More height levels (in trunk since r27010)

[ChillCore]

I meant to replace the flat, etc.
First i wanted to try how to do it.

IF there is a better way, a textfield where one can choose whatever value one wants as heightlevel, or something else you may have had in mind, that would be fine by me too.
I am very open for suggestions as I am the one learning.
Even if I do stuff that does not get in, i still learnt something.

I have to redo it anyway because i did this one against my experimental, not clean trunk.

So value 4, 8, 12, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256.
Do we want 24, 40, 48, 96, 160, 192 and 224 too ?

[CommanderZ]

stay with powers of two, please

[ChillCore]

No prob. I understand it needs to be like that.
Although i have received a pm that the other values are desired too.
That i will do then as a seperate patch, after you have have done your magic.

So powers of two it is.
And I will be using them little arrows on the side instead of a pulldown.

[Terkhen]

I don't think we should replace standard settings (very flat, hilly, etc) with numbers. We should just add more if needed and readjust them to the new heights.

Since Yexo's freeform map edges is now in trunk and it changes some details at terraforming, I doubt that the current more heights levels patch works well with current trunk. I'll try to do a quick fix this night.

[ChillCore]

How about this?

Offcourse second option should be locked to ori if first is off.

Advantages
- This way i dont have to tough the flat etc. All four setting stay in use.
- We dont break the power of two rule.
- Terrain generation will scale better.
- Less code will be needed in the long run.(tgp tweaking?)

Drawbacks
Let me hear it, please.
I havent started yet.

[CommanderZ]

Why keeping the first one then? Will it have any functionality once the second one is in place?

[Terkhen]

I think we should do do as less changes to trunk as possible: this patch is already big enough. That way we will have less code to maintain and check. Either we keep the old names or we change them to a number, but not both.

[ChillCore]

The first setting switches the patch on and off.
The patch itself, higher snowlevel, higher heightmap_height and increased flat world height depend on this setting allready.
I think this setting should stay as is.

The second setting would only set the max tile height to which flat, hilly etc. should be scaled.
So for the perlin noise we would only need four settings.
At first it wil introduce more code,GLAND_blah_blah and everything that comes with it,
Afterwards it should be easy to introduce as many values as we want with minimum effort. No matter how many heightlevel settings we add in the future.

If we were to do it like in my first suggestion we would need settings for each introduced selectable heightlevel.
If ever we or somebody else is to increase to 512 or 1024 we/he/she would need to restart the tuning?

I agree that having two places to set height is a bit confusing at first.

So my first suggestion seems to be the clearer one. The second the most flexible.

All of the above from my noobs point of view, offcourse.
(brainstorming with myself...)

Is it possible to make flat, hilly, ... pulldown dissapear and have it replaced by the 4, 8, ... arrows, based on the patch being on or off?

Terkhen do you have suggestions on what these names schould be if we extend the list? They should not confuse people, and we need to be able to handle the patch being off.

[Terkhen]

The current code for the patch is far too intrusive, and currently is completely impossible to apply it to trunk. It would require a almost total rewrite of terraform, terragen and viewport functions to adapt it to current trunk. I'll have another go at updating the patch at the weekend, but soon exams will start and I won't have any time.

Because of problems like these, we should try to change trunk as less as possible.

[ChillCore]

Here you go.

My doings need reviewing !
Please repost with proper name when done.

EDIT:

I seem to have forgotten the savegame bumps once again...
Dont bother I will do that later if you are happy with my changes.

About the patch growing to much...
Maybe if we took out some features (snowlevel, flat terrain level height) and keep them as an additional patch for now.
The main patch (only allowing higher level) would stay functional and code would become a little clearer.
Then when we get all the bugs out, its easy to put them back in or we can leave it up to the devs to do so if/when we hit trunk.
Just an idea.

I am also thinking about maken a little logfile with new introduced syntax, places to do the savegame bump, features that are in and a little buglist.

