scenario editor: more tools?

[Wolf01]

i picked up my old scenario because meush asked me if i agreed to include it on the next release

i had to apply some corrections, like remove some trees and other things
i removed all the things on the map, because was the less difficult way
my suggestion is:
- drag'n'drop remove trees, you can add them, why not remove them in the same way?
- drag'n'drop remove houses || roads || map structures (lighthouses and antennas, and maybe other structures which may be added in future)
- change snow line runtime on arctic scenarios (in the editor)

also some things that i read of and which are useful IMHO
- drag'n'drop rocks, desert / remove desert (i read that is on development, but when will be added?)
- different brushes
- drag'n'drop terraforming

and the most useful: internal and fully supported grayscale image to map

[nicfer]

I add another thing: building railways, bus and truck stops, vehicles, etc. for the human player or for an AI, for make scenarios more dynamic. In a scenario that comes with normal TTD, the AI starts with some small railnetworks. Will be this possible?

[KING]

make map. play game and build what you want. save. remane save to .scn

[nicfer]

I tried it but when I try to load the scenario with the editor the railways are not showed, and in game I start with the money that I have at the moment of saving.

[Wolf01]

the newest scenario editor removes automatically all players' structures
now there isn't a way to make pre-built games

[MeusH]

i picked up my old scenario because meush asked me if i agreed to include it on the next release

i had to apply some corrections, like remove some trees and other things
i removed all the things on the map, because was the less difficult way
my suggestion is:
- drag'n'drop remove trees, you can add them, why not remove them in the same way?
- drag'n'drop remove houses || roads || map structures (lighthouses and antennas, and maybe other structures which may be added in future)
- change snow line runtime on arctic scenarios (in the editor)

Good ideas here!

- drag'n'drop rocks, desert / remove desert (i read that is on development, but when will be added?)

Possible since a loot of nightlies

- drag'n'drop terraforming

Raise/lower land, then use level land tool which is draggable

[Wolf01]

- drag'n'drop terraforming

Raise/lower land, then use level land tool which is draggable

yes but allow you to make only squared terrains, i mean a tool like the winpaint brushes, sizable and which select automatically the height where you click, if you keep the button down and drag, the terrain will terraform with the shape of the brush and at the same height of where you clicked

[richk67]

I am putting together a series of updates to the scenario generator. The main one is I am planning a terrain generator using the subdivision method. Could be interesting.

Anyway, here is the patch for my desert/rock as dither pattern. I posted this in another thread, but it makes a LOT of sense to have a scenario generator-specific thread.

Small warning... I have not modified this to work with the PNG map patch. So the "Load PNG" button and a piece of my text overlap. I havent tested whether either functionality is affected (my guess is it wont be - it will just look ugly.)

Patch built against r3253.

Also there is my more trees patch. When you click on "Random Trees", you get more trees the higher the tree location is. This makes Arctic terrain look WAY better. The extra trees are built randomly in a clump around the central tree. How many more are built is proportional to the square of the terrain height.

[Wolf01]

another thing:
is possible to make the trees born from other trees?
yes random trees should appear, but not much than now
my idea is to have a tile with a tree, the tree starts to grow, when the tree is grew enough another tree (or more than one) appear in the same tile or in a near tile

in this way the trees make forests instead of a large area with one tree here and one tree there

[webfreakz.nl]

What about something you can use drag&drop (with trees) to cover the whole country? Now, in desert-type-games, if you have about 20 (???) lumber mills, and the wood has been cut, you have to use drag&drop (which is about e.g 15x15 tiles) a couple of times for the whole country, what about a infinete area?

[richk67]

my suggestion is:
- drag'n'drop remove trees, you can add them, why not remove them in the same way?

I will be extending my dither rocks/desert to include trees. I can also add the CTRL-click for removing trees. So it should work exactly the same as adding desert. You should then be able to add a thinned out area of trees, or gradually dither-remove trees until the desired look is achieved, or remove all within an area.
Definitely on my development list.

- drag'n'drop remove houses || roads || map structures (lighthouses and antennas, and maybe other structures which may be added in future)

Extending remove CTRL click to lighthouses & antennas should be easy enough. However, it may be necessary to have specific code to block creation of more than one if you click-drag. Click-drag is probably OK for removal, but no need to create that many.
I also want to add a build specific building menu, to allow selection of the particular building you want. It was very frustrating in making the Africa scenario when all I could hit was "Expand" and hope I got what I wanted rather than build a building with a particular accommodation size.
CTRL-click removal for roads is limited by road laying code. Its not an easy one to do....
Except perhaps create a "Bulldoze" panel, with push buttons for all categories of items you want to remove. So you have a button for trees, rock, desert, lighthouse, antennas, buildings, roads, etc. and when you drag the red square, it removes all items of the selected categories.

- change snow line runtime on arctic scenarios (in the editor)

Yeah, that would be useful. Shouldnt be too difficult. I'll see what it will take to do.

also some things that i read of and which are useful IMHO
- drag'n'drop rocks, desert / remove desert (i read that is on development, but when will be added?)

There is my patch, but who knows how/whether patches ever make it into the trunk. Its not ready yet IMO. I want to wait until I have a fully debugged suite of scenario patches, and get them all brought in at once. Maybe target v0.5.

- different brushes
- drag'n'drop terraforming

I'd think this is definitely desirable for the new map design, but maybe be too much work that will be outdated too soon for the current map.

and the most useful: internal and fully supported grayscale image to map

In my view, greyscale is not that useful. Since there are at most 16 levels, it would be hard to see what will cause a jump in terrain height. So levels will be (0,0,0), (16,16,16), (32,32,32), etc. A terrain feature that looks obvious (visually) to us at say 85,85,85 will only appear at 96,96,96. So where the edge looks sharp in greyscale, it will not necessarily be where you want it in the final map.
Also, 16,16,16 is very very hard to see on a correctly adjusted monitor. And yet this is the most critical junction: between land and water.
The PNG map patch has it about right. I like the way I can assign a steady green palette, with blue set as water, and it imports as I see it in PSP.

[richk67]

another thing:
is possible to make the trees born from other trees?
yes random trees should appear, but not much than now
my idea is to have a tile with a tree, the tree starts to grow, when the tree is grew enough another tree (or more than one) appear in the same tile or in a near tile

in this way the trees make forests instead of a large area with one tree here and one tree there

Yes, very possible. Possibly also incredibly slow on a big 1024x or 2048x map. On 1024, you would check 1 million tiles, and grow each tree square.

[Wolf01]

grayscale with the new map array and half heights will help to draw big scenarios in a better way

yes i noticed that checking for each tree will slow down the game, i tested it with a friend in a rts game made with gamemaker, maybe checking some trees only and not all will improve the performance

[richk67]

grayscale with the new map array and half heights will help to draw big scenarios in a better way

yes i noticed that checking for each tree will slow down the game, i tested it with a friend in a rts game made with gamemaker, maybe checking some trees only and not all will improve the performance

Sure when new map array arrives, greyscale becomes far more relevant. When...
Its not possible to check some trees. There is no list of trees, only the map. Thus its either check all tiles on the map, or check a random selection of tiles. If random, then its no better than say, my random trees patch. Or its brute force solution; check each tile.