That would be A LOT of work. It's really the outer city that seems to be bogging things down. So a version without it, I think will be the atlas version
Remember that rendering isn't the only thing you want to do with a map. When I am using a map in-game, I have the .fcw open in CC3+ on my laptop at the gaming table, so I can quickly navigate to look in detail on the areas the players are going to and much more, there are a lot of things ona map I cannot reasonably accomplish by just using a rendered version. A map intended for game use should really have a decent performance when used this way, it shouldn't use be a question of being able to render a map. This is why I always try to avoid effects that would make the map look bad if effects are off for example. Of course it will always look better with effects on, but when it comes to using a map in-game, I am happy to turn off effects to gain performance.
(I feel kind of responsible about the problem with Sanctuary because I was the one who loaded it with so many effects - Lorelei, please get rid of any that seem unnecessary)
Sorry, just a bit of unclear wording here. When I said rendering, I was talking about on-screen rendering, the thing that happens continuously when you view/work with the file, as opposed to the render to image concept. I think CC4 will be a huge improvement to both these processes though (mostly because it isn't really two processes, the process is actually the same, only difference is that when rendering to file, you (usually) render it to a higher resolution.
This is also very relevant to Quenten's maps too, his cities have also been on the heavy side lately.
Yes - that is also part of CD3, though I am finding it less useful, as I have to edit the buildings a lot, no matter how i tinker with the settings. Good for slums and wealthy areas, not so good for the rest. Any requests or alterations - looking at you, Lorelei
And just finished a temple - either a wicked spider cult, or a buddhist-like path with a spider symbol of death and resurrection.
fter a 2 month hiatus, here is an updated progress report on Dun Fingolfin. The outer west side of the outer city is complete (except for some 'beautification), and the countryside laid out in sketch form, so as to eventually look something like the Google Earth map of an area in Cornwall, chosen because the little thorp of Demelza, (after whom Winston Graham's Poldark heroine, and subsequently my daughter, was named), is in the map (unmarked) near the village of St Wenn.
This is incredible. I can honestly say that I would never have the patience and fortitude to do something like this. You've put so much time and detail in this city. It is a true masterpiece!
Thanks, Shessar, but I unfortunately do not have the artistry of Sue or Lorelei. Still, I am happy with a utilitarian city which has room for many different establishments as well as the trappings of government, trade and finance and defence befitting a capital city.
Here is the area showing the fields. I haven't quite got the effects right, and I lost all the previous effects I had put in up to this date - aarrgghh.
Ok, here is a list of things I can see now I have the larger image.
Shadows - there don't appear to be any shadows on the buildings. If you add a shadow effect it will make everything look more realistic/natural.
Fill scale and resolution - The mega large stone slabs under some of the blocks look a bit strange. I recommend scaling them down to about 1/10 their current size so that it looks like they could feasibly have been laid by gangs of men. Right now I think it would take at least 10 elephants to manoeuvre just one of those slabs into position. Same with the tarmac fill. Nothing wrong with it, but I would scale it down quite a lot. At the moment it looks like a small child might be lost in one of those cracks. There's another texture being used for some of the roads and the walkway on the wall that is so grossly enlarged that all I can see is the pixels. I can't even tell what it is. Looking at the relatively small size of the repetition pattern, however, I would say that the VL res is being used instead of a more suitable HI or VH. Try setting the res to fixed VH before the next render.
Resolution generally - it does look to me like you have everything set on VL res. Other textures and the buildings themselves are pixelated - even the water (which I think if I recognise correctly is actually a really hi res fill, being much larger than most). I don't think that is related to the size of the export. I think its more likely to be the resolution setting generally for the whole map.
Antialiasing - I don't think you are using any antialiasing when you render the image. Try 20% and see if some of those diagonal lines stop looking quite so stepped - use more than that if they still don't look smooth.
So to sum it up, that's shadows, fill scale, resolution and antialiasing.
Thanks Sue - you have solved my fill resolution problem - it was driving me crazy. I haven't got all the effects redone yet, so I know about the shadows; and I will take your suggestion of replacing those trained elephants for English convicts (sent to Australia, of course).
