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Kruggan

WU Map/Terrain Generator Development

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The purpose of this thread is to encourage discussion among the community in developing a process or tool for the generation of custom maps for the upcoming Wurm Unlimited product. Many have expressed a desire to host custom maps (besides the two 2048x2048 ones planned by the official dev team).

Please feel free to contribute your ideas/thoughts in regards to such a process or tool.

Please note that this thread is intended as a focused discussion and not to debate Code Club AB's decision to introduce Wurm Unlimited.

Thank you.

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If I may be so bold as to ask...  


 


What's the commercial "map generator" currently in use?


 


Knowing this may (or may hella not) lead to finding an open source version ready for tweaking to wurm's needs.


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I am interested in developing this kind of tool, giving more freedom and better quality/more varied maps than made via current generator.

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If I may be so bold as to ask...

What's the commercial "map generator" currently in use?

Knowing this may (or may hella not) lead to finding an open source version ready for tweaking to wurm's needs.

Agreed... Details on the specific tools used would be useful. Below is the information we have thus far...

From Rolf:

At release we will provide two maps since we don't have our own terrain generator for Wurm and it requires extra tools. What we do is use a commercial terrain generator and modify the generated files by tweaking things in java source code. We have no gui for tweaking those parameters and don't have the resources to support such a method or questions about it at release. You may however play around with it yourself and use any maps you manage to generate by replacing them in the game directory.

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I am preety much loving this new aspect of wurm. 


 


We get to develop our own server and quests. Also i plan on making a awesome game using wurm ain wurm unlimited. Lets see how it goes.


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I am interested in developing this kind of tool, giving more freedom and better quality/more varied maps than made via current generator.

 

And there's your first DLC for WU =)

(as in: that's a good thing)

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I'm also interested in development. Shoot me a PM if you ever need an experienced (low-level c, asm, python and c++) programmer assistance.


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And when you pay for it you get a good quality product. "You get what you pay for" It would not be an issue at all to modify the output for whatever you need. I have used 2 different ones for Unreal, its just not a big issue to modify output params to suit needs.

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There is also another thing - generator must be simple enough to allow world creation and export to Wurm even for people who don't have any technical knowledge, so everyone will be able to play on the world he wants.

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There is also another thing - generator must be simple enough to allow world creation and export to Wurm even for people who don't have any technical knowledge, so everyone will be able to play on the world he wants.

Very true -however - when you start to oversimplify you sacrifice detail - so while you may start out with a slick UI that makes things easy, as time goes by you add more and more till a person picks it up and its no different in complexity than any other terrain generator out there. So it would all in all be just educating a group on how these things work, and ultimately be just as complex as any other software package just focused on a single game. Not to mention you or someone else thats developing this may get a better job, move along or just stop working on it. Makes more sense in the long run to get a solid package that has a permanent development team behind it.

 

EDIT

 

Now all that being said

 

If possible

 

I want to use my own textures and maps - not wurms -is this possible? I dont know. If so Ill be redoing the terrain from the ground up. I want a very very very realistic and detailed map based on areas such as the appalachian mountains, the deserts of africa the jungles of the nile, Mississippi deltas ect ect ect. Ill import height maps and go to work on scale and populating my maps with flora and fauna relative to the environment im designing.

 

This will take a powerful terrain generator -  assuming such a construct could ever be brought into wurm(The maps I make)...which is the real question. Assuming it can Ill 10 to 1 get a pro package to help me with this.

 

So a list of questions

 

Will we be able to create our own graphics to import in - say from Blender or any other 3d modeling program?

Will we be able to use our own textures for terrain?

How much source code access will there be? Is it full except for the cheat catching stuff or limited even further?

Will there be or are there any plans for developing UI's to accelerate world building / designing

 

Details Details Details - None of which are available atm. So really it just makes more sense to go with a good solid package rather than start thinking about modding and developing stuff from scratch. It just makes more sense to look at existing packages so you can get started asap.

Edited by sunsvortex

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Very true -however - when you start to oversimplify you sacrifice detail - so while you may start out with a slick UI that makes things easy, as time goes by you add more and more till a person picks it up and its no different in complexity than any other terrain generator out there. So it would all in all be just educating a group on how these things work, and ultimately be just as complex as any other software package just focused on a single game. Not to mention you or someone else thats developing this may get a better job, move along or just stop working on it. Makes more sense in the long run to get a solid package that has a permanent development team behind it.

 

EDIT

 

Now all that being said

 

If possible

 

I want to use my own textures and maps - not wurms -is this possible? I dont know. If so Ill be redoing the terrain from the ground up. I want a very very very realistic and detailed map based on areas such as the appalachian mountains, the deserts of africa the jungles of the nile, Mississippi deltas ect ect ect. Ill import height maps and go to work on scale and populating my maps with flora and fauna relative to the environment im designing.

