#Map Editor Update Must Needed Additions

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

delicate compass
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The only thing I can just suggest is a much needed update to the map editor. Like allowing height maps to auto generate cities and roads. Because I don't know how long it's gone to take me to just go picture perfect for what I'm trying to do.
So like an Auto generating of known locations or knowing where the roads are at least is going to be an extreme help.
Something to make cities be easier to recognize on height maps so they can be distinguished from just land. Because they don't show up well so we need to have something like just direct import of Google Maps screenshots of the terrain and all the grey spots are towns or cities.

blazing raptor
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Height map is just a height map man, its just an image file. It could be ANY black/white picture. You have to place all the city buildings and roads on your own.

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Idk how it would be integrated to take real roads and locations and 1 to 1 copy em

delicate compass
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Yeah but I mean like something to make it easier if you want to make real life maps. There should be a mode where it switches like "Real Life or Made up?" and then you would have to use heightmaps from real places however it wouldn't show the roads and cities

solar bramble
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i could imagine a lot of failure points in trying to auto generate cities and roads

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a lot of imprecision to the point of there potentially being a lot of manual fixing involved

delicate compass
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I just don't know how to make an airbase with a town near it on a mostly green, nearly flat height map

solar bramble
delicate compass
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I mean so far i've got a major highway and a road so far

solar bramble
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that's a start

delicate compass
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But what will help is distinguishing what corner is what. Like a compass and a minimap of where your camera is

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Kind of like Substance painter where they have 2 screens, a flat screen, and a 3D screen

static urchin
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2D mapview would be good, but auto-generated cities and roads is starting to approach what MSFS does, which is a massive undertaking

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I do hope the map editor gets an overhaul in future, or that custom static options will let us generate and import stuff in a 3rd party program though

lilac dome
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From a programmer's perspective:
Generating terrain from heightmap = Easy
Getting that heightmap from a real location = Easy (if the data is available through an API)
Also including cities and roads from a real location = Virtually impossible

delicate compass
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Also a mini map where we can see where our camera is so it can be easier to place objects and cities and roads can be really helpful too.

real flame
delicate compass
real flame
delicate compass
# real flame huh?

It shows up as green. It doesn't show up as its intended spot. It's just green and flat. That doesn't make it a city. Because I can have cities all around and it'll still look like the plains of Kansas with how flat and grassy it is.

real flame
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it will keep that part flat so we can city paint it in.
I was commenting on this bit
having it be a gray blob on the height map already means it's flat

I agree with that having extra tools for map creation would be great, but using specific colors in the heightmap generation seems like a bad idea

delicate compass
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I mean, on the city painting tool, it'll make squares of concrete making it turn grey, so why not have an already visible bit of grey showing us where we can paint it?

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Kind of like a guideline

real flame
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that is totally different from your original suggestion

lilac dome
delicate compass
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not "That's totally different"

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like it can be one thing upon a mount of papers of suggestions

static urchin
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Problem is that a grey blob in the colours might be a city, or it could be a lake. What about for a snowy environment? Or somewhere that has red terracotta roofs?

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There's so many edge cases that just using a colour picker won't work for

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(nor do I think its a good idea with how much cities increase the load time of a map)

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I recently had a project where I had to turn some satmap data into some pretty terrain. A colour picker did help me get started to determine water, concrete etc but required a crazy amount of work to turn into something usable