Graphics for African Scenario

[Arne]

Or build houses upon them!

[maley123]

eventually they would trust me
and are they meant to eat the new babies to stop the pop from rising
ow and i will make some desert trains
only make them not code them

[DaleStan]

Well sorta. But not babies. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/

[maley123]

that is nasty
but anyway do you need an artist for the train stuff
can you give me any pics of egypytian trains then

[richk67]

that is nasty
but anyway do you need an artist for the train stuff
can you give me any pics of egypytian trains then

Maley - Ive already had offers for coders and artists with established track records. Also some graphic sets are available anyway. As the saying goes... thanks, but no thanks.

I wish everyone would get the idea... IM DOING AFRICA, not one flipping country of it. To give you all the full idea, the screenshot I posted was about 1/250th of the map area.

Here is a v0.08 of the 1024x1024 map. Although this is openly accessible, I would rather people waited for the full v1.0 release before using it as a template for their own works. By all means play with this one, just please dont re-release as your own work.

[Villem]

Hmmm...South Africa..i have quite a few pictures of the passenger rolling stock used there.
Though, South Africa uses Narrow Gauge.

http://www.sarcc.co.za/source/frames/si ... _photo.htm here you can find pictures of some commuter trains.

[belugas]

Nicely done richk67!
Too bad the Nil is so small, just a crack on land and no water...
I wonder if anyone cares if the proportions are not by the book.
Because then, you could very well ad water to the NIL...

[richk67]

Nicely done richk67!
Too bad the Nil is so small, just a crack on land and no water...
I wonder if anyone cares if the proportions are not by the book.
Because then, you could very well ad water to the NIL...

I might make a version that is navigable up to the Aswan Dam. Unfortunately a river has to be 3 tiles wide (slope down, water, slope up), and its 4 when you have to have a navigable corner. This will eat almost all the width of the valley.

I'll have a play later.

[richk67]

Nicely done richk67!
Too bad the Nil is so small, just a crack on land and no water...
I wonder if anyone cares if the proportions are not by the book.
Because then, you could very well ad water to the NIL...

I might make a version that is navigable up to the Aswan Dam. Unfortunately a river has to be 3 tiles wide (slope down, water, slope up), and its 4 when you have to have a navigable corner. This will eat almost all the width of the valley.

I'll have a play later.

OK. Here is a version with the Nile navigable (after destroying the dam and cataracts) as far as Khartoum where the Nile splits into the Blue and White Niles.

Better?

[belugas]

Better?

I would certainly say yes!
I think it is a good job.
But, since you are the creator, i'd better ask : how do you feel about it?

I never played in tropics. I will start with this scenarion!
There is always a first time...

[White Rabbit]

I think you should give the Nile a delta and a broader mouth. Always keep the Nile at least one 1 tile wide, except at its very source. Make it broader as it approaches the north African coast.
Also, don't forget all the jungles in the south-west, and the smaller jungle rivers. And Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya, which is over 2000 metres high.

Also, there's space for the Canary Islands to the west of Africa. The towns there would be small, but maybe put some industry there for boats/planes. Here's a map which has all the major landmarks: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/africa/africa_ref01.jpg

[osai]

White Rabbit, the Kilimanjaro is about 5000 metres high

I had a look at the scenario and its quite cool, but as White Rabbit said, the Nil should be wider, on this satellite map you can even see the Nil: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... raphic.jpg

One problem are the lakes in higher regions. Is there a way to get water inside?

If this scen is finished I will definitely play it and build roads and rails through hole africa

[richk67]

I think you should give the Nile a delta and a broader mouth. Always keep the Nile at least one 1 tile wide, except at its very source. Make it broader as it approaches the north African coast.

It is pretty much 1 tile all the way, except for Lake Nasser. I'll definitely do some Nile Delta - there are three main branches.

Also, don't forget all the jungles in the south-west, and the smaller jungle rivers. And Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya, which is over 2000 metres high.