@ Terkhen:
You too good luck with those exams.
Dont forget. The game will exist far longer than you will be at shool.
Studies first.
No pressure nowhere. All the time you need.
And most importantly, do not forget to have fun in what you do.
I intend to finish the patch(completly) by the end of 2010. LOL
The only reason i am going at this pace is because i am having more fun right now fiddling with bits and bytes, than actually playing the game.

[ChillCore]

I have been doing some cleaning in the code resulting in less code but same functionality.
Nothing added, no bugfixes done.

- I have put the 128 colours back in place ready to be coded.
- small changes to my last doings.
- Little rewrite in snowlevel- and flat_land_height- code.
see logfile to understand what i did.
- logfile started

[ChillCore]

Hi again,

- Zoom out glitch fixed !
- Noise frequency set to 8
- Little bonus : A picture says more than a thousend words, they say...
I am not happy yet with smooth ...

Border glitches ... you are NEXT. lol (I hope.)

Oops diner is ready...
I'll be back...

[ChillCore]

Hmm, little harder than i expeced it to be...

As you can see in the picture the game is now confused on what to do.
The to be drawn terrain goes outside the actual map, if i scroll the viewport left and right it will one time paint water and the other time land...

Is there a way to tell the game that the water border (that is no water), should start at tile -64, -64 ?

Maybe it is possible to just not draw beyond tile 1, 1 but then we lose a few rows both in x and y (see pic)
Is this aceptable? (In my opinion, no.)(Game creates unreachable towns and industries.)

The white tile is located at 1,1 (level zero) , the top most tile should be there.
Simply setting an offset will not do because, the then to become tile 1,1 will suffer the same problem if it is to high.
Maybe it is just changing an int to int32 somewhere but i havent found where yet.

Tile 2046, 2046 seems ok (except for the glitches).

[ChillCore]

Here we are again.

bugs fixed:

- All tiles are now selectable from (1, 1) to (2046, 2046).
100% serviced towns and industries is possible again.
(if you can guess where you are building your stations. moehaaaa!)

- viewport zoom is clamped when zooming in and out.
Thank you, SmatZ.
see fs#1412 if i am not mistaking.

Search in patch for"- chillcore -" or wait for logfile 3 for more details.
First I will review and correct my code. Read: making changes optional based on patch setting.(viewport.cpp is WIP untill v8)

known bugs:

- Viewports need offset.(almost all of them)
Select a town or industrie outside the map to see what i mean.
Same goes for the smallmap.

Playtesters wanted

Things to test:

- All and everything...
- Do the binaries run on win98 ?

Note: binaries are not virus checked.

Edit: Binaries removed, leatest are available in thread.

[HackaLittleBit]

Starts looking good.
Made big mountain (120 high) with helicopter station.
Saw in your post that you had difficulties with airplanes.
Yust to tell you that helicopter flies back with no problems and realistic shadow.

regards

[jklamo]

I noticed stange appearance of "seaholes" on smallmap, they had strange pink colour and they are blinking.

heig.png (12.51 KiB) Viewed 3938 times

Edit: CPU problem was noAI-based

[ChillCore]

@ hackalittlebit:

-Helicopter shadows dissapear when they reach a (0+ x) z level.
Now their reference level is reset everythime they land, it seems, and as long as they go down after takeoff all is fine.
When they reach (new_0_level + x) they suffer the same problem untill they land again.
-Planes shadows are unchanged.(no reset.)
Hmm interesting.

-Both planes and helicopters still have their flightpath too low.(no offset yet)

@jklamo:

Normal behaviour.
That is the flood warning feature.

Level zero !! May flood if not carefull !! watch where you build stuff !!)

Raising the land or letting it flood will make the flash go away.
You can disable this easely if you compile yourself.
If not, don't worry your map is not melting. lol.


Thank you for your time and report both of you.
Keep them coming if you like too.
Logfile is wip.


