[RELz] Dynamic Map : IV - Oblivion

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 5:11 am

I'd like to just say that this is an excellent idea{WIPz} for a mod and you have my nod of approval.

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 6:17 am

Well if you want me to produce the rest of the BC city maps, I'll do so. But CS-style is the only style I can offer!

I will use them for a CS-style map when I get around to make one

I'll create some for some UL mods too, since no one else has said they'll do them yet.

That would be great. I'm hoping I will be able to use your work and make decent elven map style of them afterwards.

Btw, can anyone help me understand the Menus50 and Menus80 folders (within the Textures folder). Initially, all the map components have the path "Textures\Menus\DynamicMap". The first problem is that if loading the game with small or medium textures, the map components (and the base map) that was compressed ends up as garbage (though they show fine if large textures is chosen). Is there no compression that works for medium/small texture size. The second thing I didn't understand was that if I copied the DynamicMap folder to Textures\Menus50 and Textures\Menus80, the engine still used the ones in Textures\Menus - if I renamed the DynamicMap folder there, the components were not found.

So I'm not sure how to handle non-large texture size. I could of course just provide all the map components in uncompressed form, but I rather have a base map of 4MB than 16MB. Can anyone help me out here?

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 8:39 am

IIRC, Menus50 and Menus80 have to do with screen resolution, not compression. Menus50 is 1/2 the size of Menus, and Menus80 is 75%.

So, if your .dds is 1024X512, it should be scaled to 512x256 in Menus50 and in Menus 80, the dds size is 1024x512 but not a full texture. Scale the original to 768X384, paste it into a new 1024x512, anchor it in the upper left corner and leave the rest empty aplha.

Edit: Just thought to actually look. menus50 is what I thought. 1/2 of menus. the only file I have in menus 80 is cyrodiil_resized. And it is no where near what I said above.

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 7:28 am

On a side note, it seems that Kyoma has now released MenuQue v7.

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 6:33 am

IIRC, Menus50 and Menus80 have to do with screen resolution, not compression. Menus50 is 1/2 the size of Menus, and Menus80 is 75%.

So, if your .dds is 1024X512, it should be scaled to 512x256 in Menus50 and in Menus 80, the dds size is 1024x512 but not a full texture. Scale the original to 768X384, paste it into a new 1024x512, anchor it in the upper left corner and leave the rest empty aplha.

I know all this, or at least thought I did, but it didn't work out as I expected for the dynamic map components.

Edit: Just thought to actually look. menus50 is what I thought. 1/2 of menus. the only file I have in menus 80 is cyrodiil_resized. And it is no where near what I said above.

That sounds a bit more like what I'm experiencing. It sems that the Menus (and not Menus50) folder is used for the map even when using small texture size - and as said above, if I compressed components, they become garbage onscreen.

On a side note, it seems that Kyoma has now released MenuQue v7.

I know, so now the pressure is on me

It is mostly ready, but I'm not sure I have time to squeeze it in until after the first few christmas days are done. RL and all that

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 1:09 am

I will use them for a CS-style map when I get around to make one

Here's a http://bettercities.free.fr/Maps/BC-Anvil_Bruma_Cheydinhal-LocalMap.7z for local maps of BC Anvil, Bruma and Cheydinhal, which I spent the day creating. I know you don't need the vanilla group, but I created it anyway out of personal curiosity. I like toggling the BC group on and off when overlaid across the vanilla layer! Each also includes a BC Water layer marking the water. You can remove/replace/recolour/adjust opacity as you like before you merge the layers together (final answer with regards water showing up or not, or being pink - it doesn't show up AT ALL even when using a retexture for CS water). And Cheydinhal has an additional BC Streams layer, where I roughly brushed in where the streams flow across rocks. If it looks bad, you can just remove that layer without interfering with the water layer. I'll do Chorrol and Leyawiin sometime soon, maybe tomorrow.

» Sat Jan 15, 2011 6:57 pm

Dynamic Map 1.0 is now released :cake:

It only use Elven Map for now, but new map styles come later. Unlike the 0.1 version, it installs its own version of the Elven Map (within a DynamicMap folder, thus not overwriting any custom map you already have), so even if you normally use another map, you can now try out the mod.

Here's a http://bettercities.free.fr/Maps/BC-Anvil_Bruma_Cheydinhal-LocalMap.7z for local maps of BC Anvil, Bruma and Cheydinhal, which I spent the day creating. I know you don't need the vanilla group, but I created it anyway out of personal curiosity. I like toggling the BC group on and off when overlaid across the vanilla layer! Each also includes a BC Water layer marking the water. You can remove/replace/recolour/adjust opacity as you like before you merge the layers together (final answer with regards water showing up or not, or being pink - it doesn't show up AT ALL even when using a retexture for CS water). And Cheydinhal has an additional BC Streams layer, where I roughly brushed in where the streams flow across rocks. If it looks bad, you can just remove that layer without interfering with the water layer. I'll do Chorrol and Leyawiin sometime soon, maybe tomorrow.