 

This will take a powerful terrain generator -  assuming such a construct could ever be brought into wurm(The maps I make)...which is the real question. Assuming it can Ill 10 to 1 get a pro package to help me with this.

 

So a list of questions

 

Will we be able to create our own graphics to import in - say from Blender or any other 3d modeling program?

Will we be able to use our own textures for terrain?

How much source code access will there be? Is it full except for the cheat catching stuff or limited even further?

Will there be or are there any plans for developing UI's to accelerate world building / designing

 

Details Details Details - None of which are available atm. So really it just makes more sense to go with a good solid package rather than start thinking about modding and developing stuff from scratch. It just makes more sense to look at existing packages so you can get started asap.

 

 

Textures would be a client modification, not a map modification.

 

What I've taken away from the Q&A on the FAQ thread is CodeClub won't ban, block, or prevent any modification - but won't actively support it with APIs and such either. So as he said, if the game updates, your modifications would go away and need to be re-applied.

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Textures would be a client modification, not a map modification.

 

What I've taken away from the Q&A on the FAQ thread is CodeClub won't ban, block, or prevent any modification - but won't actively support it with APIs and such either. So as he said, if the game updates, your modifications would go away and need to be re-applied.

Did you even read my post or are you just trolling?

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legitmiately curious about map generation tools used, will need to know.

Take a look at this one -I use it, and love it.  World Creator

Has a free demo

 

Also Check this link - GALLERY

 

Some of my biggest questions are how cloose to this can we get with wurm. Ill spend the time, Ill spend the money, but can wurm support this level of detail.

Edited by sunsvortex

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Take a look at this one -I use it, and love it.  World Creator

Has a free demo

 

Also Check this link - GALLERY

 

Some of my biggest questions are how cloose to this can we get with wurm. Ill spend the time, Ill spend the money, but can wurm support this level of detail.

Highly doubt you could pull anything like that off due to the fact of tile size limitations for showing the detail, you could prolly get the base height map, but not the fine detail such as the water erosion.

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I don't expect that mine will be the only one made, and what I am aiming for is something very close to the current state of wurm.

The above is another reason I wouldnt want to use non pro versions of a terrain generator. They will all aim for the current state of Wurm or maybe go a bit past it. I want as much detail as I can squeeze out of the Wurm engine. I want to be able to do a complete gfx overhaul of the terrain. The devs have stated that the main reason gfx are not better is because they have to support lower end machines. Thats not a limitation ill encounter. So really I think , in the long run, itll be better to just use an existing Terrain editor and tweak the output to what Wurm can handle. If you have a good Terrain Generator then as Wurm can handle more youll be able to instantly adapt and create new, more detailed and enhanced terrain maps.

 

But i guess if people really want to go to all the trouble to make them,I guess someone will use them. Just seems odd to me given that there are so many good ones allready out there.

Edited by sunsvortex
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The above is another reason I wouldnt want to use non pro versions of a terrain generator. They will all aim for the current state of Wurm or maybe go a bit past it. I want as much detail as I can squeeze out of the Wurm engine. I want to be able to do a complete gfx overhaul of the terrain. The devs have stated that the main reason gfx are not better is because they have to support lower end machines. Thats not a limitation ill encounter. So really I think , in the long run, itll be better to just use an existing Terrain editor and tweak the output to what Wurm can handle. If you have a good Terrain Generator then as Wurm can handle more youll be able to instantly adapt and create new, more detailed and enhanced terrain maps.

 

But i guess if people really want to go to all the trouble to make them,I guess someone will use them.

 

One of my goals for the toolkit later on after the basic version is 100%, is to take the common save formats from commercial/free editors that people suggest and convert them into a wurm readable format. Changes to the rendering engine is a client issue and unless there is a demand for it after release I don't plan on making an editor for the textures right away, or improving upon the current rendering environment. However if you find a program that you like for terrain generation I can take a look into converting a format it saves to into once I can convert via the toolkit after release.

 

However I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

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I use World Creator


 


It is quite amazing.


Dont think there would be a need for a texture editor as those can easily be done in photoshop.


Shaders I can create in World Creator. It has a shader IDE.


IMport tools would be very handy indeed.


 


Warlander said they were working on a new rendering system for the client, so i am hoping this means increased support for shaders. It will make all the difference.


Edited by sunsvortex

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Judging from the export formats it shouldn't be an issue to converting the terrain to a format that wurm should be able to handle. If you have the time could you send me an export of a small map so I can add it to my testing environment.


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