| Sat Sep 23 22:31:41 2017 by Four Es |
| Hello! So far I love this website, I LOVE to generate random seeds and create my own worlds But I would also like if I could only have a specific type of generating, that is, the ground not touching the side of the map, kind of like the continents of Earth? Thanks. |
| Sun Sep 24 08:40:13 2017 by Four Es |
| Oh wow this seed is actually beautiful: 7181889 Only if I could remove the top :/ |
| Mon Sep 25 09:38:05 2017 by Torben |
| The planets generated by the program are spherical, but projected onto a flat surface. Most projections wrap around east-west, and you can choose where the cut is made by selecting the centre longitude. In your case, the land that "touches" the edge is a north polar continent (which appears huge in the Mercator projection). While you can also select a centre latitude, this does not always help for polar continents, as cylindrical projections (Mercator, square, Peters) and the icosahedral projection always have the North Pole on top (infinitely hig up in the case of Mercator). But the Mollweide projection can rotate the map so the poles are not at top and bottom. For the seed you mention, try selecting the Mollweide projection and set the centre latitude to 30, then you will have no land touching the edges. |
| Mon Sep 25 09:42:47 2017 by Torben |
| One more thing: The offline version has an extra option that allows rotating the coordinate, so you can move the north pole to be, say, at 60° north instead of 90° north. This is different from showing the north pole in a different place on the map, and will work with all projections. |
| Fri Sep 29 14:53:08 2017 by Four Es |
| Oh hey thank you very much! :D Sorry for the late reply :/ |
| Fri Sep 29 15:04:56 2017 by Four Es |
| Mercator seems the best, it completely removed the ""arctic"", Wonder if you could add a historic kind of map in the color options? I'd LOVE that theme |
| Tue Oct 3 00:05:14 2017 by CorinaMarie |
| @Four Es You can simply make your own color file to be whatever you'd like. Copy one of the existing .col files to another name with the same extension and then tweak the R, G, and B values to get the colors you want for a particular elevation. The program will automatically blend the colors when there are height gaps. (This is all explained in the manual.) Here's one I made for myself. It won't be of any use to you because it is for the SimCity 4 elevation topographical map to match game colors. But, it does show how you can tweak the colors to your heart's content. Also note, do not add the ;Remarks like mine shows. (I tweaked the source code to allow that for my modified version.) 0 0 0 0 ;Black 1 255 255 255 ;White 2 0 0 0 ;BackgroundNotUsedInSC4Maps 3 255 0 255 ;GridLineColor 4 0 0 0 ;CoastalOutlineColor 5 54 199 204 ;ContourOutlineColor 6 44 75 133 ;LowestSeaColour 48 51 91 160 ;LowSeaColour 92 58 104 183 ;HighSeaColour 120 74 135 180 ;HighestSea 132 240 212 151 ;BeachSand 133 170 162 109 ;BeachBlend 139 101 150 61 ;GrassyGreen 143 112 170 142 ;BluishGreen 168 154 138 98 ;LightBrown 230 145 126 91 ;DarkerBrown 255 255 255 255 ;HighestMountainColor |
| Tue Oct 3 06:36:10 2017 by RGT |
| As someone also interested in making a new color pallette for colder worlds, while we cant add these 'Beach Sand' on each line to identify each, are the orders the same in all files? Thus I can figure out which is which based on your own color code? |
| Tue Oct 3 10:03:28 2017 by Torben |
| The manual describes the layout of the colour files. As for historic-looking maps, there is a limit to what you can do with colour maps alone (you won't get small cones to indicate mountains, for example). A somewhat old-style map can be obtained using the yellow colour map, coastlines, and bumpmap on land only. You might want to send it through a small-radius gaussian filter to soften the bumpmap a bit. |
| Tue Oct 3 19:39:17 2017 by CorinaMarie |
| @RGT The manual does a good job describing the color file layout. But, the basic premise is the first number is the height elevation then followed by the RGB values as three separate numbers. So, as you look at each of the color files included with Torben's source download you will see they are all in ascending order from lowest to highest. "Elevations" 0 to 5 are used internally and the lowest sea height starts at 6. Then the land starts at the lowest plus the highest and then divided by 2. Besides the differences in RGB values the other color files might use a different height where they have a particular color value. With some trial and error testing you can tweak a few color values or heights, render a new map and see the results. BTW, I presume you have the more powerful offline version. And you do need to tell the program which color file to use by passing that at the command line. (How to do that is also in the manual.) I'm at work now, but I'll check back when I get home to see if you have any other questions. -Cori |
| Tue Oct 3 20:52:22 2017 by RGT |
| I did check the manual. Dunno if it messed up in download, but its a massive text wall, there are no line breaks nor separations between paragraphs so its a bit hard to find what's what in there. Will see if I can reformat it into a more readable style. Yes, I use the CMD version. I tried the one with UI later on, but it does not render maps the size I wanted (10000 x 5000) so I returned to the CMD. You say the first 5 lines of code are internal, should I then leave those untouched? Also, wouldnt it be the first 6? Its the seventh in your code that has the 'lowest sea color' comment. |
| Tue Oct 3 23:16:20 2017 by CorinaMarie |
| Sounds like you opened the manual with Windows Notepad. At a bare minimum use Windows Wordpad, but the absolute best is Notepad++. ( https://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v7.5.1.html ) and then you will see proper spacing and line breaks. Same goes for the .col files too. For the lines to leave alone (or rather to tweak when you know why you are tweaking them) they are numbered 0 to 5 which is indeed 6 total lines. ;) |
