD 3 216,291 216,291 218,291
ROAD 8 169,290 169,292 169,293 169,296 170,297 170,297 173,296 182,290
ROAD 8 196,300 196,300 195,299 192,296 191,295 190,293 189,291 189,290
ROAD 5 216,291 215,291 213,292 213,292 211,290
ROAD 2 216,290 216,291
ROAD 2 218,290 218,291
ROAD 2 218,290 218,290
ROAD 3 218,290 216,289 216,290
ROAD 3 189,290 189,289 190,285
ROAD 3 182,290 185,288 190,285
ROAD 3 190,285 191,282 191,279
ROAD 6 172,274 172,276 172,278 171,287 170,288 169,290
ROAD 8 172,274 173,273 177,274 183,277 185,278 187,278 189,279 191,279
ROAD 23 138,285 139,285 142,282 145,281 146,279 148,277 149,277 150,276 150,275 151,272 152,271 152,270 152,270 155,270 157,270 159,270 160,270 163,271 167,273 169,274 171,274 172,274 172,274
ROAD 16 211,290 209,289 205,285 204,285 200,282 197,279 196,277 196,276 196,275 196,274 197,272 197,270 196,268 192,265 191,264 190,264
ROAD 6 191,279 192,276 192,274 190,268 190,265 190,264

Widowmaker · Post by **Widowmaker** » 2002-03-05 10:19:00

thnx for the new version.
boy you are fast

Widmak

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 10:25:00

Did you actually receive it ?

It seems I have some problems with my mail server

Regards.

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 10:37:00

And did any one of you try to send me an email (I had some from xjussix early morning, but that's all) ?

Regards.

Widowmaker · Post by **Widowmaker** » 2002-03-05 10:38:00

yup
i recieved it

I will send you a test mail back in 1 minute

Widmak

xjussix · Post by **xjussix** » 2002-03-05 10:55:00

Skyfire, I received your mail you sent this morning just a few seconds ago.

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 11:00:00

quote:Originally posted by xjussix:
Skyfire, I received your mail you sent this morning just a few seconds ago.

Or abusing some forums to communicate

Damn, two hours for a single mail (size : 5 KB), really outstanding

Regards.

xjussix · Post by **xjussix** » 2002-03-05 11:04:00

Watch out, with your post counts FW and soon PMC forum will be down

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 15:30:00

Some info on Bmp2Lf :

OK, now, I'm reading a BMP and loading it into memory without problem.

I was preparing data structures for tiles to start conversion, when something stroke me.

How in hell do I know how to assign altitude to a tile by reading a bitmap

If someone could enlighten me, I'd be grateful ...

Regards.

Widowmaker · Post by **Widowmaker** » 2002-03-05 15:40:00

You don't

the bmp is just to define tilesets per region

color A (RGB 10,10,10 will get ofsett 16 for instance
then with current cate we can tile per altitude again
using
1 500 16 20 * * * * * *
500 1500 16 40 * * * * *
etc

we will do this for every region..
so basically all it has to do noww is read the bmp
and per color in the index assign a offset
then CATE we can use to tile per altitude again
etcetera

hope it is clear this way
Widmak

Skyfire76 · Post by **Skyfire76** » 2002-03-05 15:44:00

I'll take this to email, if you don't mind, because it's not clear at all

Regards.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-03-05 15:44:00

quote:Originally posted by Skyfire76:
How in hell do I know how to assign altitude to a tile by reading a bitmap

Idea of the bmp drawing is that you, the painter/drawer tell to the program what to tile and where to tile. Those are the two rules - What and Where. Altitude is no factor here.

Can you get me firs preview version already today?

PMC TFW
Snake Man