NHP - New Horizons Productions Map Thread

[NHP 46]

New Horizons Productions

Hello Simtropolis members. This is an announcement to the Simtropolis community that there has been a new group that has been formed. This group shall be known as the New Horizons Productions, or NHP for short.

The NHP specializes in mapping. We also have a member who does BAT work. You may have seen a couple of releases on the STEX already, as we are preparing for a full on assault of great products.

Our membership will be posting here shortly. The membership list includes the following persons (alphabetical):

beskhu3epnm

blade2k5

dmscopio

MallowTheCloud

moganite

Mr Food11

jplumbley

papab2000

Vandy

wouanagaine

These are members of ST who were sought after that each have unique abilities in the field of mapping.

beskhu3epnm: 16bit image, 1:1 scale mapping. Specializes in mountainous regions. Great detail

blade2k5: freehand genius, with the STEX uploads, and user downloads to prove it

dmscopio: Future ST all-star BATer capable of some amazing things

MallowTheCloud: Scale mapping, overall expert in anything to do with maps. Also has thousands of user DL's

moganite: Tech savvy mapper, BAT operator. Incredible database of knowledge

Mr Food11: another freehand genius, capable of creating your wild visions. Check out his uploads

jplumbley: SC4 Terraformer master, mapping artist, perfectionist - awesome editor

papab2000: Real life places mapping.

Vandy: ST hero, fires off great maps hourly, and is a great leader in our community

wouanagaine: Creator of SC4 Terraformer, specialty program creator, overall SC4 dynamo

Our membership is a unique blend of personalities, and abilities, as you can probably tell. One of many scenarios here is to create a scale map, and have another NHP member modify it using the Terraformer, or freehand techniques.

NHP possess the ability to perform requests. We can take requests on fantasy maps, accurate scale maps, or anything in between.

NHP also has many new ideas and methods that will result in the creation of tutorials, and walkthroughs that will benefit the SC4 community.

NHP is also involved in the testing and creation of new tools designed to make SC4 easier to operate (when creating CJ's for example).

So with that, our membership will post an introduction!!

NHP

Here are images of the first two maps available on the STEX by NHP:  Click the images to go to the download page.

Dragonspire Region

by

blade2k5/beskhu3epnm

Yosemite Valley

by

beskhu3epnm

[beskhu3epnm 8]

beskhu3epnm here, NHP member extraordinaire!

I specialize in 16bit mapping, a new discovery (and possibly long overdue). Although I have not been around that long in the mapping community, I have a series of unique maps available on the STEX, and have developed with assistance from othersa new technique that I hope to share with a tutorial at some point in time.

My maps are getting increasingly more detailed and are always a challenge to bulid on. I love working with my colleagues here at NHP, as their talent is sometimes overwhelming.

Look for projects with my name attached, I won't disappoint you!!

beskhu3epnm

[blade2k5 1,523]

Originally posted by: NHP [blade2k5: freehand genius...... quote>

I dunno about the genius part, I'd have to say that my skills with freehand map-making have been mastered over the past 3 decades which is probably why some of my works are so well recieved.  But in all honesty, I don't feel I'm better than anyone else who seriously takes the effort to make a map.  I've been limited to Paint, LD and Irfanview since I began making maps for the game, but now with SC4 Terraformer, that all changes.  I can now  produce what I envision my maps to look like.

Now on to the fun stuff.  I have recently been able to get SC4TF to run on my pc and have for the past week done revisions on some older maps, Arvordale, Alanuk and my first upload Khatari and will be posting images of these revisioned maps soon.  I've also just finished exporting a brand new fantasy region a couple of hours ago.   I will be showcasing all four maps here very soon.

NHP's goal is to produced top quality products for ST's members to enjoy.  We all have a lot of ideas floating around on various aspects of gameplay and will be releasing some tutorials on these ideas in the very near future. 

Feel free to leave any comments, suggestions or thoughts you may have about NHP.   Thanks for dropping by.