Also, there's space for the Canary Islands to the west of Africa. The towns there would be small, but maybe put some industry there for boats/planes. Here's a map which has all the major landmarks: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/africa/africa_ref01.jpg

Im using the CIA maps from http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/, so expect them to be completely out of date and useless

Mt Kilimanjaro is already there and labelled. The Canary Islands are there too. There isnt really enough land at this scale to make a useful town there. Since there are plenty of others, Im not worried by that. You may get a village

Im working on the map in this sequence:

• Terrain import: done.
  Deserts. Sahara done. Namib desert to do. Also semi-desert margin needs adding - I may develop some code to do graduated desert drag/drop. Adding by hand is RSI territory... drag/drop is too dense, so you end up randomly clicking thousands of times until it looks right. No promises though.
  Towns and cities - 1/3 done.
  Primary industries.
  Trees. Ive created a Random Trees mod that will populate the trees in clusters. The low-level tropical belts will have to be added manually, but that isnt too bad.
  Create HARD scenario version. (No secondary industries, other than a few refineries, and 1 of each other type. You have to make your money elsewhere, then build your own industries.)
  Secondary industries.
  Create EASY scenario with plenty of linkable industries.

Apart from all that... my time is my own

Forthcoming projects:

• Grand Canyon terrain, with random towns/industries. The terrain map of this is AWESOME!! See the screenie.
  Continental USA. Another massive scenario 2048x1024. Maybe by end Jan.
  Ganges delta. The ultimate river industry map. All branches of the river are navigable. Lots of scope for bridges. Probably best in tropical style, but with no desert.
  Great Lakes. Great for US or Arctic Renewal sets. Lower priority as a scenario already exists of the area.
  Meditteranean 4:1. The entire Meditteranean and Black Sea. Another biggie, but has the unusual aspect ratio.
  Indonesian Islands. Easier scenario to make, but less appealling IMO than ones with dedicated graphic sets.

[richk67]

White Rabbit, the Kilimanjaro is about 5000 metres high

I had a look at the scenario and its quite cool, but as White Rabbit said, the Nil should be wider, on this satellite map you can even see the Nil: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... raphic.jpg

Really nice map. I'll use that as a better guide for vegetation. What you see of the Nile on the sat map is mainly the green strip of vegetation that snakes along both banks of the river. It shows up strongly against the surrounding desert. On my map, Ive done the same. You have the narrow river (its rarely more than 200 yards wide), and a strip of vegetation/farms down the side.

One problem are the lakes in higher regions. Is there a way to get water inside?

Yes, but. Neither is necessarily good. The safe way is to chisel a route from the coast, and lower the lake bed to 0. However, for say Lake Victoria, this will give steep banks that I would then have to smooth/blend. Ive considered using stones to mark the edge of the water, and place a water supply in each. Its not pretty.

The second way will look right, but may cause devastating floods. I could hack the scenario editor to let me change a tile to MP_WATER at whatever height. However, I dont know what would happen if you then cut into it... the entire map could flood. Anyway, it would be a hack, and I want this to be a non-hack map.

If this scen is finished I will definitely play it and build roads and rails through hole africa

Great. Its become a bit of an obsession to get it right! Enjoy!

[richk67]

Better?

I would certainly say yes!
I think it is a good job.
But, since you are the creator, i'd better ask : how do you feel about it?

I never played in tropics. I will start with this scenarion!
There is always a first time...

I can see it would make for more entertaining gameplay. Ive modified the Niger to be navigable to Tombouctou (Timbuktu). The Congo worries me. Its big and wide, and should be there. But most of its length its well above 250m. So I would have to chisel a deep gorge... which may improve the gameplay but detract too much from the terrain loyalty.

I'll cross that bridge later.

[Arne]

Could you please make the scenarios for the version 4.0.1 maybe?
Its not everybody that's using the latest nightly.
Especially the most of the Internet Players.

[DaleStan]

Could you please make the scenarios for the version 4.0.1 maybe?

