New Map Rewrite effort

[belugas]

As some of you may have heard, there is a new effort on "New Map" subject, called tfc_newmap.

We, the tfc_newmap developers, are now proud to present to you the fruits of our work.
The main goal pursued is to remove _all_ direct accesses to the current map array.
Other, though less major, goals are to increase the readability of
the code in the parts where it accesses the map,
prepare the ground for the structure devs wrote for the old rewrite and so on.

Currently we have almost identified all direct accesses and written a
wrapper for them. The next step, which we are currently starting, is to
generalize the newly created accessors to a 'global' map API. Meanwhile we
are trying to remove all indirect map accesses via the TileInfo struct. This
struct hides the API by creating an extra, unnecesary layer.

The progress of the work can be followed via:
http://wiki.openttd.org/index.php/MapRewriteProgress

We try to keep our version of OpenTTD as close as possible to the trunk of
OpenTTD. This means that the tfc_newmap OpenTTD should be able to load
savegames from the trunk OpenTTD and vice versa. When that is not the case,
it will be considered a bug. So this means that we need you to test our efforts anyway
that you can, on newtwork as well as standalone. Do not expect anything new visually,
nor new feature nor anything else.

The most recent version of our effort can be fetched (via SVN) from:
svn://svn.libgpmi.org/openttd/branch/tfc_newmap
or browsed at Our own private TRAC system, graciously provided by TrueLight!

Nightlies are available below, for those OS:
Linux ,Mac OS x and Windows

Rubidium, glx, egladil and me would like to thanks :
Truelight for his kind help and advices
Darkvater, peter1138, tron for their advices and support
Igor2Code (as now known on IRC) for inspiration

[MeusH]

I'm glad you're making so good progress on it, TFC team.

Belugas, that's great you've announced it here, this way much more people will know about your wonderful job.

Also I'm happy to see developer's nicks in "Greets" section - If devs got involved in a patch, the patch gets involved in OpenTTD

[DeletedUser21]

wow!
the last time I saw this wikipage (witch was 3 days ago) it was just for a few percent done if I'm not wrong.

Amazing, just amazing!
Keep it up!

[dmh_mac]

Wow this is great!

[paijm021]

Will this ultimately lead to things like diagonal tracks under bridges and signals in tunnels?

Anyway superb effort!

[belugas]

We greatly appreciate those nice comments of yours

What is the future looking? Bright, in our dreams!

Once everything is the way we want them to be, we will start the real work : implementing the scheme devs wrote in the old map rewrite effort.

That would ultimately allow us to do things like:
undersea tunnels
turning tunnels
undergroung stations
lights on tunnels-bridges
diagonal tracks underbridge
multiple layered bridges
diagonal bridges and tunnels (but that would require graphics )
cliffs
And so much more...
In fact, the imagination is going wild

[DeletedUser21]

Hmm... It is turning to go a little bit like Locomotion bridges and stuff only then with the TTD graphics and far better gameplay!

[gkirilov]

Great work!!!
When it is finished ..it will make the game much better.


*fingers crossed to see it in the trunk when it is done*

[Archonix]

/me imagines multi-level diagonal bridges criss-crossing all over the map...

Yeah baby.

[Buggi]

I am SO glad progress is still being made on this project. I'm so maxed out on time right now it's depressing. I'd rather be working on OTTD full time.

I'd offer help, but again, no time.

[CobraA1]

Great . Keep at it, I love it already.

[jungle]

This is a huge job, well done for having another try... hopefully the last attempt provided some experience of what can go wrong and this time it can all go a bit more smoothly.

If it means OTTD has to cut down on new features for a while it is still well worth it - the possibilities once the new map is up and running are enormous. There's a lot of newly drawn graphics already waiting in the wings for a map capable of using it.

[belugas]

If it means OTTD has to cut down on new features for a while it is still well worth it

Luckily, we are not official devs, which means they keep on doing their great job, while we keep on our side . So no cut doen of anything.
And, today, it is a great one, since we removed the last direct map accesses. So Step one in finished.
The fun only begins

[Thalass]

One thing I've noticed, when a train goes uphill or downhill, instead of sliding up or down the slope the train and it's carriges act as if each tile is flat, and when it reaches the next tile it jumps. Like it's going up or down stairs.


works fine other than that, though.

[Korenn]

sounds like the slope retrieval functions isn't working yet

[LordOfThePigs]

Great job guys!!! It's really nice that you managed to take this project to the end!!!

[kasper_vk]

I've had this thought for al long time, but I never noticed anyone else saying the same thing, so here it is:

Development of all map-related changes, patches and new features should be ceased until the / a new map structure has been fully developed & merged with the main source-stream.

Why?
- every addition to or change of the current structure wil have to be retested & re-implemented when the / a new map structure is merged with the main source stream
- every addition to or change of the current structure might further slow down the develoment of a new map structure, if the developers aim at staying (close to) compatible with the main-stream
- asuming the new stucture is well designed & implemented, any new feature will take less effort to implement on the new structure than on the old, so why bother building new features on the current/old structure?

The motivation behind this is simple: there's a large amount of suggestions from the OTTD userbase regarding map-related features / changes (pbs, signals on bridges, diagonal tunnels&bridges, underground stations, multi-tile depots... etc!). And it seems that lately more & more people create patches to achieve some of these map-related goals, but al these changes are made on the existing map-structure.
IMHO if this continues, it will become increasingly difficult & time-consuming to even switch to a new structure.

Investing this time in the development of the new structure seems to me a far better way to go (on the long run!). Trying to only achieve results on short term will eventually kill any project.

Anyone who shares this opinion?
Do the OpenTTD developers have a vision of the way to go towards a new map structure?

[hertogjan]

In my patches (those which I'm currently working on) I try to avoid direct references to the map array. However, sometimes they aren't avoidable. So should I wait until the code* is rewritten? The answer is no. But I do agree that if you write some code, you should certainly think how you would change it if the new map structure would be integrated in the trunk. I mean, where you use direct references, you should add comment lines about what they do**, so you can easily change them when you should.



* i.e., the new map structure
**And probably mark them in some way, so you can find them just by ctrl-F-ing (or something like that).

[egladil]

kasper_vk: Could you please explain what you mean by map-related patches? Do you mean things like this project, or things like my yellow signals patch, or both?

[AlienDNA]

There is just one thing I wonder about. As I am reading this, I remember devs working on a new map array as well. Is this effort running on its own, or is this THE map rewrite everyone was already waiting for.

Because I wouldn't like the main branch splitting up in one with the tfc map array, and one with the main map array. Because then it would be better to spend all one's effort on a single branch, then to make 2 seperate ones...