FT3 Color Issues
I'm trying to use FT3 (and FT2 before that) to create a planet and extract the images to an application that reads things like climate and rainfall for particular locations on a map.
If all worked as it appeared, this would be a snap. However, the colors configured within the application to not match what is exported in a BMP or PNG file.
For example, I'll set the temperature to be 0 to 255 as the range, using 0,0,0 to 255,0,0. You would think I'd see 256 different colors in the saved file, but I get like 80. In some files I get up to 748 colors when only 256 should be appearing. The height files however work great, its just all the rest of them that are broken.
I even made a color file using all 3 bytes, to see if it was just some leaking number or something, the clr file is:
0, 0, 0, 0
1, 15, 15, 15
2, 30, 30, 30
3, 45, 45, 45
4, 60, 60, 60
5, 75, 75, 75
6, 90, 90, 90
7, 105, 105, 105
8, 120, 120, 120
9, 135, 135, 135
10, 150, 150, 150
11, 165, 165, 165
12, 180, 180, 180
13, 195, 195, 195
14, 210, 210, 210
15, 225, 225, 225
16, 240, 240, 240
Again, you'd think there would be 17 colors in the file, but there are 57, and they aren't anything similar:
0, 4, 0
0, 3, 0
0, 5, 0
0, 6, 0
0, 7, 0
0, 8, 0
0, 2, 0
0, 1, 0
0, 0, 0
14, 14, 14
14, 16, 14
14, 15, 14
14, 17, 14
14, 18, 14
14, 19, 14
56, 56, 56
56, 57, 56
56, 58, 56
56, 59, 56
56, 60, 56
98, 98, 98
98, 99, 98
98, 100, 98
112, 112, 112
112, 113, 112
112, 114, 112
140, 148, 140
140, 149, 140
140, 147, 140
140, 150, 140
140, 151, 140
140, 152, 140
140, 153, 140
140, 154, 140
140, 155, 140
140, 156, 140
140, 146, 140
140, 144, 140
140, 145, 140
154, 154, 158
154, 154, 159
154, 154, 160
154, 154, 161
154, 154, 162
154, 154, 163
154, 154, 164
154, 154, 165
154, 154, 166
154, 154, 157
154, 154, 156
154, 154, 155
154, 154, 167
154, 154, 168
154, 154, 169
154, 154, 170
168, 168, 169
168, 168, 168
Is there something that is different in the code when saving the image for a height map and all the other file types? I tried rainfall, temperature, and climate, none worked, I assumed rivers had the same issue, and Gaia didn't matter for my purposes as it's just my "minimap" view.
I'm fine if there is some wacky formula I need to apply to get the configured values, but I couldn't figure out what it should be.
Also, is there any way to just do something like "FT.EXE /RNG=12345 Climate=True Temperature=True Altitude=True Rainfall=True" or something to generate a planet and export the images with a command line? Or at least maybe just "export all". I have a quad core i7 and its annoying to sit and wait for 5 minutes between saves. I thought FT3 was supposed to utilize the 87% of my overall processing power that never gets touched by FT3 and upgraded in the hopes of increasing performance, but I guess not
Thanks for any help.
If all worked as it appeared, this would be a snap. However, the colors configured within the application to not match what is exported in a BMP or PNG file.
For example, I'll set the temperature to be 0 to 255 as the range, using 0,0,0 to 255,0,0. You would think I'd see 256 different colors in the saved file, but I get like 80. In some files I get up to 748 colors when only 256 should be appearing. The height files however work great, its just all the rest of them that are broken.
I even made a color file using all 3 bytes, to see if it was just some leaking number or something, the clr file is:
0, 0, 0, 0
1, 15, 15, 15
2, 30, 30, 30
3, 45, 45, 45
4, 60, 60, 60
5, 75, 75, 75
6, 90, 90, 90
7, 105, 105, 105
8, 120, 120, 120
9, 135, 135, 135
10, 150, 150, 150
11, 165, 165, 165
12, 180, 180, 180
13, 195, 195, 195
14, 210, 210, 210
15, 225, 225, 225
16, 240, 240, 240
Again, you'd think there would be 17 colors in the file, but there are 57, and they aren't anything similar:
0, 4, 0
0, 3, 0
0, 5, 0
0, 6, 0
0, 7, 0
0, 8, 0
0, 2, 0
0, 1, 0
0, 0, 0
14, 14, 14
14, 16, 14
14, 15, 14
14, 17, 14
14, 18, 14
14, 19, 14
56, 56, 56
56, 57, 56
56, 58, 56
56, 59, 56
56, 60, 56
98, 98, 98
98, 99, 98
98, 100, 98
112, 112, 112
112, 113, 112
112, 114, 112
140, 148, 140
140, 149, 140
140, 147, 140
140, 150, 140
140, 151, 140
140, 152, 140
140, 153, 140
140, 154, 140
140, 155, 140
140, 156, 140
140, 146, 140
140, 144, 140
140, 145, 140
154, 154, 158
154, 154, 159
154, 154, 160
154, 154, 161
154, 154, 162
154, 154, 163
154, 154, 164
154, 154, 165
154, 154, 166
154, 154, 157
154, 154, 156
154, 154, 155
154, 154, 167
154, 154, 168
154, 154, 169
154, 154, 170
168, 168, 169
168, 168, 168
Is there something that is different in the code when saving the image for a height map and all the other file types? I tried rainfall, temperature, and climate, none worked, I assumed rivers had the same issue, and Gaia didn't matter for my purposes as it's just my "minimap" view.
