Official Mapping Community Requests

[steveg 0]

So, still no takers for Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, even with a second asking? 

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 5/21/2005 12:19:26 AM
Author: steveg
So, still no takers for Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, even with a second asking?

quote>

Ay ay ay! I can't do everything at once!

I'll get to it eventually. If you've made a request in this thread, I will try to get to it as soon as possible.

[Prpl26 0]

I would like to second the request for a small map (I also have a slow computer!) with plenty of islands.  Small maps with small cities are hard to find, and I stink at making maps myself! 

Thanks!!

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 5/21/2005 9:01:50 AM
Author: Prpl26

I would like to second the request for a small map (I also have a slow computer!) with plenty of islands. Small maps with small cities are hard to find, and I stink at making maps myself!

Thanks!!

quote>

MrVegetable already made that map!

[MrVegetable 2]

So I did!

If anyone has more requests like that, or fantasy regions of any type, I will take them.!

 

Mr Veggie

 

PS. I have nothing to make at the moment as Banana Grove will be hand terraformed so I can't use it for Mapp Squad unfortunately. So feel free to request fantasy maps.

[crookedasscop 1]

steveg, someone uploaded a Saskatoon map yesterday that you can get now!

[lancerjw 0]

Can someone make a map of Albany, NY?

 

Thanks,

James

[Fairlane500 8]

In case anyone is interested, I have some ideas that shouldn't be considered requests at this point, just ideas.

Scanning my atlas last night I came up with some interesting locations:

1. Nassau/ New Providence Island, Bahamas
2. Deadwood/Black Hills, South Dakota
3. Eureka/Arcata, California
4. Coos Bay, Oregon
5. Morgan City, Louisiana
6. Sandusky Area, Ohio

Just a few ideas of varied, interesting terrains in case any mappers or requesters are interested.

1300th post, heh, 13

[newfie05 0]

Would love to see Newfoundland, Canada.

[Pepster 1]

Hi there.. this message its to tell... well matt its quite busy with the requests, and well we don't pay him or retribute his excellent work with something besides a thanx so why don't just take some time, after his second map pack is release to send him a new wave of requests, after all its quite stressing have constants messages asking for a map based on this or that place, why don't just take a time, whatever matt its also a person and has a life, maybe a work, etc is not good to fill tons of requests, at this pace he will never end...

[Nexis 1]

1. Northern New Jersey

2. Southern New Jersey

 

3. Central New jersey

 

4.The Capital of New Jersey Trenton.

[ron01_000_000 1]

Can Someone make a map of the Triangle (North Carolina) ?

 

Including:

Wake County: Raleigh, Cary, Apex, Holly Springs, Wake Forest,

Fuquay-Varina, Zebulon, Garner, Knightdale, Morrisville

Durham County: Durham, RTP (Research Triangle Park)

Other Towns: Chapel Hill, Clayton, Smithfield

 

Would include Falls Lake and Jordan Lake and be all Large Cities

 

Would like a Harbor in SouthEast corner of map - Use Creative Licence

 

width=422 align=baseline>

 

 

[surgent 0]

Can someone please make a make of Hastings County Ontario.  Particularly Belleville, Ontario north to Bancroft or slightly beyond.  Thanks

 

Jason

[surgent 0]

Can someone please make a map of Hastings and Prince Edward Counties in Ontario.  They include the cities/towns of Belleville, Picton and Bancroft

 

Thanks

 

Jason

[Bellio 0]

So SO so ....

anyone ??
Jakarta ???
Pretty plueaseeeee.....
a full scale if possible please.... 2 weeks had passed. No news from anyone....

Thanks !!

Date: 5/16/2005 7:10:31 AM
Author: Bellio
Hi,


Can anyone make a map of Jakarta, Indonesia ?

It is known as traffic jam here, so I would love to play a real map of Jakarta Indonesia here.


Thanks in advance !!!

quote>

[Klemvast 0]

Date: 5/25/2005 7:46:38 PM Author: Pepster Hi there.. this message its to tell... well matt its quite busy with the requests, and well we don't pay him or retribute his excellent work with something besides a 'thanx' so why don't just take some time, after his second map pack is release to send him a new wave of requests, after all its quite stressing have constants messages asking for a map based on this or that place, why don't just take a time, whatever matt its also a person and has a life, maybe a work, etc is not good to fill tons of requests, at this pace he will never end...

quote>

 

Wouldn't it be a good idea to close this thread temporarily when everybody is busy, and reopen it when appropriate and requests can really be considered? Just an idea of mine, don't know if it's realistic.

