To tweak or not to tweak ... TGP Parameters v9.8

[ChillCore]

Just a little update as backup before moving forwards again.

Note patches above 200 are functional but are still buggy, they will be integrated with the patches below later on or be kept seperate , I dunno yet for sure.
Buggy behavior:
- Scale has a slider that does not slide but you can click in the box.
- The values will overflow if entered manually, read not properly clamped yet it seems, they were before.
- I bet 10 euros there are more.

[ChillCore]

Some screenies with values that work for small maps; posted for me to gaze upon later while tuning.

Also note that none of the perlin noise params (except for scale) should ever be 0 as you will get pancake-like maps.
The next version will force a 1 in case of trying to enter 0 manually.

[ChillCore]

Q: who do I e-mail to get myself back into coding mode?

[bokkie]

...Ghostbusters?

[ChillCore]

Ghostbusters

I tried but they were busy ... something about "in the machine".


Anyhoo another itsy bitsy of an update as a backup.

[ChillCore]

(Also still haven't gotten a clear answer on whether increased height levels redefine the worldbuilding terrain options).

I have trouble understanding what you mean by that.
Could you please rephrase that or better explain what you mean by 'the worldbuilding terrain options'?

Also please do not make it a habit to ask off-topic questions in random threads ... it makes it kinda hard for people using the search function to find the correct information.
This question is better asked in the moreheightlevels thread or in general openttd topics as it is not a problem you are having but more a request for info?

[moki]

Here comes another windows build, made from Tgen_Params_v9.8_r27168.7z with MSYS... compiled just fine and I couldn't get it to crash in a few minutes of testing. There was only one tiny problem: You used regex.h which is not included in MinGW/MSYS by default or mentioned anwhere in the wiki or forums. Took me a while to find and install it. This one came with the best noob-proof instructions, if anyone's interested.

Now for the map generation itself:
- Small maps seem to work very well now. Did you just set the rough parameters to 1 (which is obvious) on small maps or is there some interesting scaling going on in the background? Whatever you did, I like it. Not much room for improvement here.
- The sliders are a nice touch. Or rather, they would be, if the worked in a sensible way, but you already mentioned that. The range from -2^31 to 2^31 may be to much. These large numbers are hard to grasp for any user, let alone set precisely on such a small slider, so I'd suggest around +-2^16 and scaling the values internally, if necessary. I don't see a need for more than 5 digits.
- Question: What do negative values actually do? Do they just invert the corresponding octave of noise, keeping it at the same strength/amplitude as the positive value? That would be nice, though I really don't know if it's useful for any practical application...

[ChillCore]

Thank you for the windows binary moki, much appreciated.

There was only one tiny problem: You used regex.h which is not included in MinGW/MSYS by default or mentioned anwhere in the wiki or forums. Took me a while to find and install it. This one came with the best noob-proof instructions, if anyone's interested.

I included regex.h but I am not using it yet, I will need it to validate the negative strings properly later on, a negative sign can be put anywhere at the moment (even multiple) with some nasty side-effects.

Now for the map generation itself:
- Small maps seem to work very well now. Did you just set the rough parameters to 1 (which is obvious) on small maps or is there some interesting scaling going on in the background? Whatever you did, I like it. Not much room for improvement here.

The first two parameter (not scale) are lowered to 1 which eliminates the peaks at the largest distances and makes it easier to tune the other values.
Also upping the scale by a lot (at the same time) seems to smoothen out the terrain.
I have not much tuned yet , just some toying around now and then as you can see in the screenshots I posted.

- The sliders are a nice touch. Or rather, they would be, if the worked in a sensible way, but you already mentioned that. The range from -2^31 to 2^31 may be to much. These large numbers are hard to grasp for any user, let alone set precisely on such a small slider, so I'd suggest around +-2^16 and scaling the values internally, if necessary. I don't see a need for more than 5 digits.