I'm fine if there is some wacky formula I need to apply to get the configured values, but I couldn't figure out what it should be.
Also, is there any way to just do something like "FT.EXE /RNG=12345 Climate=True Temperature=True Altitude=True Rainfall=True" or something to generate a planet and export the images with a command line? Or at least maybe just "export all". I have a quad core i7 and its annoying to sit and wait for 5 minutes between saves. I thought FT3 was supposed to utilize the 87% of my overall processing power that never gets touched by FT3 and upgraded in the hopes of increasing performance, but I guess not
Thanks for any help.
Comments
FT3 is multithreaded for the real-time onscreen display portion only, not for exports. The default number of computation threads is 1; increasing this value in the program preferences will increase the processor usage. Note that FT3 always reserves one thread for other purposes in the system, so a quad-core system has a maximum number of rednering threads of three.
FT offers command-line automation. See http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/ftcmdline.pdf for additional information.
For altitude I set positive altitude as RGB 0,0,0 to 0,250,0, and negative or sea depth as RGB 0,0,0 to 0,0,250, and it works perfect. The other map types I can do the same thing, and so far have seen up to 2400 colors within the file, so it completely doesn't match. I can send my default config if desired, and I did use shift when clicking colors so all colors get used. I tried looking at a prtscrn image too in case it was just with save code, and it too also had too many colors. The climate colors as set in the climate tab, usually don't even appear in any saved files.
Looks like the threading issue just required me set the options to the max, then exit and restart, its quite a bit faster now!
I'll look into that command line stuff, it really looks like all the features one could ask for are supported, pain to build a 41 parameter command line, but the support is there and i'll work with it. Appreciate the fact that it is there.
I've seen a few really minor bugs, if ya'll want me to list them I'd be happy to, but they are pretty minor.
Thanks for any assistance.
ft.exe -params=1,40000,70,12500,12500,1.2,1,,,,,,,1,-300,1,,,,,,,,,,,,0,0,1,1,0,0,1,1.1,0.3,23.5,90,16,31.5,51 -imagewidth=1000 -image=imagefile.png -colortype=8
Which does generate a file, but its unique each time, its not reading the random number. It also doesn't appear to look at the image width, so all images produced are 384x192.
I tried something simpler:
ft -default -params=-1837363400 -imagewidth=2000 -image=auto_altitude.png -colortype=1
ft -default -params=-1837363400 -imagewidth=2000 -image=auto_climate.png -colortype=2
ft -default -params=-1837363400 -imagewidth=2000 -image=auto_temp.png -colortype=3
ft -default -params=-1837363400 -imagewidth=2000 -image=auto_rain.png -colortype=4
ft -default -params=-1837363400 -imagewidth=2000 -image=auto_gaia.png -colortype=8
Which produces all unique images, so the app is either not reading all of those parameters, or I screwed up somewhere and can't see it.
Any bug reports are greatly appreciated, even if it's something that isn't working the way you think it ought to. FT is 12 years old now and, like many tweens, has a number of hidden and/or unappreciated talents (some of which people wish would go away).
The altitude file keeps the colors as I configured with the command line options, but the temp/rain/climate all revert back to default settings... be nice if "current" settings were the "Default" ones.
I'd love an ability to take a map, give it an X,Y coordinate, and have it generate a sub-map that can tile with surrounding maps. For example:
My planet is 40,000 km wide, the map is 4,000 pixels, the scale is thus 10km per pixel.
Give any particular pixel, and have it generate a 10km x 10km map (based on the random number for the whole planet, so it'll always be the same), maybe accurate to 10m.
So, you could essentially save the world with an option to extract the "regions", and in this case it would save 4000 * 2000 = 8,000,000 individual files, of about 1mb each *uncompressed* (8TB). Granted, this would be an extreme with an earth sized world, but could more often be used to extract small regions from the world onto CC3 or whatever as small areas that still work within the larger planet map. Hard drives are cheap, and getting cheaper by the day, you could map out earth on a 2TB drive by ignoring water hexes. As it stands now FT is great for making planets, and CC3 regions, but if you want a transition between the two it isn't very effective.
I've seen some graphics artifacts near the ice caps (small white dots) with multithreading, but it isn't there when saving so I'm ok with it.
I've also had some out of memory errors, I'll start documenting where I see them.
Oh, and the command line creation is quite a bit faster than within the interface, so if your creating a quick planet you don't need to tweak that isn't too big its done in just a couple seconds.
FT was intended to generate world-sized to regional-sized files with a strong slant toward exporting the data into CC3 for final finishing. It wasn't intended to generate data much smaller than a few hundred meters per pixel (and that can be stretching it at times).
http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=2562 has a good discussion on getting too much detail in FT3. I also recommend http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/CGTutorial/index.html for some pointers on reducing some of the artifacts that FT can generate.