Phase 1.2: Detail maps [design issue]

[Bot13]

Note: please first read the 2nd post [/elmuerte]

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I hope Muerte will understand me opening a new topic here.
It has nothing to do with designing problems, and even less with lba1/lba2 worlds.

I liked the idea of having seperate texture-tiles to lay the base of each map. Now I began to think a few steps ahead.
I know, it's all thinking way beyond what we could achieve maybe, but if there's even a slight possibility that someone here even could, this is the time to propose my idea.

What I had in mind was a very simple, effective editor. There should be a grid, which textures could 'snap to' as small blocks. This way (and it's a long way to get there, I know) maps could be put together really fast and easy. No overlapping parts, no shadow errors, no problems aligning parts together, etc.

Just like you could make spectacular maps in rollercoaster tycoon, while still having that simple view, without getting confused.
This editor what I forsee isn't isometric offcoarse.

I like to know what the opinions are according to this propose, personally I like it. People can contribute without knowing anything at all about photoshop or another program like that.
(aka. practicly everyone can contribute.)

[elmuerte]

Detail maps as in the satellite map of Google Maps.
How are we going to do that.
We obviously can't always use screenshots from the actual islands.
For the "islands" of LBA2 we could do that. The problem is that still a lot of information is missing. Actual ingame screen shots would be the best solution. But ofcourse we don't have that level of control on the camera.

We could also recreate the islands, this is almost a must for the islands that are not in LBA2. So an obvious solution would be to create tiles for everything possible and use that to recreate the islands. But then again, we would need top-down drawn tiles for that. And we don't have that for most of it.
It would be most important to create the most detailed level. The rest, less zoom, could simply be created by scaling.

[elmuerte]

Sorry for the messy thread. But Bot13 raised a valid point I think would fit best in this thread. Since it has to do with creation of the detail maps.

[Darkflame]

For LBA1, you simple do a 2D overhead tile for each tile type in the game.
You then look at the map data in the game, which, presumably has each tile numbered.
So you simple get that data, and use it to position the 2D tiles exactly as the game.

So, frankly, imo..we dont need an editor at all for the start stage.
To replicate what we got should be possible to do completely automaticaly.
(after all, we already have LBA1 map editors...this is much more simple)

We might need a map editor for the unknown bits, of course.

[elmuerte]

and editor would be very useful if we are going to create the maps by hand, for the simple reason that it would allow us to edit the files afterwards without a lot of hastle

[xesf]

Yeah maybe an editor could be useful and take the hard work.

Btw, what kind of scketch do we need?
I'm doing the satellite map by hand based on Twinsun surface overlay the way we could know how the things will be positionated in the map.
Should I do an island complete draw with details?

[Darkflame]

and editor would be very useful if we are going to create the maps by hand,

But why create them by hand at all?
Or, rather, why arrange them by hand?
(the tiles themselfs will have to be created by hand)

I see no advantage to manual arrangement...we got the game data...why not use it?
Its only the gaps that need to be arranged manualy.