ReadL2 Util

[Skyfire76]

Good

Off to code

Regards.

[Widowmaker]

quote:Originally posted by Skyfire76:
About other ideas, I think that it is important that we keep the ability to have rules as in early versions, as well as rules associated with a BMP.

Two reasons for this : translating data into a terrain grid and then back is a long process, so if you can do it with TileRules on L2 alone, all the better. And standard rules do not need you to create a BMP

I think I could try something like this : revert to having just one conf file. First line of conf file would say if you wish to use standard or BMP rules. Then update all standard rules so that they can be applied at the same time of BMP rules.

That would look like WM said above :

TieRule=1000 2000 and so on for standard rules
TileRule=R,G,B 1000 2000 and so on for BMP rules

What do you think ?

(I think this is not bad, but could be enhanced, because if you have two colors where you would want to apply the same rules, you would have to repeat these rules. Likewise, if you have several rules for one color, you need to repeat that color each time).

Regards.

This is exactly what we need


Widmak

[Widowmaker]

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
That would be good to have, yes.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

I agree
this would solve all problems.

Widmak

[Skyfire76]

I just finished a new version (will send it soon ). No include/exclude list in this version yet.

In this version, when you apply CATE and BMP rules at the same time, the BMP will just give CATE what regions should be updated.

Problem, maybe, is that all you have to do is use color in the BMP.

That's hard to explain, but I think you'll understand when trying. I think that what we need is one way to link colors in BMP to a set of standard CATE rules, so that you can use different colors to define different regions with different CATE rules ...

[EDIT]
With this new version, you can do it, but with multiple passes, changing BMP and conf files each time
[/EDIT]

Try it, think about this (if you understood anything at all in what I just said ) and let me know.

Regards.

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by Skyfire76:
when you apply CATE and BMP rules at the same time, the BMP will just give CATE what regions should be updated.

That is working very well in my test. Good job!

quote:That's hard to explain, but I think you'll understand when trying.

Was no problem, made it run ok.

quote:to link colors in BMP to a set of standard CATE rules, so that you can use different colors to define different regions with different CATE rules ...

Oh... yeah now we have to swap/edit the conf files if we want to change two types of feature tiles and so on. Yes yes... it would be very cool to have all go in one pass.

Could the Widowmakers suggestion work:
R,G,B=1 999999 115 (250-255-259) * * * *
First is the color what we scan and then its the rule we enforce to the color?

If I make any sense again (dunno if I get it myself heh).

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Skyfire76]

In fact, I'm more thinking in a sort of sections in CATE rules :

CATE File :

[Section 1]
ForceFog=...
TileRule=...
TileRule=...
RandAlt=...

[Section 2]
ForceFog=...
TileRule=...
TileRule=...
RandAlt=...

and then BMP Rules

R1,G1,B1=1 (refers to section 1)
R2,G2,B2=2 (refers to section 2)

and so on.

If you only want BMP rules, the numbers will refer to tile numbers instead of sections.

If you only want CATE rules, errrhh, I have to figure out how to do exactly so that it is understandable easily.

Still with me ?

Regards.

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by Skyfire76:
I'm more thinking in a sort of sections in CATE rules

Yeah! Could these be like:

[dry farm section]
ForceFog=...
TileRule=...
TileRule=...
RandAlt=...

[wet farm section]
ForceFog=...
TileRule=...
TileRule=...
RandAlt=...

[forest section]
ForceFog=...
TileRule=...
TileRule=...
RandAlt=...

Meaning one section contains like one tile-set's rules?

I was thinking this predefined feature tile's list earlier, so if we have situation that we need to change existing feature tiles to something else, we would just process like:

"if found [dry] OR [wet] then replace with [forest]"

Hmm.. no.. erh I'm lost again

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Skyfire76]

hehe, you lost me too again

This week-end, I'll try to work on a version which will allow you to associate different rules to different painted regions, as well as update the tile rules to manage include/exclude list.

As usual, this is if I have the time

Regards.

[Snake Man]

Just got to think that even at this stage the rule system of CATE is so complex that retarded guy like me have to wonder few moments before anything good comes to the conf files.

So when we get few more features in, its time to create page for CATE in our tutorials.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Skyfire76]

LOL ! yes, that could be a good idea

Regards.

[Skyfire76]

Just a quick question : do you think it is useful to keep the possibility to have BMP rules, and then independantly CATE rules.

I think that CATE rules only, or BMP rules in relation to CATE rules is enough.

Your opinion ?

Regards.

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by Skyfire76:
I think that CATE rules only, or BMP rules in relation to CATE rules is enough.

As referring to the earlier retarded part, if I understand the operation correctly now, then yes sounds good to me.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Snake Man]

Skyfire, if you get tile coordinate can you check the nearest tiles for it?

