Creating a world map......
Author
i am looking to try to make a map similar to the Rome:Total War world map. i am completely new to making world maps. I know there is alot of art work involved, i am interested in the code part, how to make bumps on the map for mountains, how to make the seas move. All that cool stuff. Anyone know how i would start?
couldn't add an image to the post but here is a link to what i mean.
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/11/10474/Map_Difference.jpg
If you know (or want to lean) C# here is a good link:
http://www.riemers.net/
That site contains 4 series of tutorials to learn XNA for C#. The first and the fourth are about creating a game terrain. The first is a simple one but once you follow the last series you will make a real multitextured terrain with moving water. I think this is a good place to start.
Another subject to dive into if you want to generate random terrain is Perlin Noise. It is used to generate a noise effect which you can use to generate nice terrains. :)
http://www.riemers.net/
That site contains 4 series of tutorials to learn XNA for C#. The first and the fourth are about creating a game terrain. The first is a simple one but once you follow the last series you will make a real multitextured terrain with moving water. I think this is a good place to start.
Another subject to dive into if you want to generate random terrain is Perlin Noise. It is used to generate a noise effect which you can use to generate nice terrains. :)
Author
great, i am trying to stick to c++ as i know it better, but i think the c# syntax is similar so i should be able to convert, i am going to use directx to do the drawing. Thanks.
lol in my opinion, DON'T try c# unless your a totally object oriented freak. well thats just my opinion, tbh i really hate classes all together but they are very essiental to programming so don't take my word for it.
Quote:Original post by gameplayprogammer
i am looking to try to make a map similar to the Rome:Total War world map. i am completely new to making world maps. I know there is alot of art work involved, i am interested in the code part, how to make bumps on the map for mountains, how to make the seas move. All that cool stuff. Anyone know how i would start?
couldn't add an image to the post but here is a link to what i mean.
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/11/10474/Map_Difference.jpg
If it's natural-looking height map generators you're looking for, I've used this in the past to generate nice-ish heightmaps.
http://www.bin.sh/gaming/tools/world.cgi
Takes some tweaking, but you can come up with some pretty convincing maps.
From this you might look into rendering terrain using 8-bit height maps.
Good luck!
Author
Code Zombie, how do you organise your code and structure of your program?
DarkHorizon, how do you get access to the height map for these generated maps, when i use the website it just shows a picture of the terrain generated.
DarkHorizon, how do you get access to the height map for these generated maps, when i use the website it just shows a picture of the terrain generated.
The map in Rome: Total War certainly isn't randomly generated (hey, let's use this one, it looks just like Europe!). Either way, you can generate or otherwise create a heightmap and for the details, place some models on top of it. You can also use a model for the terrain if you want - whether that's a good idea depends on what exactly you want to do with your world map.
As for heightmaps, they're usually stored as images, where every pixel stands for a certain height. So, your program loads the heightmap image and displays a bunch of triangles based on these height values.
As for your name, gameplayprogrammer, I understand you'd rather work on game code, right? If so, I would suggest picking a game engine to do the tedious work for you (heightmap and model rendering for example), so you can focus on the game code (world map details such as water, weather, moving creatures, etc.). :)
@Code Zombie: with a bit of good will, it's possible to do procedural programming in C# just as well. And object-oriented programming can be emulated in C, too. Classes are not that essential to programming in general, because object oriented programming is not the only programming paradigm. It's a popular one though and quite useful for organizing larger projects. However, what does that have to do with this thread?
As for heightmaps, they're usually stored as images, where every pixel stands for a certain height. So, your program loads the heightmap image and displays a bunch of triangles based on these height values.
As for your name, gameplayprogrammer, I understand you'd rather work on game code, right? If so, I would suggest picking a game engine to do the tedious work for you (heightmap and model rendering for example), so you can focus on the game code (world map details such as water, weather, moving creatures, etc.). :)
@Code Zombie: with a bit of good will, it's possible to do procedural programming in C# just as well. And object-oriented programming can be emulated in C, too. Classes are not that essential to programming in general, because object oriented programming is not the only programming paradigm. It's a popular one though and quite useful for organizing larger projects. However, what does that have to do with this thread?
Quote:Original post by MasterSlowPoke
code zombie I'm guessing you're not partial to C++ either?
naw I don't like organization, but i you have to use them so i use them anyway
This topic is closed to new replies.
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