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Making the Map

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Moderators: Admin, jshanman, shaninriel, Telivorn

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jshanman

Mon Apr 16 2007, 04:22PM

Registered Member #2

Joined: Thu Feb 08 2007, 03:23PM
Posts: 209

Making the game map using the radar has been a time-consuming process, but seeing the results make it very much worth it, not to mention the game database integration possibilities!

Anyway, so far Hayoo & Schreckofant have done the hard manual work in Bree-land and Ered Luin and the results are spectacular (be sure to zoom out). In an effort to make this process less painless, I came up with the Map Puzzle which works great as a community project. Since that time, I've been contacted by two others with even better ideas then mine.

Quasinovi created a PHP program that will automatically piece tiles together if you type /loc before taking each screenshot. Very ingenious!

D.H1cks also wrote a C# program that allows you to start auto screenshots in-game, it saves them as bmp files, then after you cover an area, you can run another program on all the screenshots which automatically pieces them together... Major time saver!

I have yet to test either of these, but hope to have some time tonight.

I thought I'd start a thread so we can discuss/organize ourselves to get the most out of all the interested parties.

I only have so much time to work on the site and if I am able to focus on the Google Maps part and others can continue to get the maps to me (as Hayoo and Schreckofant have done), we'll have Middle Earth mapped in no time and a system that can be used on upcoming expansions.

Maybe Quasinovi and D.H1cks an post some more details or correct me if I am wrong about anything...

Ered Luin and Breeland are done, everywhere else still needs to be done.

Discuss!

[ Edited Tue Apr 17 2007, 01:31AM ]

Silverlode
60 Man Lore Master Shandor
53 Elf Hunter Shanindor
54 Man Burgler Shandoc

D.H1cks

Mon Apr 16 2007, 06:53PM

Registered Member #92

Joined: Sat Apr 07 2007, 03:29PM
Posts: 12

Interesting. When you do the /loc do you have to analyze the screen shot and capture the location? Just curious on how that works.

A little more info on my tools. The screen capture only captures a 140x140 image of the map, very much like the pieces used in the Map Puzzle, but bitmap format to conserve the color data. The map maker, compares each piece with the piece before it in the sequence. The offset between the two pieces is stored until all the pieces have been anaylzed, then builds the map. It never draws the very center part of the pieces, so you won't get the last piece with the arrow in the middle. And, it's multithreaded, it compares two pairs at a time, which speeds up the process if you have a dual core CPU. But, it can be slow, it takes about a minute to put 16 pieces together.

jshanman

Tue Apr 17 2007, 01:25AM

Registered Member #2

Joined: Thu Feb 08 2007, 03:23PM
Posts: 209

Quasinovi gave lots of details here: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=37503&page=3

Silverlode
60 Man Lore Master Shandor
53 Elf Hunter Shanindor
54 Man Burgler Shandoc

Hayoo

Tue Apr 17 2007, 12:39PM

Registered Member #15

Joined: Tue Feb 13 2007, 04:38PM
Posts: 11

I was planning on starting at the Brandywine Bridge on the east side of the Shire and grabbing a bunch of screenshots starting from there, since jshanman said he was starting in the west.

-- Hayoo is balanced and working as intended --
visionsofthering.com

jshanman

Tue Apr 17 2007, 01:30PM

Registered Member #2

Joined: Thu Feb 08 2007, 03:23PM
Posts: 209

Hayoo wrote ...

I was planning on starting at the Brandywine Bridge on the east side of the Shire and grabbing a bunch of screenshots starting from there, since jshanman said he was starting in the west.

I have a ton of screenshots of needlehole, the marsh, and bimbole wood. I plan on posting these to the puzzle app very soon. I tested D.H1cks program apparently found a problem which I emailed to him. The auto screenshot part of it worked great though.

Silverlode
60 Man Lore Master Shandor
53 Elf Hunter Shanindor
54 Man Burgler Shandoc

D.H1cks

Tue Apr 17 2007, 02:43PM

Registered Member #92

Joined: Sat Apr 07 2007, 03:29PM
Posts: 12

Sent you the latest version this morning. I hope it works for you. I tested it with the screen shots you sent me, and they all worked. Still have a couple of bugs to get rid of though.

jshanman

Tue Apr 17 2007, 03:42PM

Registered Member #2

Joined: Thu Feb 08 2007, 03:23PM
Posts: 209

D.H1cks wrote ...

Sent you the latest version this morning. I hope it works for you. I tested it with the screen shots you sent me, and they all worked. Still have a couple of bugs to get rid of though.

I'll try it again, thanks!

Silverlode
60 Man Lore Master Shandor
53 Elf Hunter Shanindor
54 Man Burgler Shandoc

D.H1cks

Tue Apr 17 2007, 04:21PM

Registered Member #92

Joined: Sat Apr 07 2007, 03:29PM
Posts: 12

I am going to start at the Three Farthing Stone (I think) and do most of the south west Shire, including Little Delving, Michel Delving, etc...

Kind a tired of staring at code, would like to do something else for an evening.

Edit: Done for the evening. Covered everything south and west of the Three Farthing Stone, and the south part of the bog. Took 4 hours to get and process over 2000 radar pieces.

[ Edited Tue Apr 17 2007, 08:51PM ]