SC4Terraformer, a tool for regional handterraforming

[DuskTrooper 314]

Dude, that is absolutely reaking BRILLIANT!

[GaBoR 7]

Like everyone else above: Absolutely Incredible! I hope you'll share with us your progress in this project soon... Great Tool!!! (that sounded kinda wierd) Great Terraformer!!! (that's more apropiate)

[cowcorn 11]

Just a question: Will the tool be able to create a config.bmp fair a region that is not yet imported.

[purpledaddy 6]

The talent on our site keeps amazing me!

[Ryan B 35]

Biggest revolution to the game since the beginning of the NAM. Holy mackerel, this is amazing.

[moganite 4]

Sweet this would  take freehand maps to a whole new level i love it

I wonder if you can add trees to a region tere must be alot of people who are sick of trees. One pomt i would like to make is have the ability to render without  custom texturepacks  as i don't use them at all i don't know how many people don't use texture packs.

 All up Awesome

[Nardo69 51]

Great work!

A tool that can work directly on the regions is great!

If I am allowed to ask for a wish than it would be perfect to have a tool to make elevations on a given height (for bridges and tunnels - I still don't understand why EA did not implemented the query function for terrain elevation from SC3K to SC4!!! ) as well as to make ramps and slope with a given slope of lets say 2%.

Can't wait to try this one ou!

Bernhard

[sloppet 3]

Holy cow! Now that is what you call a "killer program" ...

[wouanagaine 84]

Wow thanks for all that supports

great ideas

DJGspinNhitz : Yes it's in the wish list

Bourneid : Maybe there will be some preset, but for the moment the region need to be created in sc4 than after edited in the tool.

diablo_del_bano : it's a standalone app, but may require the game for some data. I still don't know

Keiran Halcyon : Yes this tool read the savegame elevation, not the jpg. cool smiley . I'll look for a compression scheme

Cowcorn : maybe. I'm not sure , let's get this in the wish list

Moganite : actually I think the trees chunk in the savegame is not fully specified. Moreover I've run the test in a forest region, and the trees stay at the same place, that's bad they're not following the change in elevation. For the texture actually I do not use the ingame. I just generate one on the fly

Bernhard : Yes in the wish list

So for keeping you informed :

I'm moving the graphic code to DirectX9. Then I'll do some GUI as for now it's a command line tools. Then I will release a pre version that allow you to navigate thru your region ( no editing for the moment ).

This will help me to see bugs in terms of graphic compatibilities and CPU, regions size etc...

After that I'll code the editing part

PS : Some things I need to know :

Is the 3300m elevation limit is really the limit and 0 the smaller level ? ( could help for compression scheme )

Is the grid spacing in game is 16m or 12m. I read it before but don't remember.

Where in the .dat file I can find the color used for the satellite map ? surely in one of the simcity_*.dat and which TGI ?

Thanks for all that supports and take care. I'll keep you informed in this thread

[SC4 meister 7]

Holy wow...that...woah...I mean...dang...just...wow...I....wow...um...yeah....wow...

[Sam 163]

This looks great! We've been waiting a long time for the ability to export elevation data from regions. I believe it was available in SC3k but its a shame it was never included in the original SC4 game. So a big thank you for working to make this a reality. It will be a much appreciated tool.

The grids in SC4 are 16m.

[andymcnab666 4]

WOW

[jacqulina 162]

very interested sounds great and a very good responce to a great idea

[prince_of_sims 0]

the elevation limits can be changed by modifying the terrain exemplar. i think 3300m might be a non-standard value that someone put in when creating a mod.

[qurlix 20]

Wow. Great job, I must say...I can't believe you have the patience to make something that reads out of all the savegames in a region. Excellent work!

One thing I must ask, what happens to developed cities? Do you have something checking that the cities aren't established? Otherwise we may have some foolish users screwing up regions that have cities. That should be a piece of cake compared to elevations.

And what region colors are you looking for?

Wow again.

-qurlix

[wouanagaine 84]

prince_of_sims : thanks, bad news, but never heard of such a mod, maybe we can say 3300m is the limit

qurlix : thanks, I 'm looking for the colors that sc4 use in displaying the map in the view data screen.

something may be uploaded at the end of the next week, be patient please

Take care

[Ramona Brie 121]

I want this a lot!

[blade2k5 1,523]

As a map maker, this would be an extremely useful tool. You, my friend, are an absolute genius and a godsend.

