Mapping Solution

[Legacy_ffbj]

               I always thought the NwN mapping was a bit tedious.  For instance in some PW's you may have over 100 areas you want to have maps for, or maybe many more.  So you could have magic bags filled with maps, or just explore the area for the players, which has been my approach.  i.e. When a player hits a certain level they gain access to the maps of level appropriate areas, also gaing xp for exploration, but only once.
Howsoever I never really solved the problem until recently.  Now without haks, or overrides just using the standard maps I developed a solution based on work by another member for something quite different.  Anyway I was just curious as to how many people had an interest in this. 
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               I am.

Incidentally, I know World of Greyhawk has a system where you can "combine" maps into a mapbook, so you only ever have one map item.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ffbj]

               Cool.  I know there are so solutions out there that involve haks, some of which are quite good.  Darkness over Daggeford comes to mind.  This solution uses standard NwN maps, no outside programs or cutting and pasting your maps together.  Though I have nothing against any of those.
I can tell you that I am very excited about this resolution which works and is preferable to any approach I have seen using standard maps, scripts, etc...
At the moment I am waiting to here from the author of the original method for their permission to dessiminate the solution.  
Some features of the method are:
Ability to condense the space maps take up by 25-50 times.
Ability to reveal area, for which you have a map, with one click.
Ability to recreate all maps that you have condensed.
Drawbacks any map pins made by the owner of the map will not be retained. If the map if placed back in the map case.
Possibilty of extending to other items using this condensing technique, such as a Document Case for carrying all sorts of paper documets.
Finally it may be possible to carry other placeables around with you.  Somewhat like the tent systems around now. Except you could carry standard chairs, tables, furniture, tents, from one place to another.  This of course could be controlled by the builder/designer/scripter where the items are used.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ffbj]

               Ok I posted it up to vault.  It's based Carcerian's keyring.  I got his persmission to both update the keyring and include my mapcase with it.  Works just like his keyring although it was not that simple to make, at least for me.  I think it will be useful.  Plus I did make it so you can subtract keys from the key ring, a piece of functionality that was missing from the original.
Probably a few bugs and typo's was I was starting to get a bit punchy working on it.
E-mail sent.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               Sounds cool!  I'm not sure if you implemented this, but the last paragraph of your second to last message is neat.  I'm sure there are lots of cool things that could be done with that.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ffbj]

               I did not test that, but my belief is that is certainly the case.
I could test that out.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ffbj]

               Yeah it works.  I added a bunk bed and a bird cage.  That's all you really need anyway.
Might be a useful tool for furniture movers, people with houses, and maybe dm's would find it useful.
You could have like a bunch of things just stored in the box.  Of course you would have to create them somewhere on the ground not in the PC inventory.  But you just create them next to the PC no problem.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ffbj]

               But the design of all the items necessitate that you write all the items you want to recreate into the script. So for the keyring and mapcase it's set at 20-25, of course you can multiple keyrings or cases. So for big placeables you may have a limit of 5 or 6, though I suppose you could quickly produce 100 swords, or a combination of armors and swords and sheilds to scatter around a battlefiedl. Or a ballista, or cannon, or three....Basically a sort of portable hole with limitations.  Something for the homemakers, I think I like that sofa over there, better.
All props to Carcerian for the intitial boost, and my own dogged persistence, since I'm not such a great scripter.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ffbj, 20 août 2012 - 07:29 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_ffbj]

               Put in a couple of placeables to move around in the demo. Pick em up move em around, oh that's not quite right. I think I like it over here better. But honey we only have one piece of furniture.
Oh well taking the summer off was not a total waste.
May I be so bold as too say an example of 'Beginner's Mind'.
The Old Same Place, "Well, Nah! You can't get there from here."
You could probably do creatures too, btw..You could store say a dozen or more creatures of various types and then boom pop them into existence.  Maybe I will look into that tomorrow.

I guess it must be tomorrow, stayed up all night and finished it. I got three zombies in there you can pull into the void and then realease them where you want.  I could see dm's with half a dozen or so of these items each with a different group of monsters, creatures, npc's whatever, spawning them.  Like chefs making dinner.  A dash of this a few, or these, or something.  Man it is just off the hook, watching the zombies vaporise as you get the message zombie sent into the void.  Although they recreate jumping in.  I suppose setting appear animation to False takes care of that though.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ffbj, 20 août 2012 - 12:11 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_ffbj]

               I uploaded the file as a project:
http://social.biowar...m/project/8488/
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ffbj]

               Thanks to Rolo Kipp the vault is now back up.  So this solution is now on the vault.  Next I was thinking of doing a lighting solution demo.
Keyring/Mapcase: http://nwvault.ign.c....Detail&id=3866
The video: http://nwvault.ign.c...s.Detail&id=637
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ffbj, 25 octobre 2012 - 10:39 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               An interesting solution for this.

Did you see my solution which expanded upon the persistent map pins project as well as seamless area transition maps? Totally different approach, but anyway... I'll see what i can do with yours..
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ffbj]

               Yes I did look at that and it was really cool.  In fact I was seriously giving some thought to incoporating it, your mapping project, but figured it would involve to much effort on my part, though of course you have done all the heavy lifting.  In theory their, Bioware's original mapping soulution was fairly good although in a mapped persistent world with perhaps hundreds of mapped areas, it was woefully lacking.  My approach is to simply give you a single place to put all those maps so they don't clutter up your inventory, and then developing the functionality to access the map inside the case without actually opening the mapcase.  Pretty simple stuff, just an accomodation for those using the standard mapping method. Yours in monumental in scope and realization. In other words really cool.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Thanks for the kind words. I think our two projects do different things. Yours helps players organize classes of objects in an elegant way. Mine was simply an improvement to the maps made by the guy who made seamless area transitions.I can't take full credit for it as I'm standing on a giant's shoulders. '>

I think what i would do to integrate the two approaches would be (1) enable the player to select a map n the map book. or (2) figure out how to enable to map book to expand the scope of the map the player is following.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ffbj]

               Yes that's true. Still though I think for a complete solution you would have to have something as you suggest which combines all the current maps in the mapcase into a larger regional map, say 10 or so maps to a region, as some pw's have 100's of areas there would be a limit to how many areas could be accessed in this way, but regardless.  Then the regional maps could combine to form a continental map.  It could lay out in a grid pattern with each box in the grid having  a number and then the appropriate map is placed in that grid coordinate.
Anyway though it's an area where a diffinitive soultuion has not emerged I think your approach is foundational with the original seamless transition underpinning it all.
Yes, you are correct about my approach.  Mostly I guess I am an organization man.  I like getting thinks to work easily, correctly and efficiently.
Currently if I enter an area that I have a map for and it's in my mapcase I can click on the mapcase and the area is revealed.  Now at that point you could add a conversion line asking the player if they want to retrieve the map.  Though you can retrieve all the maps in the mapcase, which was my inovation from Carcerian's original keyring.  Getting the key back or in this case the map back, and everything evolved from there.  So you get all your maps back at once that are in the case.  In most instance playere will not want to do this especially if they have lots of maps, but the retrieval of individual maps would be trivial to include, I felt the expediency of just removing the offending maps from you inventory while retaining almost full functionality, i.e. not player map pins persist once the map is replaced in the case, was a tremedous improvement over the the original mapping method, which is woefully inadequate for any but the most rudimentary worlds.  Those with less than 25 areas or so, probably most single player modules, would work fine with the original mapping system, but for anything larger and certainly for any large persistent world they are almost worthless.  Just some of my thinking on the subject.