Thanks. I will try to add support for CS map style in next release, but that will require maps generated for some of the other supported mods as well.

If any moderator see this: Can you please change the [BETA] to "[RELz]" in the thread's name?

» Sat Jan 15, 2011 11:54 pm

A couple of minor issues to report with v1:

It looks like the overlay is not quite right: http://i429.photobucket.com/albums/qq11/aellis-photos/SS1.jpg

This looks like the OC Leyawiin, which I'm not running: http://i429.photobucket.com/albums/qq11/aellis-photos/SS2.jpg

Love the zoom!

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 3:01 am

The file Dynamic Map.ini has some errors.

an edited file (I only use three map components, change the tnoDM.mod var)

Spoiler

; Dynamic Map.ini; =====================;; Version: 1.0; Author: Ole Boe / TheNiceOne ; Init Tamriel worldspace mapset tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "Oblivion.esm"set tnoDM.fid to sv_Construct "00003C"set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "cyrodiil.dds"; set tnoDM.x_offset to 0; set tnoDM.y_offset to 0; set tnoDM.zoom to 1set tnoDM.nw_x to -59set tnoDM.nw_y to 47set tnoDM.se_x to 59set tnoDM.se_y to -50set tnoDM.w to 2055set tnoDM.h to 1689SetStage tnoDM 10; Enable map components for Tamrielset tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "Bartholm.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "Bartholm.esp"set tnoDM.x to 1505set tnoDM.y to 1020set tnoDM.w to 143set tnoDM.h to 94SetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "TS_Stirk.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "TR_Stirk.esp"set tnoDM.x to -232set tnoDM.y to 0set tnoDM.w to 272set tnoDM.h to 0	; full heightSetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "ElsweyrAnequina.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "ElsweyrAnequina.esp"set tnoDM.x to 670set tnoDM.y to 804set tnoDM.w to 704set tnoDM.h to 869SetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "Open Cities Reborn - Leyawiin.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "Oblivion1.esm""set tnoDM.x to 1362set tnoDM.y to 1376set tnoDM.w to 121set tnoDM.h to 115SetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "Castle_Dunkerlore_V1.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "Oblivion1.esm"set tnoDM.x to 1382set tnoDM.y to 1566set tnoDM.w to 156set tnoDM.h to 102SetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "(DC) Sutch Reborn.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "Oblivion1.esm"set tnoDM.x to 110set tnoDM.y to 708set tnoDM.w to 114set tnoDM.h to 183SetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "road+bridges.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "Oblivion1.esm"set tnoDM.x to 200set tnoDM.y to 326set tnoDM.w to 1523set tnoDM.h to 1072SetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "West Roads.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "Oblivion1.esm"set tnoDM.x to 295set tnoDM.y to 452set tnoDM.w to 379set tnoDM.h to 433SetStage tnoDM 20

» Sat Jan 15, 2011 11:33 pm

Unless I can figure out why the CS keeps crashing when I attempt to create a local map for Valenwood Improved, I'm afraid I won't be much help.
Must be something with the mod as the CS reports animation errors when I try to create a local maps in some cells.
I've been trying to do a few at a time so I'm not locking up my pc for hours, but it's just not working.
I'll keep at it though, maybe I'll get lucky and figure something out that doesn't require taking screenshots.

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 9:54 am

A couple of minor issues to report with v1:

It looks like the overlay is not quite right: http://i429.photobucket.com/albums/qq11/aellis-photos/SS1.jpg

Looks about right to me.
The only thing is the Map label, which is the one for the unmodded map version, and runs over the Elsweyr region. I would suggest using the one that comes with the Elsweyr version of the map (or the one from my collection - which faced the same problem.)

This looks like the OC Leyawiin, which I'm not running: http://i429.photobucket.com/albums/qq11/aellis-photos/SS2.jpg

That is indeed Leyawiin from Open Cities Reborn.

Love the zoom!

Me too!

» Sat Jan 15, 2011 7:59 pm

This is marvellous. However, I could not get it to work at first and I traced the problem to what seems to be a malformed Dynamic Map.ini in the release package.

Firstly, all the initialisers for the .mod values have a duplicated " at the end of the line. I'd imagine this would cause parse errors.

Secondly, all the .mod values (except for Bartholm, which doesn't have one at all) were set to be Oblivion.esm. I'd imagine this has the intended effect of activating all the extra elements whether or not you had them. When I changed these to match the names of the mods as appropriate, only those features I had loaded showed up.