The magic boxes make it a lot easier to do some quick testing and prevents from having to change from mouse to keyboard all the time.
Indeed the range may be too large with int32 and I may lower it to int16 again later on, I just felt like going crazy and seeing what the result would have was/is.
As a matter of fact since it is the height of 'this' value in relation to the previous that matters most I could do with limiting the values 1000 even but that does not leave much room for toying around no more.

- Question: What do negative values actually do? Do they just invert the corresponding octave of noise, keeping it at the same strength/amplitude as the positive value? That would be nice, though I really don't know if it's useful for any practical application...

Negative values help a lot in surpressing heights here and there and gives nicer result then just having them at 1, I still need to do a lot more testing and perhaps - 1 would do the same as -1000, not sure.


I'd rather keep going to make everything working properly for the moment ... as I mentioned before once I start messing about it is hard to stop. The terrain generation keeps fascinating me even after having tuned so much before in my patchpack and the moreheightlevels patch.

Feel free to provide me some values you like and I can make them defaults for the time being.
I am not sure if I will be able to finish this patch completely before the release of 1.5 but even then I could just add the two arrays and some tuned values and then continue the gui part for the next release without rushing so much.

[Baldy's Boss]

(Also still haven't gotten a clear answer on whether increased height levels redefine the worldbuilding terrain options).

I have trouble understanding what you mean by that.
Could you please rephrase that or better explain what you mean by 'the worldbuilding terrain options'?

Also please do not make it a habit to ask off-topic questions in random threads ... it makes it kinda hard for people using the search function to find the correct information.
This question is better asked in the moreheightlevels thread or in general openttd topics as it is not a problem you are having but more a request for info?

Answering here despite being asked not to right after being asked to...

When you create a world you have options for the terrain to be Very Flat,Flat,Hilly,or Mountainous.
These have values with respect to the current 16 levels,if there are 256 levels does that mean the new Flat is hillier than the old Hilly?
Or are there new options beyond a steady-defined Mountainous?

[ChillCore]

As it is in trunk now the terrain shoots off which IMHO does not look very good.

I am going to tune the values a bit so that flat will be flat-ish and hilly will remain hilly-ish.
Ofcourse with 256 heightlevels the terrain will scale in height too, but that is tempered a bit by not allowing 256 levels to be generated on smaller maps.
You can always raise the terrain up to the max height setting manually afterwards.

My first intention was to have more options (eg. in my patchpack I have 7 smoothness settings) but instead I am working on a custom smoothness patch now.
See viewtopic.php?f=33&t=63595
The idea is to let people save smoothness presets much like NewGRF presets in the end but I am not there yet by far.

If you want you can help me tune the values for the currently existing presets, twice as small maps and large maps (will) use two sepperate arrays.
There is windows binary of the current version posted near the end of the thread by moki.



ps:
Feel free to continue here for now as I will flag my previous post and ask for this discussion to be moved to the thread I linked, it is perfectly on-topic there.

[ChillCore]

For the few peeps that may get confused by the above:
Baldy's Boss', Kamnet's and some of my own posts were merged here from another thread, all is good.


Moving on ...
I am now working on a light version of this patch without the gui stuffs for trunk, that means just two arrays for small and large maps with some nice presets and no custom setting.
When I am done with that I will get back to finishing and polishing the gui and other things that need fixing still.


If only I knew where these very rarely occuring glitches come from once every blue moon.

[ChillCore]

Some screenies produced with my light version.