EDIT 1:

Known minor temporary bug

The game asserts when patch is turned off.
I have bypassed icc his doings(uncommented) a bit very to much...
But it will be solved by v8.
Ifnot i will go back to v6_1,
and redo what i know has worked untill now and leave my wild_guess_changes out

In the meantime don't turn off the patch.
Sorry.

EDIT 2:

I will need to gaze a bit at clean trunk to understand better what devs have been doing lately, before i can continue...

You may expect a little slowdown the next few days.
If anybody can update the patch, please do.(6.1-r15116 to trunk *)
I would still have to learn what has changed in trunk but it could speed things up a little for me.

First problem is that this patch changes trunk a lot, an almost everything that gets changed in trunk affects this patch in one way or another.

Second problem I have is that it is all too easy to branch off. I do not want to do that.

@ Devs:
Thank you for your additional comments in trunk.
They are noticed and very much apreciated.
I must say I have had a few -aha- moments the last couple off days.
The more i look and read and learn the more i am impressed.

* v7.5 is working as it should work untill now, but i made some changes i should not have made. See edit 1.

EDIT (last before new post):

While trying to update (15438) i ran in some problems.

- Assert: Squirrel(st?) state something. (logfile 04 will have correct error message)
autosave? it only happens when exiting the game.
- Savegame condnull thingy ? ...
I'd like to that,very much, but when i tried i messed up.

I am now going for v7.6-r15279 slowly but getting there.
I will try an update when i am done with it.

[ChillCore]

I think I nailed most of my misstakes.
At least i feel like i am back on track.

This logfile entry is wip, some things may be not accurate.
read: i have to test more: this list is quick startup and exit testing.

v7.6:
-----

- Reverted most of my doings (uncommenting) in v7.

- Zoom out(background) glitch is back as a result of doing previous line.

- Commented out two debug functions no longer used or not yet used in terraform_cmd.cpp.

- This should have been v7.5.

- savebump set to 200/201

- Put back a lot of int/uint/int32. (See todo logfile.)

- Snowline is fixed, I seemed to have broken that too in v7,
Just didn't notice untill now. Still needs some work on new game creation.
(see: to do logfile.)

known bugs

- The cost of bulldozing before terraforming isn't taken into account.
If a terraform fails due to not having enough money,
a lot of clear tiles will get bulldozed at no cost.

- Airplanes, helicopters fly into mountains and shadows dissapears above level 32.

- Airplanes do not land on airports, helicopters do.

- ¿Changes to heightmap generator? (ask Terkhen to, please, specify...)

- Power plants smoke drawn too low.

- Glitches at map edges when they are not water. (since edges patch has hit trunk)

- Extra viewport and all other windows that pop open have their offset wrong.
eg: - Select somewhere on the heighmap(high level) and see it not correspond
with what shows up in the in game view.
- Select a town or industry outside map range (eg: -24,-240)
Smallmap is OK because it is a topdown view.

- Helicopters have their shadow correct, after landing AT airport,
on the way back from 120 high.(dir-sw)(Hackalittlebit)
(see todo logfile)

- Game crashes on small maps, i know what happens.
(see todo "tgp noise frequency max")(logfile)

- Game crashes on map eneration when patch is disabled.
Most probably i still have to make some changes optional.
For now, Don't turn off the patch. Sorry.(wip to v8)

EDIT:
updated to r15477.

known bugs:

- Patch cannot be turned off.
Button is still there but does not function ??
one more todo ...

fixed bug:(not fixed by me, trunk did)
- Assert with squirel on exiting game is not there when i updated this time.
Ignore entry in logfile,please. I will update logfile 5 .

[2007Alain2007]

hi there can you keep me posted when your worked out all the bugs on this patch it seem realy good

[DaleStan]

One would assume that he'd post a patch here when the bugs are worked out.

Or you could download the patch and work out some of the bugs yourself.