Anyway, thanks for a great mod.

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 11:27 am

Noted that as well Winterlove; all additions are being added to the map. Oh well these bugs are bound to happen, especially in the early days of release.

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 1:37 am

Unless I can figure out why the CS keeps crashing when I attempt to create a local map for Valenwood Improved, I'm afraid I won't be much help.
Must be something with the mod as the CS reports animation errors when I try to create a local maps in some cells.
I've been trying to do a few at a time so I'm not locking up my pc for hours, but it's just not working.
I'll keep at it though, maybe I'll get lucky and figure something out that doesn't require taking screenshots.

If the CS reports a large number of warnings or errors in quick succession, it always crashes, maybe this is what you're getting? If so, before trying to create the local map files, find a way to make the CS produce one warning/error message (use the Render window to load a cell containing a creature or NPC whose animation files upset the CS) and click Yes to All so that it won't flood the screen with any more errors. Then generate the local map, maybe it will work?

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 3:29 am

This should do the trick as a working replacement of the Dynamic Map.ini:

Spoiler

; Dynamic Map.ini; =====================;; Version: 1.0; Author: Ole Boe / TheNiceOne ; Init Tamriel worldspace mapset tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "Oblivion.esm"set tnoDM.fid to sv_Construct "00003C"set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "cyrodiil.dds"; set tnoDM.x_offset to 0; set tnoDM.y_offset to 0; set tnoDM.zoom to 1set tnoDM.nw_x to -59set tnoDM.nw_y to 47set tnoDM.se_x to 59set tnoDM.se_y to -50set tnoDM.w to 2055set tnoDM.h to 1689SetStage tnoDM 10; Enable map components for Tamrielset tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "Bartholm.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "bartholm.esp"set tnoDM.x to 1505set tnoDM.y to 1020set tnoDM.w to 143set tnoDM.h to 94SetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "TS_Stirk.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "TR_Stirk.esp"set tnoDM.x to -232set tnoDM.y to 0set tnoDM.w to 272set tnoDM.h to 0	; full heightSetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "ElsweyrAnequina.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "ElsweyrAnequina.esp"set tnoDM.x to 670set tnoDM.y to 804set tnoDM.w to 704set tnoDM.h to 869SetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "Castle_Dunkerlore_V1.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "Castle_Dunkerlore_V1.esp"set tnoDM.x to 1382set tnoDM.y to 1566set tnoDM.w to 156set tnoDM.h to 102SetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "Open Cities Reborn - Leyawiin.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "Open Cities Reborn - Leyawiin.esp"set tnoDM.x to 1362set tnoDM.y to 1376set tnoDM.w to 121set tnoDM.h to 115SetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "Open Cities Reborn - Leyawiin.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "Open Cities Reborn - Full Merge.esp"set tnoDM.x to 1362set tnoDM.y to 1376set tnoDM.w to 121set tnoDM.h to 115SetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "(DC) Sutch Reborn.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "(DC) Sutch Reborn.esp"set tnoDM.x to 110set tnoDM.y to 708set tnoDM.w to 114set tnoDM.h to 183SetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "road+bridges.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "road+bridges.esp"set tnoDM.x to 200set tnoDM.y to 326set tnoDM.w to 1523set tnoDM.h to 1072SetStage tnoDM 20set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "West Roads.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "West Roads.esp"set tnoDM.x to 295set tnoDM.y to 452set tnoDM.w to 379set tnoDM.h to 433SetStage tnoDM 20

Note also that there are two sets for Leyawiin Reborn (there is probably a better way, but I am not familiar with this particular code) as there are two ways to install that mod: The Full Merge of all Open Cities Reborn, or the Individual City.

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 12:21 pm

I did indeed upload my test ini file which displays all the components regardless of mods loaded. 1.0.b with correct ini file has been uploaded now.

» Sat Jan 15, 2011 10:32 pm

I did indeed upload my test ini file which displays all the components regardless of mods loaded. 1.0.b with correct ini file has been uploaded now.

Okay. Four problems noted with his version in my game.:

1. (as already mentioned) The map label will be covered over by Elsweyr, for those that have it. And looks pretty bad like that.
2. Stirk seems to be missing this time; that side of the map is plain white (missing - different base map?), with just the Stirk icon.
3. Leyawiin Reborn is a problem. It doesn't show up on my map because I have "Open Cities Reborn - Full Merge.esp" instead of "Open Cities Reborn - Leyawiin.esp" which the ini looks for. (In other words I am using the full merge version of Open Cities Reborn, not the individual Leyawiin one.)
4. We only seem to have half of the West Roads added: The road from Chorrol to Anvil, but not from Chorrol to Skingrad.