These are the values used to produce the attached screenshots:

Code: Select all

	/* Base noise amplitudes (multiplied by 1024) and indexed by "smoothness setting" and log2(frequency). */
	static const amplitude_t amplitudes_small[][10] = {
		/* lowest frequency ...... highest (every corner) */
		{48000, 10000, 8000, 24000, 12000, 2500, 250, 100, 80, 25}, ///< Very smooth
		{32000, 10000, 8000, 24000, 12000, 2500, 250, 100, 80, 25}, ///< Smooth
		{24000, 10000, 8000, 24000, 12000, 2500, 250, 100, 80, 25}, ///< Rough
		{16000, 10000, 8000, 24000, 12000, 2500, 250, 100, 80, 25}, ///< Very rough
	};

	/* Base noise amplitudes (multiplied by 1024) and indexed by "smoothness setting" and log2(frequency). */
	static const amplitude_t amplitudes_large[][10] = {
		/* lowest frequency ...... highest (every corner) */
		{48000, 2273, 5142, 253, 421, 2213, 137, 177, 37, 261}, ///< Very smooth
		{32000, 2273, 5142, 253, 421, 2213, 137, 177, 37, 261}, ///< Smooth
		{24000, 2273, 5142, 253, 421, 2213, 137, 177, 37, 261}, ///< Rough
		{16000, 2273, 5142, 253, 421, 2213, 137, 177, 37, 261}, ///< Very rough
	};

Most likely these values (with some minor tweaks still to come) will become the new presets (if the powers that be agree that is).

Also I did this:

Code: Select all

	static const int max_height[5][MAX_MAP_SIZE_BITS - MIN_MAP_SIZE_BITS + 1] = {
		/* 64  128  256  512 1024 2048 4096 */
		{   2,   3,   6,   7,  8,   10,  15 }, ///< Very flat
		{   4,   7,   8,   9,  15,  19,  31 }, ///< Flat
		{   8,   9,  10,  27,  23,  51,  61 }, ///< Hilly
		{  10,  11,  15,  27,  51,  61,  73 }, ///< Mountainous
		{  12,  19,  27,  51,  61,  73,  85 }, ///< Alpinist
	};

And then some which I will post later.

[ChillCore]

And some more screenies ...

[ChillCore]

Moar screensies of presets to come soon-ish.

Thanks to Eddi for the much needed feedback.

[romazoon]

It is Delicious ! thanks Chill for this nice tweaking!

they all look nice ! don t ask me to choose one ! (ok number 48 i f i have to choose one...and 47 cause one can t be enough )

[Alberth]

Did you try playing a game on such a map?

Having more hills or higher hills is great, but in most screenshots, the height goes up or down all over the map. Looks like a nightmare for building a transport network to me.
Default monorail looks very useless here. (Lots of new users play default set.)

Shouldn't there be room for flat tracks somewhere?

[ChillCore]

Actually romazoon was one of the most active testers/feedbackers/players of my patchpack, so yes he has played such maps before, Alberth.

But you are right I do keep showing the most extreme terrain as I am tuning to get rid of them really steep unplayable slopes; I understand where you are coming from (I hope that is the right expression to use here).
Attached a few screenies with different settings and less extreme regions of the map to show that you can have flatter-ish terrain too.


ps:
Screenies produced with the light version of the patch, attached to the first post.

Edit: Spelling.
Also thank you for the kind words romazoon.

[Alberth]

looks very good!

[ChillCore]

Some more screenies.

Not final tuning of 512 * 512 map, very rough and alpinist

[ChillCore]

I am finally happy with the light version.
I have posted it here because I had no more attachments left in the first post.

For the gui peeps:
The code and values from this version will come to the gui version soonish.



For Devs and everybody else interested:

- Terrain is generated lower so we get less of them steep peaks and the terrain no longer shoots off like a madman on steroids.
- All mapsizes should produce similar looking terrain regardless of settings.
- All mapsizes should be playable, except sometimes alpinist and very rough will produce peaky terrain, selecting a lower terrain type will solve this. Also variation will smoothen things out.
- This patch also fixes the tropical forest being broken horribly.
- The first pacth is optional, it is there because it improves terrain generation by a factor of lots.

The above comments not in order of patches.
Feedback is still very welcome but except for some minor tweaks the rest of changes I plan to make will not be for the light version.


EDIT:
I made a little logic error in the array selection ... attached patch is to replace the one in the zip file.