[moganite 4]

Moganite here.

Mapper , BATter, modder.

Although I am not specalised in any particular area I have made content in alot of areas in custom content. I am aiming for about  2-3 maps per month though i rarely will achieve this level of porduction.  As I increase my abilities with BATs

My maps are all 8 bit at present though they are done with as much eye to detail as possible. They are detailed and have a wide range of terrains ranging from smmoth and flat islands to mountains to plains and eveything in between. I am always looking for better ways to do things and refinements on existing methods. While my maps may not be as detailed as beskh's they will be as detailed as possible given the data. With my older maps being revisited over the next few weeks. they will be converted to 16 bit terrains. Currently I have a request for dubbo in the works that is on hold until I get 16 bit prescision. Most of my future maps will be of australian terrains though there will be a few special ones and requests.

BATs: Although I am really just startimg out in this area I am getting better and ramping up the detail levels in my BATs. I am constanly am generating new ideas and thinking about the problem at hand. My products maybe relative simple and small but they are all extensively tested and work as specified. All of my BATs will either come with lots or as prop packs.

Modding: I have made a few mods that get at the heart of the game mechanics and tweaked them to create a control set. Look out for more enhancements. The lot that I have modded solves a few problems with that particular type of lot and involves a few intermedieate to advanced techniques.

My products will All have the following callsigns

NHP MOG callsign for BATS +lots + proppacks

NHP xxxxx by moganite for maps xxxxx = region name

NHP MOG for mods

the BATs and mods are going to apear under my own account while my maps will apear under the NHP account.

hope I wont dissapoint

[MallowTheCloud 41]

MallowTheCloud here!

I've been here at Simtropolis for a while, and have been making maps for much of that time. Since I started, I have learned a lot about mapping, though I still have some learning to do yet, I'm sure. Nevertheless, if anybody has any questions about map making or maps in general, I'd be happy to try to help. And if I can't answer your questions, I'm sure somebody here at NHP will be able to.

I am still in the process of making a detailed mapping tutorial. It takes a lot of practice, but in my opinion, the ability to make accurate-scale real-world maps makes a person a very valuable asset to ST, as the amount of requests continues to skyrocket. I'd be delighted to see more real-world mappers... but that's not to say I am not happy with the current group. Every map maker deserves a chance, and many have proven to be very skilled from the get-go.

I look forward to working with the rest of the NHP members, and any other map-curious folks who drop in!

[blade2k5 1,523]

This old map, Khatari, was the first I uploaded to the STEX nearly a year ago and is a simple LS map I was never satisfied with.  It was only after I uploaded and made several more maps that I began drawing maps with Paint.  Always meant to go back and re-do this map, but never got around to it until now. 

I've added in a range of mountains down the middle of the peninsula, added in a few more islands, craters and hills.  The image below is the newly, re-vamped version of Khatari in which I plan to use Cycledog's desert terrain mod as I think this would make a great desert region nearly surrounded by ocean, kinda like Arabia in  the real world, but of course with much less sand.  Most of the low lying areas along the coastlines and up to the sides of the ranges have been smoothed out and the mountains have not been as I like to get that 'jagged' look instead of the weathered down look.

Here is a view of the region using Cycledog's Desert  mod.  While opening the city tiles in game, I noticed that I have to lower the sea level along most of the coastlines and narrow straights.  When I finish with that and doting some of the larger bodies of water with atols and small islands, then it'll be ready for upload.  I'll also use the water mod that came with this desert instead of the one used as it looks almost black instead of navy blue.

 

I recently re-trerraforming the old Alanuk map [just a few minor details to touch up on] in which I raised the mountains in the north-eastern quadrant [i beleive they were all over 2000m, the tallest being 2500m+],  fixed the rivers that were dried up in the original version, shrunk the map size down from 2305x2305 [12x12 lrg tiles] to 2049x2049 [8x8 lrg tiles], and smoothed out the low lying areas to get rid of the bumpiness.  The elevation variations are more subtle when viewing from in-game than they look in the sc4tf image.  I used Cycledog's Olympic Terrain Mod and Mallow's 1000M plugin with the configuration for a total of 64 large tiles. 

