[CF-Devel] elevations (was Re: more proposals)

[crossfire-devel-admin at archives.real-time.com]

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      No matter what I do, preserving elevations is not going to work well.
     
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      Imagine I replace a mountain range by a desert plane. When the
     
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      elevations are backfilled they are dead wrong.
     
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      Inserting random values doesn't seem much better in the long run,
     
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      because in that case the values become totally meaningless.
     
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Well the automated scripts aren't entirely useless, the perl script
backfilles the old elevations and the python script assigns a value based on
the arch (this is the reverse of how the map was created and although the
script result is not a 'smooth'- it should be good enough for the weather
code.)

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      To do the right thing, elevations would need to be based not only on
     
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      their surroundings (for smooth slopes) but also on the types of
     
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      arches used (e.g. mountain or plains?). Then one has to decide if
     
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      the overall tendency is upwards or downwards and eventually some
     
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      adjacent elevations need to be adjusted.
     
     
Well that's not really how it currently works, it looked to me that it was a
simple elevation:arches relationship.  The map was generated like a fractal
however which did 'slope' it initially.

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      And even then, when all these factors are taken into account,
     
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      the mapmaker won't know what the weather code will do to his maps
     
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      because it's pretty much unpredictable.
     
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      So just guess how happy the average mapmaker will be, spending his
     
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      time with this.
     
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Yes , it shouldn't be a issue for map makers.

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      And the more elevations go out of whack, the worse it gets:
     
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      When surrounded by "wrong" elevations, how can I insert "correct"
     
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      ones without going out of synch with the larger picture?
     
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      Honestly, I'm not sure what to do about it.
     
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      Suggestions are welcome.
     
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Well I would say that we shouldn't keep the elevation numbers in the arches
for one.  If weather is smooth enough then I would say that the weather map
code should just assign elevation values based on arch.  OTHO these values
could be plotted on a simpler initial data map to get a system more like you
describe.  For example say the weather map is generated as a skeleton of
points from an average map elevation value (in the map header) then filled
in with elevation values modified by the arches (you need to examine the
arches anyway for water/humidity maps)...  Once the map is generated
initially - the elevation isn't used at all...


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