Forum & Map Updates

[Thermal Ions]

Just a heads up:

The Getting Started in TOG Minecraft sticky has been updated today to reflect that we run two servers and includes a list of on the commands available to players now that we are running Bukkit based mods.

A map of the Survival server has been produced for those not adverse to *spoilers*. A link can be found in the State of the Server sticky. The map provides both day & night views and will only be updated periodically, not on a regular automated schedule.

[Thermal Ions]

I've been running more tests this week on every end to end mapping solution I can find. The size of the creative world seems to be the breaking point for all bar one, PixelMap (although only if I restrict it to 1 core). It only generates average resolution top down maps presently but development is commencing on providing isometric output.

Thanks to Nadanova linking to the Rawcritic's server map, I've discovered zoom.it which provides a way to easily zoom and scroll around on a large single image. This means that the map generation program used doesn't require support for the google API to be able have this function.

I've generated an up to date day and a night version of the regular creative server.

Day: Zoom.it ? Image QTAo
Night: Zoom.it ? Image ChXX

The maps may be missing some torches attached to the sides of buildings as I overlooked disabling the heightmap setting when generating them.

I still need to generate an isometric view of our other smaller worlds to see how they perform in zoom.it too.

Cheith, this may be a display solution to pair with your mapping program that could work too. Not sure whether you were intending to and/or where you were at with updating it for region format.

[isaac.retox]

Cool, thanks for working on this for us!
I remember zoom-it being raised a while ago, but some of the discussions certainly got off track.

Also on a technical note; I got the creative map to render in mcmap ok, so it should be possible to use that mapper still.
Given, the map was a little out of date, but the world size was massive as this was from before the trim (I think)
Happy to do a test on the latest data if you feel like uploading the 700meg+ data :P

Also also... I miss my old castle on that server :P
So many hours put into it, shame to leave it behind
(survival server is much more fun though)

[Thermal Ions]

Originally Posted by isaac.retox

Happy to do a test on the latest data if you feel like uploading the 700meg+ data :P

It's currently sitting at around 1GB after compression, and the world itself uncompressed and converted to region format sits at 1.47 GB.

Originally Posted by isaac.retox

Also on a technical note; I got the creative map to render in mcmap ok, so it should be possible to use that mapper still.

Was that the latest version with the map converted to region format?

I tried mcmap yesterday (after it was updated) on the new region format and it seemed to process fine right up until joining the segments together at the end. Looking at the segments in the cache, two of them are totally black which seems a little odd. Multiple attempts including doing close to but not exactly the full map size produced the exact same results.

May be worth keeping an eye on over the coming days as bugs with the region format rendering get worked out.

[isaac.retox]

I rendered it before 1.3
I haven't tested it since as it took a long time to render.

I have been rendering other maps in 1.3 though, using the latest mcmap, but nothing at that size.

I'm happy to convert the old data to 1.3regions and see how it goes, but it'll take a while :P I was going to convert the data anyway as I wanted to see my old castle with this texture pack I found. I'll let you know how it turns out...

[Sorontar]

Part of the changes in v1.3 had to do with how the world data was saved. I don't know whether that was related to when it was saved, or how it was saved. Either way, I suspect that it may affect any mapping programs. But we are yet to convert the main worlds to the new "format". The test worlds have been converted (it is automatic once you start a server with v1.3).

Sorontar

[isaac.retox]

Yeah I know, chunks were changed to regions, file count reduced to for better performance etc.

I've converted my worlds over and they render fine under mcmap.
The issue here is weather the regions are causing problems with mcmap when the map data is massive.

Working with the old creative data now, but it's taking a long time to transfer (as it's in the old format) from one hdd to another. I may have had some data loss at some point after I rendered it...

Also, I'm running Bukkit (build 440) with a few mods atm on my 1.3 test server and everything seems to be going ok

[isaac.retox]

You were right Thermal, problems rendering post 1.3.
I managed to render the large chunk of the map by specifying range.
I used:
-400 -400
350 350

If I did -400 -400. 400 400 or larger, it failed when putting it all together.

(crazy idea. We let the world expand, but only render/map the "core")

[Thermal Ions]

Originally Posted by isaac.retox

(crazy idea. We let the world expand, but only render/map the "core")

Not so crazy, I've considered that myself over the past couple of weeks. It's better than having nothing. I was also playing around with the idea of splitting the map into 4 quadrants each with their own link.

At the moment I'll give the tools a week to settle down, see what's our best bet then and get something up. I'm thinking we may end up using different solutions for the creative and survival worlds as we should have more workable options for the later.

[Thermal Ions]

Another few days, another few tests. I've been running some renders on both the creative and survival servers using Tectonicus with some good success. The detail from this renderer is quite good, but of course with detail can come longer render time and a larger file size. I've been testing various maximum zoom and number of zoom levels available, along with file type and compression options.

Tectonicus enables us to render players and signs on the map also if we wish. On the maps below I've rendered myself and Sorontar, along with a couple of signs.

The options for signs can be (a) none, (b) all, or (c) special. Special signs are those which both start and finish with any of the following characters:

-     !     ~     =

You can see some examples of how these can be used while still maintaining the visual appeal of the signs by clicking on the sign icons in the below maps.

At this stage I'm leaning towards this as an ongoing solution, subject to finding the sweet spot for the creative server.

Regular Survival Server
I've uploaded what's probably the sweet spot at the moment - provides 6 zoom levels, uses jpg compression at 90% and takes about 36-40 minutes to render with output file sizes below. It's on dropbox as it was easier for me atm. Hopefully the viewing performance is ok.

Day: TOG Minecraft Survival World Map (Day) - 3 March 2011 (289 MB)

Night: TOG Minecraft Survival World Map (Night) - 3 March 2011 (110 MB)

I'd propose that special signs be rendered on the map, with the expectation that people won't go crazy such that you can't see the map for the sign icons. Players would not be rendered unless enough people want that, and then only those who request they be displayed (as not everyone will want their location / secret base highlighted).

Regular Creative Server
Rendered a couple of times so far - last being 3.5 GB, so obviously need some more testing to find hopefully the sweet spot. Render times are very long, 7 hours for the last one. Caching is implemented, so that should speed things up a bit once I find the best settings and it takes effect.

So, looking for some feedback on the map that's up. Good / bad / too detailed / not detailed enough / like players or signs rendered / too many or few zoom levels?

EDIT: Click on spawn point for stats, and use the link button to generate a link specific to the zoom and focal point you are viewing.