[Region 1][Map 07][Location 01] Fentor Cross Area

[ravells]

Oh I'm sorry, I was expecting a flythough! I've got a twin core with 2 gigs of ram and two graphic cards, so I guess it ought to be able to handle the memory requirement

[Redrobes]

Ah I should think so then

If you set it to a reasonable res like 256 or 512 (depends on how much graphics grunt you have) you can press O,P,I,J,K,M for moving the camera and W,A,S,Z,E,R for moving the target position for the camera (the yellow line). So you should be able to get a real time flyable view.

It's intended as a debugging tool for terrains and also as a means to position your party at point A and view point B and show players what you would see.

It can do automated fly throughs but not using the keyboard or without getting it hooked up on the network. For stand alone purposes the network bits on the menu are redundant.

The screen save should work ok too. It merely saves out a fixed filename image.

Edit-- I should also point out that my Jan Challenge had some dragon flight sets to download. I think they are still there for the taking. Put them in a different directory and copy the DF exe to it before running.

[ravells]

wow, that's really impressive! I had great fun flying around your lands!

[Redrobes]

Its great fun yeah ? I'm having a ball with Thrub in 3D. L3DT has a great terrain viewer too and there are better ones out there which do levels of detail but I deliberately don't want to do that. I'd like the option to tho naturally...

Oh and it was the Dec challenge not Jan which have some more 3D sets in them.

[su_liam]

Karst, eh? Yay, SINKHOLES! Lots of cool caves for the orcs and trolls and whatever troglodytic nightmares to hang out in.

I'm a big fan of tropical karst myself. Closest thing your going to find in the real world to perlin noise

Erosion gets more complicated in a way at larger scales. There will be gullied areas, especially where groundcover is disturbed, that will look exactly like miniature Grand Canyons. But there will also be areas, depending on subterranean drainage and vegetation that don't really appear to be eroded. I have actual small closed basins in my own backyard!!! About a thousand of them, depending on how close you look.

No matter what the fractal fans say, self similarity breaks down at very large scales. Rivers can actually climb uphill a little. In summer, the river through my town leaves numerous little pools in basins of significant depth. Some are nearly as tall as I am, sometimes. Try that on a continental map and see how many people laugh at you...

Don't think I was criticising your erosion engine. It rocks.

Actually, I need to get back to my map. Placing settlements and features is getting to be a headache and my labels are annoying me to no end. If I can't get the Boroughs looking decent, I may let someone else see if they can do a less sucky job with them.

Anyway, see ya' later!

[Redrobes]

Karst, eh? Yay, SINKHOLES! Lots of cool caves for the orcs and trolls and whatever troglodytic nightmares to hang out in.

Yeah maybe. The uplands are pretty safe esp along the merchant roads but its a big place so I guess it could definitely have areas off of the main path thats home to some green skins.

...that will look exactly like miniature Grand Canyons.

I can do grand canyons quite easily. I have more problem persuading it not to do them. The harder part is getting it to erode down a hill side so that it does not cut a 2 mile knife like cutting into the hill. As soon as the water forms the start of a cutting its hard to prevent it going faster and faster into the hill.

Don't think I was criticising your erosion engine.

Its ok, I know it has some good some bad tho. The water and run off is good but the macro erosion like thermal could be better.

Anyway - I have some more to post so let me start a new one...

[Redrobes]

I have done some more mapping between bouts of chores. I am trying to get to a point where people can pile in with their own stuff and I think we're there.

Below is a Typical Fort. You can use the map by itself but it needs some more buildings. It needs at least two special buildings also:-

A Wyvern Tower
A Rain Catcher.

The Wyvern Tower is described in detail on the wiki entry here.

A rain catcher needs to be some kind of guttering into a large vat, pitcher, barrel or something similar.

If anyone wants to map or even just side on sketch either of these then post and go for it. Instead of changing the image below though, just make a map of just the building as its likely to be used in many forts and towns. I can composite them together no problem. If anyone wants to put some houses in or even just pencil out or describe a possible layout for a fort then that would be cool too. The image can easily be modified if you don't like what is there already.

Anyone fancy drawing a Lesser Wyvern ? - side on or top down I'm not picky...

So, step up to the challenge and make this truly cooperative.

My intention, though thats not binding, was that all the forts around Fentor are similar. We can jiggle some buildings around and have different characters in them etc but the shape and style are similar.

I'll try to get a similar blank patch for Fentor Cross Town too.

[industrygothica]

What's the scale of the fort?

[Redrobes]

Oh yes, the gap between the two large stones at the entrance is just wider than a mule pulled cart - say 6ft. The fort is about a 100ft across - pretty cramped.

Actually, this makes the fort a bit too small doesn't it. Better make the diameter about 150 - 200ft across. The Wyvern Tower alone is supposed to be about 50ft across the base.

[ravells]

I've got a some royalty free art which has wyverns galore in it, I'll scan it and post it up for you.