I really like how it turned out using Cycledog's Olympic Terrain [image below], as it gives that feel of the American Northwest.  There are numerous valleys cutting through the mountains with some building possibilities, accessable + buildable high plataues and plenty of rivers, low rolling hills and lowlands for development.

Now as for my newest map,  Paradise Crater, I again went with Cycledog's Olympic Terrain mod because it looked best  to my eye for this terrain.  The crater was not free-hand drawn as that is beyond my abilities at this time, but a cropped image of crater taken from a pic of either the moon or Mars.  I  copied and plopped the crater onto a blank bitmap template set to a greyscale of 3M above sea level in Paint. 

Next step was to open the bitmap with LD then re-save as an 8-bit greyscale jpg.  The fun part came next when the new greyscale was imported to SC4 Terraformer and I began terraforming, hoping that the end result would be an ancient impact or volcanic crater eroded over the eons.  In the below pic is the finished result and I think I achieved the result I was looking for.

I hope you enjoyed the images of these three maps and your comments and thoughts are welcomed.  Thanks for looking.

[wouanagaine 86]

Wouanagaine here !

I've been here for less than a year, but enjoy this great community, I'll try to make life easier for SC4 user with some programs. and with some SC4TF Tutorials

[Vandy 110]

Hello, All.

 

Congratulations on the formation of your new group. I am sure that the SimTropolis community will benefit from the services of your group and its quite talented members.

 

I have been following the various threads of the members for quite some time now and have been admiring the results of their creativity. The maps you produce are exceptional in quality and offer a wide range of choices and challenges when developing them.

 

I must say that groups such as yours certainly will surpass and (more than likely) render smaller “groups” such as my own unnecessary and cause them to become defunct.

 

All the best in your endeavors and I do look forward to the products you will be producing.

 

Regards,

 

Vandy

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Thanks, Vandy!

By no means are we trying to render anybody "unnecessary." In fact, we encourage others to improve and become great map makers as well, as you have done.

[jacqulina 162]

great idea i look forward to seeing some great maps

[Vandy 110]

Originally posted by: MallowTheCloud Thanks, Vandy!

By no means are we trying to render anybody "unnecessary." In fact, we encourage others to improve and become great map makers as well, as you have done. quote>

 

Hey, Mallow.  Yeah, I know.  My comment was really more "tongue-in-cheek" than it was serious.  I really do enjoy "tinkering" with making maps and now with the SC4TF too, I believe I might actually get good at it! 

I do mean what I said about all the best to NHP, though.  I think this is a great idea and, who knows, maybe one day I'll be good enough to join and become a contributing member?

Regards,

Vandy

[jplumbley 5]

Im here... Im here!! Hope Im not too late.

Busy at school this week... Architecture is quite a busy program to be in!! Loads of work and so little time to do it in.

Anyways, in regards to the first post, Perfectionist I am but master of SC4TF... I dont believe so, I am still earning just as everyone else is. The program is still in its infancy as its first full release was just 2 months ago. I was and still am the main tester for SC4TF and had my hand in helping wouanagaine fine tune and build new tools within the program. SC4TF has been a good experience for me and I think my help in testing has made it a better program in the end.

My skills combined with everyone elses skills from this group will be put to great use and I am sure we will pump out some really great maps, but not just maps!! Some other really great things can come out of our group aswell if we put our minds too it.

I would also like to say my skills do not hold to map making. I have also become quite adept at tinkering with playing around with iLive Reader and SC4Tool. I am also learning how to use Lot Editor to make my own lots out of STEX models, which has gone very well. A few lots that I have created wouanagaine have hilighted in his new CJ Viridis Doria Provincia - Animated CJ Other things I do is provide much Tech Support for SC4TF as well as help in using SC4TF.

