[added] Palace of the Ancient One
 

Here's preview for PotAtOe (And Fer'Zhul, with little addition of one room, not having it on this workstation). And my conern is that level layout is clearly optimized for landscape 4:3, so I either scrutinize it to current 436:506, producing gimped but still usable for overlooking image, or make it, like, 800:600 with better detail, but also adding traffic. Don't mind bright colors, it's for testing purpose only. What's more acceptable?

Another trouble is 3-level staircase room (far left side of map), since all other rooms are at zero-level height. Should I produce 3 traffic-eating .dds (with shadow of 1st level on 2nd and 3rd layer), or just draw full 2d projection of all 3 levels into one layer?

Nice, looking good!

I'd say if you go for 3 levels make the staircase rooms in the small format. Large format would be 1600x1200 btw.

You mean, one big with 1st overall level and 2 small with 2nd and 3rd staircase-room only? I think that not a good idea, because if you got there, you can't see other groupmembers on map while they wandering other rooms.

Edit: Also, I think 1600x1200 is maximal but not mandatory resolution for bigger maps. Is there discussion I can read about new formats?

I guess theoretically you can use any format, although we never tested that. Go ahead and try it. We'd need to make changes on the backend though to support that though.

got problem with level naming -- fer'zhul map style name is "exp05_dun_void_palace_" and potatoe is "exp05_dun_void_palace_raid".
can't divide epic version by tiers: "exp05_dun_void_palace_raidN" and "exp05_dun_void_palace_raid_N" didn't work, it loads exp05_dun_void_palace_N entries. any suggestions?

preview (combined)

Actually no, had the same issue with the frostfell permafrost instance and we tried all sorts of things but couldn't get around the limitation. This seems to be due to how some of these instances are set up.

If you can't find a solution I can try to contact the map guy at SOE. Haven't talked to him in months anyway, I want POI filtering! :)

Can't find his username on eq2interface forum. Halp?

Who, the map dev? He's not on here I think.

Reading your previous post once again: Are you saying that you have a workaround to the naming issue, i.e. the code as posted works? Or is that interfering with the non-raid map?

... found him: http://www.eq2interface.com/forums/s...&postcount=157

Code above works, but heroic zone has 3 map tiers (_0, _1, _2) and epic has one tier (_raid). I've included other variations (_raid_0, _raid_1 and _raid_2) just in case someone solves mentioned problem. And _palace.dds is heroic zone combined -- third tier for staircase tower, second tier for Fer'Zhul room and first tier of other rooms. Just in case you decide that 3*500kb is too much.

I don't think the Bobble guy is still with SOE. The dev who created the new map system is Brian Belfield. I'll send him an email about this issue as we'll probably run into it with the other heroic/raid instances as well.

I get it now with the maps (sorry, didn't look too closely before). Bandwidth is not the issue really (the maps look really great btw), but as I mentioned I'll have to shuffle some code around to support arbitrary map sizes. So either bump it up to 1600x1200 or it'll take a while. Btw. I assume you tested your files - I didn't know that non-quadratic power of 2 .dds files even worked in game (that's why usually they are 512x512).

Thank you for clarification.

Okay, I'll bump it.. But it will take some time to recalculate and test zonerects, because it's not 4:3.

Also 1600x1200 .dds weights 937.5kB, and forum restriction for .dds attached files is 638kB. Not a prob, will load zipped version, just noting it.

Yes, fully tested. As for quadratics, the only map .dds I found out of .vpk files was eq2\UI\NewMapSys\images\maps2\antonica_qeynos_continent_explored.dds -- 1600x1200, so I presumed any proportion is good, and tested it. I think you can use any 4*m x 4*n size (.dds format restriction).

In that case I guess we could shrink all existing map files to 436x508 then... There are also a couple of 1600x1200 dds files in Default\images\maps2\ btw.

I'll ask Dolby to increase the size limit for .dds files, but I guess I'll still make the change to support arbitrary map sizes though.

Huh, never really looked at my /locs so I assumed everything in there was vertical (ie you actually went up/down the structure) but thinking about it now, the tower did look kind of small to actually hold all that stuff. I guess that's how they accomplished it. Makes me wonder how far away the void "sky" is then to conceal the other rooms, especially since it has those other buildings floating around (ie AoB and OoA) that seem so very distant. Tricksy devs, whoever made the void ones (especially palace tho) should get a cookie ;)

Anyway, maps look great to me =)

Dolby increased the dds file size limit to 2 MB.

Thanks. I sent the email to SOE asking about the _raid (or _frostfell) suffix issue. I'll let you know once I receive a response.

These are now live in the original format. Was a bit of work but we should now be in a position to support any map size you might think of (I still need to create a fog image for the large maps though).

The response from Brian Belfield on the _raid instance was that he'll add it to the list of map feature requests. Which might mean anything I guess. ;)

Actually as I just heard it meant that it is going to be fixed in the next update. Good work Brian. :)

Man, he's on a roll hehe.