May I borrow your time machine, please?

Or better yet, let the devs borrow it, so we can jump straight to that version, and skip all the intervening versions. (0.5.0, 0.6.0, 1.0.0, &c.)

Why does everyone find it so hard to type a version number correctly?

[richk67]

Could you please make the scenarios for the version 4.0.1 maybe?
Its not everybody that's using the latest nightly.
Especially the most of the Internet Players.

0.4.0.1 wont be around forever. It will take me a couple of weeks to finish this, so I suspect 0.4.5 will be released before I finish. It should work with all builds post r2963, which includes 0.4.5.

So, in other words; no. (Its also a real big pain in the neck to try to import into 0.4.0.1 at anything larger than 256x256. Just be patient.)

[LordOfThePigs]

Could you post a link to where you are getting the height data from? I've always wondered where I could find such data...

[richk67]

Could you post a link to where you are getting the height data from? I've always wondered where I could find such data...

No problem.

Its Geodas - http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/gdas/gd_designagrid.html. You will need to download the software with the first data extract. Instructions for use follow...

However, I have also got data from the USGS 3-second DEM data - http://weather.unisys.com/usgs/3sec/index.html. This one is just the USA, but the detail is stunning - it also requires a LOT of careful graphics editing to get it into a working PNG file. However, Im a photographer, and deal with more complicated digital photos daily.

---------------------------------------------------
Instructions for getting Geodas data into PNG

I struggled with this at first, and its pretty undocumented, but someone already emailed me for these instructions. Hope they help people...

I went to the GEODAS page http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/gdas/gd_designagrid.html.
Enter a name for the extract - eg csuke1
Select the ETOPO2 2min database.
Click on Lat/Long to select the location you want.
The other fields should be already sorted.
Click on "Design-a-Grid".

Select "Download grid data". It is stored in a .g98 file.
It then asks what format you want, and whether you want the software.
For my first download, I selected the GeoDAS software.
Download the zip, install the software.

When you start the GeoDAS software, select File/Open Grid File. Navigate to the .g98 file and select it. Enter the lat/long limits you want - this lets you select a subset of the data you downloaded. My UK pictures are selected from a full Europe data file. Click OK.

Now this is the bit that took me a while to figure out: Select Binary Raster Format, with an ArcGIS header, Little Endian. Click OK. Enter the name of the output file you want to save it as, with a .bin extension.

If you already have your data extracted, you can start here directly by starting the Hydroplot program and opening a .bin data set.

A confirmation pops up asking if you want to view the data with hydroplot - Yes. Yes, I know not to use this for navigation. Duh!

Click OK to the lat/long limits, or change them again to select yet another narrow subset.

Colours: I use the shades of blue, as it translates easier into a 4-bit PNG map. Try to ensure only 16 colours are used. So at 500m intervals, select -500 (so we have sea), to +7500m. At 250m, range is -250 to +3750m. At 200m, range is -200 to 3000m. At 100m, range is -100 to +1500m. At 50m, range is -50 to 750m. etc

The grid plot size helps if you zoom in. Hydroplot shows grid lines when zoomed in a lot, and a larger grid plot size helps get rid of the grid lines. I usually start at 1x1, and only increase if I have zoomed in and the grid lines are appearing.

Click OK. Click Cancel - I havent installed Coastlines. Wait....

Eventually up pops Hydroplot with the blue shaded map. Hopefully you will have sea, and a range of shades of blue. I maximise the screen (it spends ages redrawing it - dont be alarmed!) then do a PrintScreen.

Into PaintshopPro. Paste. Crop image to just the map. Reduce colours to 16 colours (4-bit). As we should only have 16 shades of blue - not a problem.

Save as PNG. Make sure in the Options dialog you have selected "Do not Optimise Palette"... I made this mistake on the Africa map, and it cost me 2 days effort.

Run OTTD and have fun... it should import fine.
Remember you have to match the ratio of the map size in OTTD.

Have fun!