I would like to thank you guys for allowing me to be a part of this group. And would like to thank wouanagaine for his great program SC4TF and allowing me to be part of his creation process. I feel that I am only a small part of something big and I am glad to be a part of it. I just hope school doesnt create too much RLS... LOL. (School always comes first, unfortunately)

JPlumbley

[Yoman3 5]

****Claps**** Cant wait to see what you guys turn out!! I'm sure they'll be awsome!

[blade2k5 1,523]

I'm happy to announce that I've just uploaded NHP's first map 2-Pak to the STEX which features two of my latest maps.  The first map, Paradise Crater is a 6x6 region  and the second map, Mountain Valley is a small 705x513 region.  Click on either image below to go to the file page for download.  Any comments, suggestions and thoughts are welcomed.  Enjoy!

[abcbum 0]

How are you guys deciding what maps to make?

are you taking requests?

or just going around deciding at random what to make?

[beskhu3epnm 8]

Hey, we can take requests too. Some international data for 1:1 scale projects can be hard to obtain, however, so we will definitely keep you updated as to what we can do after you have made a request...

As for procedure, we post in our private forums an approval thread. There is a process that we follow to ensure everyone is on board with what we will be uploading.

We usually have a lot of ideas floating around. We are very open to sharing our ideas and having each member modify our projects. You will likely see in the future more than one version of a single map available for upload based on each member's vision....

Hopefully I didn't put you to sleep!!

If you want to make a request, go ahead. We'll see what we can do!

[abcbum 0]

well allright, if you dont mind, then I will

I was really wanting a scale map of the Kerguelen Islands, in the south indian ocean

this is the wikipedia page, the co-ordinates are there too;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerguelen_Island

=P

[beskhu3epnm 8]

Well I have researched your project somewhat thoroughly today, and I have noticed a couple of things:

1. Grande Terre, the main island, measures 150 km east to west and 120 km north to south. The largest region that I could import via SC4TF was 64km x 64km. 64kmx64km is equivalent to 16 Large cities x 16 Large cities. You would need twice that area to cover this terrain!! Grand Terre is not including the smaller islands, therefore total map size would ballon even further...

2. Well, not to be outdone, I tried to locate DEM sources for this area and came up short. There are a couple of avenues I can resort to, but as for 1:1 scale, that may be out of the question.

So, 1:1 looks like it may be out of the question.... Would you settle for a smaller version?

[abcbum 0]

hm

thats a real shame

I was really expecting it to work full size

for example, I did some research on the site and people had been able to upload maps more than twice the size of the island

also, the nasa data that people seem to use, I thought it was the same high detail on all the land between the 60 degree marks

yeah, but I suppose, your the expert, not me

but yeah

if it cant be done full size, which, according to you, it cant, I'll go with the largest size possible, which ends up just a bit below half size then

just as long as the altitudes are still full hight

[beskhu3epnm 8]

Good news, kinda.

I have located SRTM data for this region. The data is not very detailed. It is the only data available on the web that I could locate for free.

In the SC4 Terraformer Thread, I believe that it has been widely discussed between the creator and a tester that the maximum allowable region size (without the program crashing) is 64 square kilometers. You will have to check that one out!! I only recommend using 16bit images when loading regions. I don't know what the actual SC4 limit on region size greyscale import is, I didn't dredge up the patience to render that big of a map the traditional way.

So in the meantime, I can try 1:1 scale. I have tried to do Manitoulin Island in Ontario Canada (120km E to W) and failed as a result of size limits. The elevations will be correct, as my procedure for creating maps has worked really well in this regard, but if the map is 1/2 size, the elevations would be really "jagged" compared to real images.

I'll need a day or two to run through this one....

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Larger maps can be created, but, in my experience, are no fun to play on because they take forever not just to render, but it also takes a really long time every time the region loads on the region view screen.