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 7:20 am

...and now 1.0.c is up, fixing a missing "s" in the "set" for Stirk.

I don't have much time now, so I will have to come back to most issues in a couple of days.

Okay. Four problems noted with his version in my game.:

1. (as already mentioned) The map label will be covered over by Elsweyr, for those that have it. And looks pretty bad like that.

OK, I will probably do something about that later.

2. Stirk seems to be missing this time; that side of the map is plain white (missing - different base map?), with just the Stirk icon.

Yup, due to the missing "s"

3. Leyawiin Reborn is a problem. It doesn't show up on my map because I have "Open Cities Reborn - Full Merge.esp" instead of "Open Cities Reborn - Leyawiin.esp" which the ini looks for. (In other words I am using the full merge version of Open Cities Reborn, not the individual Leyawiin one.)

Good point. It is fixed with a copy of the dimensions, but with the following two lines instead of the single mod line:

set tnoDM.img to sv_Construct "Open Cities Reborn - Leyawiin.dds"set tnoDM.mod to sv_Construct "Open Cities Reborn - Full Merge.esp"

4. We only seem to have half of the West Roads added: The road from Chorrol to Anvil, but not from Chorrol to Skingrad.

I didn't notice, so it is missing from the texture. I will add it later,

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 9:04 am

There's a typo in the ini file for Stirk.

You have: TS_Stirk.esp

The filename is: TR_Stirk.esp

The map loads up shifted out of position with that error present and Stirk active.

Same typo in the filename for the .dds, you have it as TS_Stirk.dds when it should be TR_Stirk.dds.

» Sat Jan 15, 2011 11:03 pm

Gawd I really love OBSE!

In spite of the trouble I was having generating the local maps with the CS, I kept plugging away.
Then I discovered the console command OutputLocalMapPictures.
I generated almost 3500 local maps in about 30 minutes.

Here's how I did it:

Once I determined the grid coordinates of the Valenwood Improved mod, I loaded it into the CS and named about a dozen widerness cells, each one the center of a 17 x 17 cell grid. Then changed the ini - increased ugridstoload to 17 and then loaded only that esp in the game.
coc'd to the newly named cells and typed the OBSE command.
No hassle, no crashes.

A couple of glitches though. Some rocks look like they do in the CS when you're zoomed out too far. (Sort of a transparent black.)
And some of the dds files have pixel abnormalities.

Now comes the tedius part of pasting them all together ...

Also, I'm sure you know this, but I thought I'd mentioned anyway.
Both ElsweyrAnequina and Valenwood Improved have cells "below" the standard map.
These cells won't show in the world map without a non-standard map.

» Sat Jan 15, 2011 9:35 pm

http://bettercities.free.fr/Maps/BC-Chorrol_Leyawiin_LocalMap.7z for BC Chorrol and Leyawiin.

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 12:00 am

Dynamic Map 1.0.1 is now available :celebration:

From the changelog:
* Corrected Stirk map component name
As reported by Arthmoor

* Added the second Chorrol - Skingrad road to West Roads
As reported by Vargr

* Added possibility to define two possible mod for one sub-map component
So now the ini file doesn't need two instances to cover "Open Cities Reborn - Leyawiin.esp" and "Open Cities Reborn - Full Merge.esp".

In spite of the trouble I was having generating the local maps with the CS, I kept plugging away.
Then I discovered the console command OutputLocalMapPictures.
I generated almost 3500 local maps in about 30 minutes.

...

Great to hear, I look forward to it

Also, I'm sure you know this, but I thought I'd mentioned anyway.
Both ElsweyrAnequina and Valenwood Improved have cells "below" the standard map.
These cells won't show in the world map without a non-standard map.

Dynamic Map is made to automatically extend the viewable area if you define a sub-map component that goes outside the standard map's dimensions. But for it to look good, if you have a sub-map component that goes outside the normal area to the south, the map should be extended to the south for the entire length. This can either be handled by the one sub-map component filling out the entire south border, or a second sub-map component doing this.

http://bettercities.free.fr/Maps/BC-Chorrol_Leyawiin_LocalMap.7z for BC Chorrol and Leyawiin.

Thanks. With aellis' work too, it seems like a CS map style (can anyone suggest a better name?) will be the focus for v. 1.1.

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 9:57 am

(can anyone suggest a better name?)

Localized Map Style....

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 6:02 am

Man, TheNiceOne, every mod you make ends up in my load order. Cheers, mate, and thanks for the hard work!

» Sun Jan 16, 2011 8:38 am

TheNiceOne, I'm going to be redoing the BC local maps, as I just found out how to make the trees show up. I also managed to get water to display as a solid white area, so it'll be much easier to select and reshade blue. Rocks etc. beneath the water won't be visible through it unfortunately.