| Tue Oct 3 23:30:40 2017 by CorinaMarie |
| Me again. BTW, if you don't mind editing the source code and compiling, here's the tweaks I made to allow comments in the .col file. Find this line at line numbers 717 & 718 in the original code: result = fscanf(colfile, " %d %d %d %d", &cNum, &rValue, &gValue, &bValue); Add a new one right above that: char Remarks[256]; And then alter the lines at 717 & 718 to be: result = fscanf(colfile, " %d %d %d %d %s", &cNum, &rValue, &gValue, &bValue, &Remarks); If you do that then every .col file MUST HAVE a fifth variable with no spaces in it. It can be as short as a single character and I use the semicolon for that. For longer text I use the underscore where I'd want spaces. (Which this site messed up the display of.) So, it'd be the last number of the RGB values followed by one space as the separator and then the ;RemarkWithWhateverYouType. |
| Wed Oct 4 00:46:16 2017 by RGT |
| If all pallette files are the same order, I think I can manage without the remarks hopefully. Plus without them I can share the pallettes better. I have a friend who just made a desert world one that looks pretty nice and I we will share our new ones. (Can one submit pallettes to the generator if they end up good and is something not yet done?) I do have Notepad++, I assumed the Manual to be a notepad file though, given it is how it's icon looks, never occurred to me to try np++ :P How do you suggest testing color changes? Currently debating either tweaking one, and rendering a very small map to check. Or use Photoshop and color replace those from an existing pallette with the new color and see how that looks. |
| Wed Oct 4 01:16:00 2017 by CorinaMarie |
| To begin I'd suggest using drastic differences. Copy the 0 - 5 lines from whichever .col is the closest to what you like already. They are the background and contour lines. Then do something like: 6 0 0 255 ;PureBlue 42 0 100 100 ;LightBlue 84 160 160 160 ;Gray 132 255 150 0 ;Orange 174 60 255 0 ;LightGreen 216 0 255 0 ;PureGreen 255 255 255 255 ;White I suggest these odd color combinations so you can really see the differences. I'd go with a map at least 500 pixels each direction so it's easier to see the blended results. 1000 px is even better and doesn't take too long. Once you've rendered your first one with these weird color combos then change only the first number by like 10 or 15 one way or the other. (The elevations in the example above of 42, 84, 132, 174, and 216. Always have a 6 elevation for the lowest water and a 255 elevation for the highest mountain. After you get a feel for how these weird colors blend differently by changing the elevations then start swapping in color values you really want to use. After you done a couple of tests tweaking both the elevation and the RGB color values it'll suddenly make a lot more sense. From there you then just fine tune it. (You can have more lines than I've shown if you need them.) |
| Wed Oct 4 06:14:59 2017 by RGT |
| Oh, I can change the elevations too? I assumed those were 'do not touch. Only change coloring' kind of deals. And I can add more 'steps' to the elevation coloring changes then? Presumably for making mountains look less abrupt? I guess its not a good idea to move all elevation numbers down a lot (minus the last one as you say) to make flatter worlds then, it would only color all highlands with the 255 elevation color then. |
| Wed Oct 4 08:27:56 2017 by RGT |
| Went ahead and started testing stuff... Did you remove lines? the first pallette example you posted has one less ocean and two less land lines than Lefebvre2 (The one I always use) Regardless I managed to figure out what was what using neon pink in each line. :P How's this for a Tundra pallette (WIP of course)? (https://i.imgur.com/slmI1Qo.png) |
| Wed Oct 4 12:41:12 2017 by CorinaMarie |
| Yep, you can change elevations. And yes, you can add more lines for finer tuning between elevations. Your Tundra image looks great. I see you are now an expert. (The trial and error part is the greatest teacher, you know.) |
| Thu Oct 5 06:33:22 2017 by RGT |
| Trial and error, and taking the colors out of a Google Earth pic I took of Alaska and checked in paint. :P Though a friend linked me a better site where the images arent blue tinted due to the atmosphere like in GE. (https://api.mapbox.com/styles/v1/mapbox/satellite-v9.html?title=true&access_token=pk.eyJ1IjoibWFwYm94IiwiYSI6ImNpejY4M29iazA2Z2gycXA4N2pmbDZmangifQ.-g_vE53SD2WrJ6tFX7QHmA#1.57/16.4/63.9) Will do a separate variant and compare. Getting there. (I think I will also reduce the light blue of the coast, make the oceans seem more deep and not as 'beach-y') |
| Thu Oct 5 07:15:31 2017 by RGT |
| Side question... Looking around the manual I cant seem to find how to make the 'Adjust colour by latitude' option (Which is -c lowercase) be 'Yes, very strongly'... From what I can see using -c is equivalent of the 'Yes' option, meaning the lowest choice. And I was banking on using the strong pick for lots of polar ice caps and such. Do you by any chance know how to weak that? (Or Torben if he is around) |
| Thu Oct 5 09:54:10 2017 by Torben |
| The -c option is cumulative, so -c -c corresponds to "yes, strongly" and -c -c -c corresponds to "yes, very strongly". |
| Thu Oct 5 10:11:33 2017 by RGT |
| Ah, so that's how it works! I was trying stuff like -c 2 or something. Can I go beyond three -c by any chance? 3 is already good enough, but always good to know for extra cold worlds. :P Thanks man! |
| Thu Oct 5 14:18:24 2017 by Torben |
| Four or more occurrences of -c are possible, but it quickly gets ridiculous. |
| Wed Jan 10 07:55:55 2018 by Ron Vantreese |
| The suggestion of 4 -c's seems fascinating. Let me know if there is an interest in this and I will make it available in the Windows version. |