Thinking of the Airbase leveling here. Usually it goes like this:

OO
XO
OO

or

OOO
OXO

Where X is the is the airbase coordinate tile and O's are the other tiles. Six tiles on normal airbases and then those few special bases that have more.

Or should this feature be for the other util, the "Autotiling thoughts" util?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Skyfire76]

Well, this seems somewhat doable (though I don't know what you want me to do with these AB tiles).

However, like you said, this is more related to autotiling.

So, for now, I'd like that we manage to come up with a "final" version of CATE before moving to autotiling.

So, test that latest version I sent you this morning, let's correct the bugs (if any

Regards.

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by Skyfire76:
let's correct the bugs (if any ), add some features if necessary, and then we'll move to autotiling.
We have a deal ?

Sounds good to me. Any word from xjussix?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Widowmaker]

quote:Originally posted by Skyfire76:
Well, this seems somewhat doable (though I don't know what you want me to do with these AB tiles).

However, like you said, this is more related to autotiling.

So, for now, I'd like that we manage to come up with a "final" version of CATE before moving to autotiling.

So, test that latest version I sent you this morning, let's correct the bugs (if any

Regards.

that is probably best
I go one request
I need a broader way to manipulate X1
right now on ODS i need to modify
about 50 tiles or more for there X1 and in the future probabaly more

could we have a sring of tiles in wich we can do stuff in one pass for instance

10 10000 (23,24,350) * 252 * * *

between 10 and 1000 feet change X1 to 252
on tileoffset 23,24,350..

Widmak

[Widowmaker]

WOW

just go your mail with version3
from what I see it is already possible...

boy this is looking great very great

will test it tonight on river Tigris in ODS

Widmak

[Skyfire76]

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
Sounds good to me. Any word from xjussix?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

No, I think that what would be best is that xjussix could work on TerrainView.

This, of course, would need codec's approval.

Regards.

[Skyfire76]

quote:Originally posted by Widowmaker:

that is probably best
I go one request
I need a broader way to manipulate X1
right now on ODS i need to modify
about 50 tiles or more for there X1 and in the future probabaly more

could we have a sring of tiles in wich we can do stuff in one pass for instance

10 10000 (23,24,350) * 252 * * *

between 10 and 1000 feet change X1 to 252
on tileoffset 23,24,350..

Widmak

This should be easy to do : all I have to do for this to work is allow (*) in tile to replace (that is, do not replace tile).

For next version ...

Regards.

[Skyfire76]

quote:Originally posted by Widowmaker:
WOW

just go your mail with version3
from what I see it is already possible...

boy this is looking great very great

will test it tonight on river Tigris in ODS

Widmak

No, this is not yet possible (see my above post), but I think I can have a version doing this for this evening

Regards.

[xjussix]

I'm here lurking!

I'm just waiting for some final decisions if I should start out with a completely new application or am I to edit TerrainView..

[Widowmaker]

thnx

Great customer support..

Good Luck
Widmak

[Skyfire76]

Updated version sent

BTW : did you read the little guide to using CATE I wrote in the readme ? If so, did you find it useful (I think it lacks some "real" screenshots examples) ?

Regards.

[Widowmaker]

very nice manual indeed

I just printed it.

yup some screenies would be nice
Snakeman??


will test all tonight
have to go back to freaking work in 1.5 hours
thanx for the updated version

Widmak

[T_Rex]

Hi All!

First - wow (again). This thing is gonna be great (whenever there's a feature freeze)!

Keep up the good work!
T

[Skyfire76]

I'm not completly sure about what you ask (as usual ), but I think it can be done in CATE : if, in the conf file, you do not define one color that is in the BMP, CATE will do nothing if it finds this color (thus, this color is "transparent")

Regards.

[T_Rex]

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
Lets assume we have desert all around, but then we use bmp to draw small swamp somewhere in the desert. Now when we do the another pass and change the roads/rivers/cities according to elevation - CATE will bulldoze over the swamp area... and we have desert road tiles tiled over the swamp which looks awful (we had just this situation before CATE).

This is kinda what I was trying to address. I'm a couple steps behind (as usual). I see that this is where the button selections for CATE and BMP reading come in.

I guess what would be ideal (and this is where the tilerules come in), would be a cross-check between the elevation and the bmp, where if the bmp is brown and the elevation is 5000, then its a mountain, but if the bmp is green and the elevation is 5000 the tile is a forest mountainside or farmland or whatever.

Or, actually, if the BMP reading CATE could substitute green background roads for desert roads where the BMP is colored green, that would work, too, I think.

Oh I don't know. 90% of this thread shows how many people there are in the world that are smarter than me!!!