Be careful about blindly setting the resolution to Fixed - Very High though, it seriously slows down redraw time. It is generally better (though more time consuming) to find and fix the actual culprits. This is especially true for the atlas, since people will be loading the actual .fcw and not just seeing the final render, and city maps are generally slow enough in the first place.
For this huge map, some of the pixelation in the render is simply because 15000 wide isn't that much when it comes to a large city like this. It is simply not large enough to support zooming into an individual house without these being pixelated.
For the fills, there are two major things to consider when using fills. And this is especially important when you use fills from other map types, such as overland fills: 1. The scaled setting in the fill style dialog for that fill. Setting this value too large cause you to "run out of" resolution, overland fills are simply not designed for super-close viewing, so when you set these to a scale that looks nice from a whole city look, they often do get pixelated when zoomed in, no matter what, which also affects exports. 2. The global fill style resolution settings (button in the display speed dialog). This basically controls at what scale the different resolutions (VH, HI, LO, VL) is used. If fills turn up pixelated, try lowering these values. Of course, they won't help if you have run out of resolution, i.e. that it is already displaying the VH value, but you have set the scale too high for the fill. Unfortunately, because of differences between fills from different map values, it can be a bit difficult to set this values properly if you use fills mixed from different map types. But it is better to set these values a bit too low rather than force VH globally. Just make sure you don't set them so low that it ends up using VH at all zoom levels anyway.
I should perhaps have said that setting Fixed VH was only intended for the bitmap export for the very reasons Remy points out. Best to set it back to automatic again once the export is done
Sorry for taking such a long time to reply, but digging into a map takes a bit of time, so I needed some of that rare resource available.
So, there are a couple of things here, but first of all, did you change the settings for the fill style resolutions before posting this fcw? When I export your map on my computer, the resolution is actually fine, look at the two images below (I did export with effects off because it is MUCH quicker for a simple test, the interesting here is the resolution of the fills) [Image_13108]
As you can see, CC3+ picked a much lower resolution version of the image on your export than mine, just look at the road texture for example. Now, if this just happens on the export, and isn't a general problem when you view the map in CC3+, then Sue's advice is fine, click Display Speed Settings , set the bitmap quality to Fixed - Very High before the export, export the map, and when done, set it back to Automatic -> High. This is a workaround, but it does enable to you to get the proper export without digging too much into the details of things. Just remember, set it back to automatic after doing the export, otherwise CC3+ will continue to use the highest resolution no matter the zoom level, which will seriously impact CC3+ performance. [Image_13109]
However, if the problem also occurs when you zoom around the map inside CC3+, setting it permanently to Fixed - Very high is a poor fix since it impacts CC3+ performance, and since city maps hare heavy enough by themselves, adding additional performance hits is not a good idea. What you need to do then is to adjust when CC3+ will change between displaying the various resolution levels (Very High, High, Low, Very Low). Before doing that however, always try to just hit the Clear Bitmap Cache button in the dialog, check the Redraw on OK box, hit OK, and see if the problem goes away. Sometimes, just clearing the cache helps CC3+ get things right. If that doesn't work however, click the Fill Style resolutions (advanced) button, and you get this dialog: [Image_13110] These values tell CC3+ the resolution of the fills you are using, and it is these values that CC3+ uses as a based to determine which resolution to use for which zoom level. Usually, they are fine out of the box, but depending on the resolution and scaling of additional fills you might import, you may need to tweak these. There are now hard and fast rule here, but if you find that CC3+ is displaying a worse resolution of the fills than you think it should be at the current zoom level, you'll need to go in and change these. To force CC3+ to display higher quality resolutions, reduce these numbers. Depending on the severity, dividing them by 2 might be enough, but at other times I have needed to divide them by 10 or more. Just don't overdo it, if you set these too low, the result is exactly the same as if you tell CC3+ to use fixed -> very high, with the performance penalty that implies. So, start by dividing by 2. And after setting these numbers, always clear the bitmap cache before you test.
