TES3MATLAB: A toolbox for auto-generating maps

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SpiderTheSpider
Joined:
2022-04-17 21:20
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1 month 1 week ago

Hello everyone, I'm Spider!

I'm here today to showcase a `toolbox' of MATLAB codes I've been working on for generating maps based on a given collection of TES3 files, TES3MATLAB.  The output file, a product I'll call the Automap, will hopefully aid modders and map drawers (e.g. Gridmap).  The Automap is a Tiff file containing a number of 'pages' that Gimp and other image editors can read in as layers, then it's up to the user to decide which layers they want to show and how to show them.

Layers currently implemented are:
> Basemap (aka land-sea mask)
> Minimap (aka the WNAM entries of LAND records)
> Region colors
> Land texture (mean) colors
> Vertex colors
> Vertex normals
> Face heights as
  - Colored heightmap
  - Basemap shader (use the Overlay method)
  - 10yd and 100yd contours
> Cell exports (aka merged CreateMaps output)
> Highlighters for
  - Slopes > 45 degrees (too steep for player to walk up)
  - Roads [buggy]
> Seam tests for
  - Vertex heights
  - Vertex colors
  - Vertex normals
  - Texture vertices [in progress] (vanilla MW can't blend more than 2)

The seams for vertex heights, colors, and normals are identified on a cell-by-cell basis.  If a seam exists anywhere along a cell boundary, the boundary is highlighted, with its brightness/redness scaled with the size of the maximum gap between adjacent map values.  Land texture vertices are marked by dots, with dark red indicating 3 intersecting textures, and bright red for 4.

Some options for flexibility are:
> Choosing which of the files to show the landscape data for
> Backing up data (so you don't have to parse it from the source files every time you run the toolbox)
> The scaling of the Automap layers (Gridmap uses 40x40 pixels-per-cell, default for Automap is 64)

The toolbox is very much a work in progress, and the Automap itself is horribly unoptimized, but I just wanted to share now that it's at a working stage.  If you find any issues, have an idea for a map, or if you want me to generate some maps for a given collection of mods, just ask!  If you want to use my codes as a reference for your own project, you have my permission, just please thank me (Spider!) somewhere.  The codes are up on Github here: https://github.com/SpiderTheSpider/TES3MATLAB/tree/main/v0.0.2

I've uploaded 3 automaps (at 40x40 pixels-per-cell) and some images (at 64 pixels-per-cell) to https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fp52MlCHSdnqTVm-tGdmzYJhY9Yc_IzK...

> Automap: Solstheim Tomb of the Snow Prince 
> Automap: TR (with claims files provided by Tani)
> Automap: TR + PT "Mapdump"  (landmass only, files provided by Jani)

> Image: TR+PT color heightmap + contours + shading
> Image: TR+PT Vertex height seams
> Image: TR cell exports with road and steepness highlights