.map file relation to EoC geography?

Does anyone know what the actual .map files do in EoC? For instance; what purpose does the formhault.map file serve?

I ran across a plug-in which converts LW scenes to .map files. After reading the info on it, it made me wonder if the clusters were not originally set up in LW Layout and then converted to map files for game use. Which means us POG-challenged modelers might be able to set up a system in LW (oh, that would make it so easy and quick!).

The plug-in info is here:

www.greenbriarstudio.com/3D/GameLW.htm

I'm probably going to give the studio a call this week to find out the price. By chance, it's right across town from me.

GrandpaTrout, what do you think? Does the information needed in the geography files match what a converted LW scene would produce (coordinates for object center placement, scale, rotation, motion, etc.?). Have you ever seen anything which would be a null LOD switch?


<font size="1"><font face="Book Antiqua"><font color="black">"Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together. This was no disciplined march; it was a stampede-- without order and without a goal, six million people unarmed and unprovisioned, driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of Civilisation... of the massacre of Mankind."
--H. G. Wells The War Of The Worlds</font id="black"></font id="Book Antiqua"> </font id="size1">

Map files define everything in the game's geography with exception of lighting. All stations, planets, and lpoints are defined by the map file. Also, the map file defines everything you see in the starmap.

I doubt that the map files produced by this plugin are the same as the map files used by EoC. I'm pretty sure that Particle Systems used a proprietary file format that would have no use outside of EoC. Also, if I remember correctly, Stephen has said that the way they made their map files was by creating a database for the system, then feeding the database to a compiler. It's a system that I assume would be very similar to the spreadsheet system GrandpaTrout created.

Just in case I went over there to take a look. If I understand the plugin correctly they are exporting level geometry information into a *.map file. It does not look like what we are doing. It looks closer to a *.PSO file (because they talk about concave polygon faces and how they don't convert).

None of the actual models or textures information is stored in the map files. That data is just integer indexes to *.ini file arrays, and then those *.ini files point to real textures or *.pso objects.

The engine changes scaling of planets or nebula to match radius info from the *.map file, so even the *.pso objects don't behave as normal. (you don't build and texture an "earth object" and then tell the map file where to put it. Instead you tell it there is a planet here, with radius 23k km, and texture 12, and it changes the planets size and textures it with texture 12.)

-Gtrout

Ah well. I pretty much expected that would be the case.

Thank you gentlemen.

<font size="1"><font face="Book Antiqua"><font color="black">"Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together. This was no disciplined march; it was a stampede-- without order and without a goal, six million people unarmed and unprovisioned, driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of Civilisation... of the massacre of Mankind."
--H. G. Wells The War Of The Worlds</font id="black"></font id="Book Antiqua"> </font id="size1">

Why the concern about maps?

Is it perhaps about setting up scenery around a specific location (like a pirate base or making a ship graveyard)?
Or do you want to change the background nebula and the position of the planatary objects and suns?

My take of it is:
the .map file defines the size of the "world" and the major bodies and objects in it and thier positions. The corresponding (same named) .lws defines the lighting and coloring of the stuff on the map.

Neither of them currently defines detailed, location specific scenery. (mis-)using a .map for that purpose would be extremly time consuming, difficult, probably very inacurate and also rather heavy on resources.
Imo it makes more sense to have scenery placed dynamically by script whenever the player is near certain places, than to have the scenery "hardcoded" into all the different locations all over the (each) map.
Even a simple scenic location (a few pieces of debris and a couple of dumped over garbage cans around a pirate base) contains easily over 100 rather large objects (inifiles with avatars and collision hulls)in close proximity that would have to load each time a given map is entered. With 3 or 4 graveyards, asteroid fields and junkyards each, per map, that would be over ten thousand inifiles for the engine to create and position. It would take a very, very long time for the map/game to load wouldn't it?

I think we can make scenery a lot more effectivly by creating it dynamically per script with a corresponding .ini for each location.








Have Gun, Will Travel

You give me too much credit, MajorTom. I'm not divising a new strategy for displaying everything at once. Though bypassing the clipping distance features in a universe the size of EoC would be the Holy Grail of free-form play, I agree it would not be possible without grinding the engine to a halt.

I found the plugin when browsing the net for some good weathered-metal shaders and thought "Hmmm... EoC uses .map files... I wonder if objects could be built in LW and translated to make new systems. Or if PS did this originally when creating the clusters (I was unaware of Stephen Robertson's comment on databasing the info - Thanks EricMan).

It was just idle curiousity. Having no information on .map files (and I mean none at all), I thought I'd post with it and see if someone could find any use.





<font size="1"><font face="Book Antiqua"><font color="black">"Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together. This was no disciplined march; it was a stampede-- without order and without a goal, six million people unarmed and unprovisioned, driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of Civilisation... of the massacre of Mankind."
--H. G. Wells The War Of The Worlds</font id="black"></font id="Book Antiqua"> </font id="size1">