Geography Tools

I'd appreciate that Second Chance, don't feel the need to hurry - I'm supposed to be writing by PhD transfer report The additional documentation for the Trout's tool would be great though - I'm trying to start with a sensible data model and work up from there.

EricMan64 - good idea, I'll see what I can do.

Hot4 pointed out this site long ago:

www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/ ... /index.htm

It's Full of Stars is a utility program for creating star maps and solar systems. Using 3D graphics it displays both starmaps and the solar systems with planets and moons in orbit around the star. A quick and easy to use point-and-click interface, room for lots of data, as well as several 3D rendered objects. Animation of orbits, placing of routes, generation of random systems, as well as guides and other functions make this a very useful utility for astronomer, writer and gamer alike.

They even have a StarMaster map converted. If I remember right, they used a text based system for storing the data. What I was thinking was that it might be easier to build a converter for a known working program like this one, that build a "from scratch" editor. This program will also generate star systems. And it can handle textures. So you could pretexture a little bit. And it lets you set up stations. I don't know about trade routes.

I have not explored it in detail (perhaps Hot4 did). But it sounds like you can attach text information. Then perhaps you could create a "Language of Nulls" for this tool, like PS did for lightwave. Essentially the author attaches the correct information about a station, say faction and type. The converter notices the keywords and pulls out the information.

Or perhaps the author would not mind loaning out the source. It looks like it has not had an update in a while.

-Gtrout

Originally posted by Second Chance

Sounds good Unheard Of (haven't I heard of you before? ). The Star Wars MP mod is taking up a pretty good chunk of my time at the moment, but give me a chance to put some stuff together for you and we'll see where we stand. (I haven't documented my coded stuff very well.)

*BUMP*

Progress so far has been almost nothing, I won't bore you with my excuses. []
Even if your code isn't perfectly documented it would be worth a look

Crud, I forgot about this. Bad news I'm afraid. All that stuff, along with all of my non-Star Wars mod work was lost with the hard-drive crash/replacement I had recently [V]. It's all still on the old drive, but the drive itself was pronounced DOA by our techs.

The map generation code was pretty simplistic though, I'm sure I could create something better now. What language do you want to work in? I could send you some psuedo-code to start, if you like. What's you email.

*edit*
Oops, I see you want to write in Java. No problem. GrandpaTrout just did a major update of the geography tool, but I don't know if he released it yet or not. Having all his updated documentation will be vital to any further work.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
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The updated documentation would be great, as would any thoughts you had on building the scene files (I haven't thought about that aspect yet).

My plan is to work up a good object model first, then work out how to make an EoC geography file from it. A GUI and/or conversion from other programs can then be built on top.

If you want to e-mail me the contact address at this or the atari forums should work.

If you want to build your own converter into your program I would suggest talking to GrandpaTrout, or downloading his geogSDK. If I'm not mistaken, he included the source code for his converter in the download. That would save you a lot time on converter design.

Personally, I just had my program run his program internally. Seemed pointless to reinvent the wheel. However, incorporating his code into your own program would keep things cleaner.

I'll send you an email today.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.