 

[MrVegetable 2]

That's not a bad idea Klemvast! If TNS is looking, he should consider this

 

Mr Veggie

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 5/30/2005 7:10:07 AM
Author: Bellio
So SO so ....


anyone ??

Jakarta ???

Pretty plueaseeeee.....

a full scale if possible please.... 2 weeks had passed. No news from anyone....

quote>

As I said before: If you've made a request in this thread, I will try to get to it as soon as possible.



And, I love the idea of closing this thread until we are finished with most of these requests.

[Bellio 0]

Ah... finally..
ALl I need is just a reply.
Now I can sit down patiently, knowing that you are working on it...
Thank you so much Mallow .... really appreciate it !!!

Date: 5/30/2005 12:45:11 PM
Author: MallowTheCloud

Date: 5/30/2005 7:10:07 AM




As I said before: 'If you've made a request in this thread, I will try to get to it as soon as possible.'




And, I love the idea of closing this thread until we are finished with most of these requests.

quote>

[hummer0328 6]

I would like to request a map of Jackson, Wyoming. I want it to include the Teton Mt Range, Jackson Lake, and the Snake River.
Thanks!

[lakeyboy 12]

Date: 5/31/2005 1:09:39 AM Author: hummer0328 I would like to request a map of Jackson, Wyoming.  I want it to include the Teton Mt Range, Jackson Lake, and the Snake River. Thanks!

quote>
Even after all of the discussion about closing this thread for the moment to stop the continuous flow of requests, people still request maps from you guys. For everybodys sake, temporarily close this thread ASAP.

[Klemvast 0]

Date: 5/31/2005 5:13:28 AM Author: lakeyboy

Date: 5/31/2005 1:09:39 AM Author: hummer0328 I would like to request a map of Jackson, Wyoming.  I want it to include the Teton Mt Range, Jackson Lake, and the Snake River. Thanks!

quote> Even after all of the discussion about closing this thread for the moment to stop the continuous flow of requests, people still request maps from you guys. For everybodys sake, temporarily close this thread ASAP.

quote>

 

Only problem I see is: if the thread is closed for too long, people might lose interest. So you could perhaps announce it on the frontpage when it's opened again. Don't know. Just thinking about it.

Or perhaps it's not such a problem, I don't know.

 

[trulsismann 2]

What about a map of Pattaya, Thailand.

Thanks
Truls-Trulsis-Trulsismann

[cogeo 960]

My request does not concern any specific region, but instead the way cities are setup.

Very often I see a tiled config.bmp with large cities only (blue), like the image shown below.

 

This may look pleasant to the eye, but it's not good for neighbour deals and connections, as every city has only four neighbours. Having more neighbours can have a positive effect in demand, as only the first connection of any specific network type has the max impact, and the rest have a diminishing effect (connections after the third have virtualy no effect).

So as to get the maximum possible demand through connection (and therefore higher development potential), there is required a different layout that features more neighbours for each city.

For example, the pattern in the image below results in 8 neighbours for each large city (and the repeated tile is a set of one large and one medium city) - each large city still has 4 large neighbours.

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//Tiles2.jpg align=baseline>

 

The next pattern results in 10 neighbours for each large city. The small cities at the border can be used to build dirty industry or undesirable utilities.

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//Tiles3.jpg align=baseline>

 

And of course, the layout need not necessarily follow any pattern. Instead, in many cases an irregular layout that takes also into account the terrain could result in better and more realistic cities. There are some issues that need to be considered, like:
- The ability to build bridges (for regions with a good deal of water). Large cities may occupy an area including both shores of a river or canal. Islands may be contained in a city tile with some land as well.
- Valleys would better be contained in a single city rather than be shared by two or more cities. This way you can build isoalated settlements, which looks more realistic.
etc etc

Please take the above suggestions into account.

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 6/1/2005 11:09:49 AM
Author: cogeo

My request does not concern any specific region, but instead the way cities are setup.

Very often I see a tiled config.bmp with large cities only (blue), like the image shown below.

This may look pleasant to the eye, but it's not good for neighbour deals and connections, as every city has only four neighbours. Having more neighbours can have a positive effect in demand, as only the first connection of any specific network type has the max impact, and the rest have a diminishing effect (connections after the third have virtualy no effect).

So as to get the maximum possible demand through connection (and therefore higher development potential), there is required a different layout that features more neighbours for each city.

For example, the pattern in the image below results in 8 neighbours for each large city (and the repeated tile is a set of one large and one medium city) - each large city still has 4 large neighbours.

The next pattern results in 10 neighbours for each large city. The small cities at the border can be used to build dirty industry or undesirable utilities.