[Skyfire76]

If I'm not mistaken about what you say, T-Rex, this is covered by CATE.

What you do is associate a color to a set of rules. And as TileRules can be linked to an altitude range, I think that's what you want.

Regards.

[T_Rex]

Kewl!

The manual for this ought to be VERY interesting!

[Skyfire76]

Yep, I think it is

BTW : Snake Man, WidowMaker, my mail server is out, so if you want to say something to me, say it here.

And I hope that the latest version I sent you is bug free because I can't send another while the server is down, and I don't know how much time it will last.

Regards.

[Skyfire76]

Disregard previous post : mail server is back online

Regards.

[T_Rex]

Disregarding....

[Skyfire76]

Some updates, guys

I'm happy to tell you that for the last two days, I've been working with SnakeMan to add a features (roads, cities, rivers) autotiling in CATE.

Up to now, it works rather well, but we always put the same terrain on features tiles, which is not related to the surroundings of course.

We're searching for a way to do that better, though it can already be done with the other rules of CATE (but IMHO that's a lot of work to type all the rules replacing tiles with the correct ones).

Regards.

[Snake Man]

CATE does now auto tiling!

Notice that bridge placement!




This is very good progress on CATE, it still doesn't do perfect auto tiling for example the bridges are only placed if road and river are perfectly aligned, but that shows you direction we are heading.

My hat goes off to Skyfire!

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Widowmaker]

awesome

Yo guys are doing a great job

Widmak

[twaelti]

Outstanding work I'm discovering here
Congratulations to all of you - simply amazing!
Unfortunately, I dropped in a bit too late to help with the BMP stuff...in F4Weather, I had the same problem in handling BMPs in VB. Simple solution: the template/color map must be saved in RAW format: Then you get one byte for every pixel - and the value of the byte describes the color number used.

Hey Widowmaker: Iceland looks gooood. You know who to contact for regional-beenthere-consulting

[Skyfire76]

Yes, Tom, that's exactly how it is done in CATE. Only "problem" with the BMP is that lines are reversed (i.e. first line of pixels correspond to last line of real picture), but that's not a big deal

Regards.

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by tom2:
Outstanding work I'm discovering here
Congratulations to all of you - simply amazing!
Unfortunately, I dropped in a bit too late to help with the BMP stuff...

Welcome aboard!

Hey the serious stuff is just beginning now, we need all the brain power we need to figure out good algorithm to CATE so it can mimic real human tiler

I think Skyfire could post some issues of what CATE is facing now with that Feature Tiling rule's.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Skyfire76]

What ? Issues and CATE are two incompatible words

- We're going soon to add airbase leveling and transition tile placement to CATE. I have not yet all the details, but any input on this would also be welcome.

I think that's all for now.

Regards.

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by Skyfire76:
roads and rivers cross and cross again, resulting in a big mess (SnakeMan, could you post your screenshot about this ?).

You want mess? YOU want MESS??

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE MESS!

quote:I have no idea about how to solve this

Here we need some cool algorithms to process the MESS.

quote:- We're going soon to add airbase leveling and transition tile placement to CATE. I have not yet all the details, but any input on this would also be welcome.

By reading our airbase leveling tutorial, you get the basic idea how the airbase leveling is now done by human hand.
http://www.pmctactical.org/f4/docs/airbaselevel.php

I just scanned ODS airbase.csv file and there are 320 airbases or airstrips. Its difficult to say how many minutes it will take for me to level one of these, but lets throw amount of... hmm 15 minutes here. We can easily count the saved time if we automatize this.

Here we go:

CATE should first read the CSV file (from Tacedit export objectives, airbases only) to get airbase types and coordinates.

By looking the type, we know which airbase tiles/orientation we want. The coordinates mark the spot where to place the airbase tile-set. For example these are the two types I used for ODS... famous O's mark the other airbase tiles and X is the coordinate tile:

OO
XO
OO

and

OOO
OXO

There are also other types but these two are pretty good start. So now we know the type and coordinates (X) and we place the tiles, but we need to level the airbase so we dont get the "stairs effect" ingame because the terrain is at various altitudes under the tiles. So we are going to level all these tiles: O's, X and L's

LLLL
LOOL
LXOL
LOOL
LLLL

and our other type

LLLLL
LOOOL
LOXOL
LLLLL

This is because if we only level the airbase tiles, the next adjanced tiles still can effect the airbase by tilting the runway.

So how do we level it? We will scan the O's, X and L's for the HIGHEST altitude found and then we use that altiude for ALL the tiles. Voila! we have tiled airbase and holy smokes we have saved so much tiling work from humans again its unbelievable!

Ideas/comments/guestions.

PMC TFW
Snake Man