[Sam 163]

Originally posted by: prince_of_sims the elevation limits can be changed by modifying the terrain exemplar. i think 3300m might be a non-standard value that someone put in when creating a mod.quote>

I think it could be MallowtheCloud's mod. Quite a few people use terrain height mods. Mallow has listed the maximum heights and step levels (meters per greyscale shade) in the mapping tutorial. The standard unmodded game values are here: https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=120&threadid=64968&STARTPAGE=1#593679

The values for the various mods are here: https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=120&threadid=64968&STARTPAGE=1#593682

It would actually be really handy for the user to be able to specify which custom values they wanted for these things in the program. I don't know if this is possible though.

With regard to the colours, I'm wondering if you might be able to get the colour values from the ingame data views (or is this what you are already trying to do?). The little map in these reflects the height detail in colours. I don't know if there may be a reference to these colour codes in the exemplar for the data views or their parent cohorts. For some of them there is a property telling them which colour set to use, but I think this refers to the overlay (eg desirability). I could be talking nonsense here though, I know very little about this aspect of the game. It may be hard coded in the .exe or in some other inaccessible place. Maybe you could look at one of the data view modds in the modds and downloads section. Maybe tracing one of those back could help you find the information you are looking for.

[moganite 4]

I am also working on a no erosion mod that combines the concept of your no errosion mod and amllows elveation mods. It should be up sometime next week.

The elevation is set through the import scale factor in the exemplars and it isnt very far from the number of erosion passes. The way mallows plugins are named is for the landf relief above lake\sea\river level the 250 m below water is more or less constant though i think it can be changed if desired.

3300 m isnt a named pluggin in mallows set.

the game spacing is 16 m per tile

The exemplar that is terrain tuning has a number of 19 and Type 6534284a; Group 88cd66e9

[GMT 389]

wanna have it wanna have it wanna have it wanna have it ...

[szarkoz 8]

Hi wouanagaine, you can be sure that I'm also looking forward to seeing at least some progress of your work, and then the release...

That tool is great, I hope it will be user friendly (ya know, very friendly because usually every tool is too hard for me )

Great job

[Ramona Brie 121]

When do you expect this to go public?

[simzebu 20]

Originally posted by: wouanagaine

I'm willing to know if there is enough of interests in this kind of tools

quote>

*looks at both pages of compliments and showings of intrest*

Hmmmm. Nah. I don't think anyone would be interested in that.

I can't wait!

I have been waiting for this the ENTIRE TIME! When I saw the title in the ticker on the front page, I thought it would just be another vaporware suggestion. But from those pictures, it doesn't look like it.

"HOLY FREAKING GOD"

I can't wait!

[GrayWolf115 0]

*steps back* Whoa.....

[sim1234 62]

Wow! This looks great wouanagaine, Keep up the fantastic work!

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Awesome! If this can be competed, it would indeed be a great breakthrough in fantasy map-making!

Moganite and sam have already answered your question regarding terrain height, but if you have any other questions about things like that, feel free to PM me.

[RiverCocytus 0]

Wow. So this is the process:

Create a new config bmp and load the region into sc4

(I'm fuzzy on this part)

Get all the New City (n).sc4's in the directory (by either rendering a blank grayscale or do they just appear?)

Now with this tool, you can go in an manipulate the region's height characteristics without loading SC4?

Now, What I'm thinking is that it would be nice to output a grayscale equivalent of the region (if possible) to an image, using the no-erosion mod you could render it as-is on another computer.

Don't know how easy it is to un-render it to a grayscale image.

But that, my friend-- would be the pinnacle!

Indeed.

Question: What kind of speeds do you get (frames per second) whilst editing with this tool? If they are good enough, it would easily beat SC4 for doing the region-work.

[Karybdis 34]

I believe those height limitations are for the ingame importer

If you're directly altering the heightmaps (which I assume you are) then the limit is dictated by the highest value the float can have as far as I know... I think this is... 2500? I might be wrong. Whatever the float can show without going to a negative value I believe is the max.

I'm afraid I dont know what the data map values are though. Open Reader up, load Simcity_1.dat, go to the exemplar browser, and load them all in tree view, then look under the simulators tab. All the simulators including I hope the data view simulation might be in there with any applicable values.

[mightygoose 92]

WOUANAGAINE if they don't give you a custom member label for this ill be damned