And of course, the layout need not necessarily follow any pattern. Instead, in many cases an irregular layout that takes also into account the terrain could result in better and more realistic cities. There are some issues that need to be considered, like:

- The ability to build bridges (for regions with a good deal of water). Large cities may occupy an area including both shores of a river or canal. Islands may be contained in a city tile with some land as well.

- Valleys would better be contained in a single city rather than be 'shared' by two or more cities. This way you can build isoalated settlements, which looks more realistic.

etc etc

Please take the above suggestions into account.

quote>


Your suggestions are valid.

However, there is one thing that your missing that imho overrides all of that:

The fewer total cities on a region, the shorter it will take to render.

Large tiles take only slightly longer to render than small tiles.

If you have a region that is 32 by 32 km, that would be 64 large tiles. That would also be 1024 small tiles.


Now, though it actually takes less than twice as long, for this we'll assume that rendering large tiles does take twice as long as rendering small tiles.

We'll make up a couple numbers here:
Small tiles = 20 seconds a piece
Large tiles = 40 seconds a piece

Now, the rendering time for the config with all large tiles would be 42 minutes and 40 seconds.

Whereas the rendering time for the config with all small tiles would be 5 hours, 41 minutes, and 20 seconds.


See the difference?


Now, I know you're not suggesting to make it all small... but think, just one medium sized city in place of a large one would automatically force three more, making four cities to render in the place of 1. That already adds probably a minute on to rendering time.



So, my line of thought is, the shorter the time to render, the better. If you would like me to do something else with a config.bmp, let me know. PM me, I will be glad to make you a custom config.bmp file.

[cogeo 960]

Well, you do have a point.

However, in both patterns I have suggested, most of the surface is still covered by large cities, plus in many of your maps posted on the STEX I can see that you may still use medium and small cities (in most cases to pad the config.bmp up to the dimensions of the map). Consequently, the rendering time might be some 50-100% longer.

 

To me, the better playing experience (arising from a better set-up map) is absolutely worth it, and believe me, if I like the map, I would certainly do it for myself. You don't even need to make any kind of exhaustive testing (a trial-and-error procedure), instead you can make a mask from the map jpeg (indicating the water and the land) and project it over the bmp (these are simple tasks that can be carried-out within minutes in Photoshop or PaintshopPro).

 

I really believe that these little extra steps (and time) are absolutely justified (for both players and creators) in order to get more well-crafted maps, and as I said before, I would certainly do it for myself.

 

Thank you for your reply

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 6/1/2005 3:07:13 PM
Author: cogeo

Well, you do have a point.

However, in both patterns I have suggested, most of the surface is still covered by large cities, plus in many of your maps posted on the STEX I can see that you may still use medium and small cities (in most cases to pad the config.bmp up to the dimensions of the map). Consequently, the rendering time might be some 50-100% longer.

To me, the better playing experience (arising from a better set-up map) is absolutely worth it, and believe me, if I like the map, I would certainly do it for myself. You don't even need to make any kind of 'exhaustive' testing (a trial-and-error procedure), instead you can make a 'mask' from the map jpeg (indicating the water and the land) and project it over the bmp (these are simple tasks that can be carried-out within minutes in Photoshop or PaintshopPro).

I really believe that these little extra steps (and time) are absolutely justified (for both players and creators) in order to get more well-crafted maps, and as I said before, I would certainly do it for myself.

Thank you for your reply

quote>

It's true that I did use medium and small cities in the past to pad the edges, but I have made sure to make my maps' length and width multiples of 4 recently so they could be purely large.

I also agree that different sizes are worth it. But, there are two reasons I still do all large cities:

1) Some people have slower computers, and as most of my regions are large to begin with, I don't want to have them waiting for 4 or 5 hours for a map to render.

2) It is faster for me. This may sound a bit selfish, and I suppose it is. But, as I said, if anyone wants a custom config.bmp file, I'd be happy to make it for them. Just send me a PM or something.


By the way, Terrain Generator's config.bmp creator works well to create a custom config that's high quality.

[cogeo 960]

Wow, Terrain Generator's config.bmp creator?

This sounds really interesting!

 

Where can I get it from? 

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 6/1/2005 6:03:42 PM
Author: cogeo
Wow, Terrain Generator's config.bmp creator?

This sounds really interesting!

Where can I get it from?

quote>

I meant Landscape Designer ... the Terrain Generator is one of the many features of the program, the config.bmp creator being another very handy one.

[ron01_000_000 1]

I would like a map with the following:

 

The water (ocean) would be deep in the Northernmost 4 Cities

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//SimCity_Region_Map03.bmp align=baseline>