Before you mess with fill resolutions, do make sure that all the fills you used are set to be scaled. If they aren't, they'll change scale as you zoom in and out. This is true for the large tiles Sue commented would need elephants to place, the fill isn't scaled, so the tiles appear huge when you zoom out, and tiny when you zoom in (they are technically always the same size on the screen, but when you zoom in, everything else become much larger in comparison, making them appear small by comparison). Allways make sure your fill is scaled, and set appropriate values for Width and Heigh. It is very important to set this before you attempt to mess with any resolution scales, as you cannot set their values correctly until fills are scaled correctly. Also fix the scaling of all other fills in your map, make sure you are happy with the scaling before messing with the resolution settings, otherwise you'll end up setting the resolution settings completely wrong. [Image_13111]
Here is the latest update - sorry for not working on it much till recently. i have added all the buildings except the east extra-mural industrial section. I have filled in all the city walled area, and added the Queen's 'country cottage' to the SW, on the hill overlooking the city and waterfall; and the filthy rich area across the river to the NE. To do: 1. The industrial area and adding an east gate 2. The caravanserai to the south outside the south city gate 3. The decorating of the wealthy NE and Queen's 'country cottage' with gardens etc 4. Adding specialty buildings, fixing up details in the buildings of the eastern outer city (some already done) 5. Adding trees, parks, ponds dormers etc on the buildings above. 6. Completing the farmland to the south and east.
Anything else i should do. I will post a link to a very big version (12,000 x 8,000) when I have done the first three - I am working a lot on them today.
Wow. It's looking fantastic. I need to wait for the high res version as i really can't see much detail on my computer. Also, it's likely i won't be able to open it. The last .fcw i got from you I couldn't get it to open after loading all the effects. These updates on my computer have sucked up all my extra memory i picked up two years ago. And I'm maxed out on RAM. My friend managed to get my computer running, but i've lost literally more than 20% of my RAM to Windows updates and background processes that I can't seem to shut down. But....hopefully I can afford a new one by piecing a system together with some of my usable parts soon.
Comments
A map intended for game use should really have a decent performance when used this way, it shouldn't use be a question of being able to render a map. This is why I always try to avoid effects that would make the map look bad if effects are off for example. Of course it will always look better with effects on, but when it comes to using a map in-game, I am happy to turn off effects to gain performance.
(I feel kind of responsible about the problem with Sanctuary because I was the one who loaded it with so many effects - Lorelei, please get rid of any that seem unnecessary)
Quenten - sorry!
Your map continues to grow in magnificence
This is also very relevant to Quenten's maps too, his cities have also been on the heavy side lately.
Any requests or alterations - looking at you, Lorelei
And just finished a temple - either a wicked spider cult, or a buddhist-like path with a spider symbol of death and resurrection.
Plus, I just don't have the patience to do what you have done here
Large version
Ok, here is a list of things I can see now I have the larger image.
Shadows - there don't appear to be any shadows on the buildings. If you add a shadow effect it will make everything look more realistic/natural.
Fill scale and resolution - The mega large stone slabs under some of the blocks look a bit strange. I recommend scaling them down to about 1/10 their current size so that it looks like they could feasibly have been laid by gangs of men. Right now I think it would take at least 10 elephants to manoeuvre just one of those slabs into position. Same with the tarmac fill. Nothing wrong with it, but I would scale it down quite a lot. At the moment it looks like a small child might be lost in one of those cracks. There's another texture being used for some of the roads and the walkway on the wall that is so grossly enlarged that all I can see is the pixels. I can't even tell what it is. Looking at the relatively small size of the repetition pattern, however, I would say that the VL res is being used instead of a more suitable HI or VH. Try setting the res to fixed VH before the next render.
Resolution generally - it does look to me like you have everything set on VL res. Other textures and the buildings themselves are pixelated - even the water (which I think if I recognise correctly is actually a really hi res fill, being much larger than most). I don't think that is related to the size of the export. I think its more likely to be the resolution setting generally for the whole map.
Antialiasing - I don't think you are using any antialiasing when you render the image. Try 20% and see if some of those diagonal lines stop looking quite so stepped - use more than that if they still don't look smooth.
So to sum it up, that's shadows, fill scale, resolution and antialiasing.
Apart from that its good
For this huge map, some of the pixelation in the render is simply because 15000 wide isn't that much when it comes to a large city like this. It is simply not large enough to support zooming into an individual house without these being pixelated.