[abcbum 0]

allright

although, if your computer fails to render it full size, its basicly just the greyscale and the config, right? so, I beleive my computer is on the upper half of people who play simcity, and even if it doesnt work for you, im willing to give it a shot anyways.

but yeah, if all that doesnt work, 64km is still pretty good, lots of space still

so if the elevations are jagged when you shrink it, what do you do, cut them in half?

also, I have a question, since the highest point on the island is nearly 2km, is that above the upper limit in simcity by itself, I hear there are mods that increase the upper limit, is there one you'd recomend?

I'm really thankful though that your doing all this though, I just hope it works out

Edit:

@Mallow

Since I stick to the same city for a long time, instead of flipping between a few every little while, its not a big problem if it takes a long long time to load, once im in, I basicly stick to one city for the whole session

[beskhu3epnm 8]

https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=16790

This will help you locate the high elevation plugins. Basically, if you have a greyscale that is 255 (max = white) and a 200m.dat plugin, your maximum elevation will be 2000m. Using SC4TF can achieve a max of 6000m (modifying exemplars using the reader can take game heights to the same).

When scrolling on a region that is 64kn long, it seems to take minutes to get from one side to the other.... It is quite huge....

Yeah time will be a factor in this one. But I guess we'll see what we can do!

[Gediminas 0]

Hey guys. I'm thinking to make my own map, but cant find any elevation data on the area of interest. The area would be Vilnius city. It is capital of Lithuania. Any suggestions where could I look for the data?

[jplumbley 5]

Howdy abcbum....

Welcome to our realm.  We have become quite adept at using SC4 Terraformer, this program gives us much more accuracy and detail in our maps.  Beskhu, has become quite good at making 1:1 scale maps.

I was the main tester for SC4 Terraformer, and we have found in testing that the maximum size for a computer to handle without lagging to bad in SC4TF was about 64km2.  Once you start getting past that it becomes laggy and longer to load, upto the point where your computer cant handle it anymore.  My computer was a fairly good testing base as it is a little bit above average.  When you get to around 80km2 or in total 80 small city tiles you get to the point where you can even load the map because your RAM cant take it.

SC4TF has a accuracy of 0.1m and can reach a hieght of 6533.5m in hieght (6.5km).  So your islands hieght is possible, but when the map gets shrunk the hieght will become out of proportion as it is hard to scale elevation.  We will see what we can cook up, with our great set of minds here but it will be tough.

Hopefully we can come up with something for oyu but it will not be easy... Do you have something a little easier? LOL.  Just kidding this is a good challenge for our first request.

JPlumbley

[beskhu3epnm 8]

@Gediminas: I would suggest as a baseline checking with the pointer on google earth

Google earth is a free program you can download here: http://earth.google.com/#utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-ca-google&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=google%20earth

It is free. Once it is installed, find the region of choice and wave the mouse pointer over it.

This format is close, but definitely not exact. It will give you a good idea on the values. Once you download the DEM data, you can use the viewer you have to get that data as well.

[Gediminas 0]

beskhu3epnm,

I have google earth, but how can it help me to get elevation data? Yes, by waving mouse pointer over the area I can see elevation data, but can I get it in txt, dem or any other file format by using googleearth? if no, could you give me references to most popular free GIS sites. Thanks!

[beskhu3epnm 8]

ftp://e0srp01u.ecs.nasa.gov/../

Try this site. Enter your Lat Long that you need and try it out! I use this one..

Also, you can try using the following site:

http://seamless.usgs.gov

Let us know how it works out for ya!

[Mr food11 6]

Hello everyone! I haven't been able to post much or do anything on my computer that much lately, I'm too busy. But I'll try to get a screenie of my little project right now when I can. But right now I'm on my grandma's mac.

[abcbum 0]

Im not trying to rush you or anything

but yeah, hows the map of keruguelen island coming along?