For the fills, there are two major things to consider when using fills. And this is especially important when you use fills from other map types, such as overland fills:
1. The scaled setting in the fill style dialog for that fill. Setting this value too large cause you to "run out of" resolution, overland fills are simply not designed for super-close viewing, so when you set these to a scale that looks nice from a whole city look, they often do get pixelated when zoomed in, no matter what, which also affects exports.
2. The global fill style resolution settings (button in the display speed dialog). This basically controls at what scale the different resolutions (VH, HI, LO, VL) is used. If fills turn up pixelated, try lowering these values. Of course, they won't help if you have run out of resolution, i.e. that it is already displaying the VH value, but you have set the scale too high for the fill. Unfortunately, because of differences between fills from different map values, it can be a bit difficult to set this values properly if you use fills mixed from different map types. But it is better to set these values a bit too low rather than force VH globally. Just make sure you don't set them so low that it ends up using VH at all zoom levels anyway.
FCW here
So, there are a couple of things here, but first of all, did you change the settings for the fill style resolutions before posting this fcw? When I export your map on my computer, the resolution is actually fine, look at the two images below (I did export with effects off because it is MUCH quicker for a simple test, the interesting here is the resolution of the fills)
[Image_13108]
As you can see, CC3+ picked a much lower resolution version of the image on your export than mine, just look at the road texture for example.
Now, if this just happens on the export, and isn't a general problem when you view the map in CC3+, then Sue's advice is fine, click Display Speed Settings
[Image_13109]
However, if the problem also occurs when you zoom around the map inside CC3+, setting it permanently to Fixed - Very high is a poor fix since it impacts CC3+ performance, and since city maps hare heavy enough by themselves, adding additional performance hits is not a good idea. What you need to do then is to adjust when CC3+ will change between displaying the various resolution levels (Very High, High, Low, Very Low).
Before doing that however, always try to just hit the Clear Bitmap Cache button in the dialog, check the Redraw on OK box, hit OK, and see if the problem goes away. Sometimes, just clearing the cache helps CC3+ get things right.
If that doesn't work however, click the Fill Style resolutions (advanced) button, and you get this dialog:
[Image_13110]
These values tell CC3+ the resolution of the fills you are using, and it is these values that CC3+ uses as a based to determine which resolution to use for which zoom level. Usually, they are fine out of the box, but depending on the resolution and scaling of additional fills you might import, you may need to tweak these. There are now hard and fast rule here, but if you find that CC3+ is displaying a worse resolution of the fills than you think it should be at the current zoom level, you'll need to go in and change these. To force CC3+ to display higher quality resolutions, reduce these numbers. Depending on the severity, dividing them by 2 might be enough, but at other times I have needed to divide them by 10 or more. Just don't overdo it, if you set these too low, the result is exactly the same as if you tell CC3+ to use fixed -> very high, with the performance penalty that implies. So, start by dividing by 2. And after setting these numbers, always clear the bitmap cache before you test.
Before you mess with fill resolutions, do make sure that all the fills you used are set to be scaled. If they aren't, they'll change scale as you zoom in and out. This is true for the large tiles Sue commented would need elephants to place, the fill isn't scaled, so the tiles appear huge when you zoom out, and tiny when you zoom in (they are technically always the same size on the screen, but when you zoom in, everything else become much larger in comparison, making them appear small by comparison). Allways make sure your fill is scaled, and set appropriate values for Width and Heigh. It is very important to set this before you attempt to mess with any resolution scales, as you cannot set their values correctly until fills are scaled correctly.
Also fix the scaling of all other fills in your map, make sure you are happy with the scaling before messing with the resolution settings, otherwise you'll end up setting the resolution settings completely wrong.
[Image_13111]
To do:
1. The industrial area and adding an east gate
2. The caravanserai to the south outside the south city gate
3. The decorating of the wealthy NE and Queen's 'country cottage' with gardens etc
4. Adding specialty buildings, fixing up details in the buildings of the eastern outer city (some already done)
5. Adding trees, parks, ponds dormers etc on the buildings above.
6. Completing the farmland to the south and east.
Anything else i should do. I will post a link to a very big version (12,000 x 8,000) when I have done the first three - I am working a lot on them today.
Lorelei, can I specifically have your comments.