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Unread 12-03-2017, 04:29 PM  
Garan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by barnak
I love this plugins, i was just wondering why we can't see places like instances, private instances, etc.
Thanks.

As to instanced areas being excluded, mostly it is because they use coordinates that don't work with the rest of the world. Interiors have a separate coordinate system and most of the instanced exteriors are simply placed in parts of the world where they don't really belong. Areas like Sammath Naur are exterior areas but if you look at your compass coordinates while you are there you will see that you have been suddenly teleported many, many leagues away from where you should be. In the case of Sammath Naur it seems the world builders couldn't fit the Sammath Naur terrain into the area on the top of Orodruin where it belongs so they just moved it far north of where they expect any real Mordor terrain to ever exist. Moria is an exception since it is a huge cave but uses exterior coordinates in Rhovanion and sort of fits into the right place.

There are a few instances that use exterior locations that do fit with their actual locations in the world such as the lonely mountain and dale instances. Those that I have identified are on the map. Odinson just provided a clue that helped me place the terrain from the Session Play "At the Stone of Erech" which is a second age version of Blackroot Vale but uses coordinates from the Eriador region. I have assembled many other small terrain segments that represent instances and if I ever get a chance to verify the coordinates for any of them and they fit into the right place on the map I will eventually add them.

Last edited by Garan : 12-03-2017 at 04:29 PM.
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Unread 12-03-2017, 01:42 PM  
barnak
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I love this plugins, i was just wondering why we can't see places like instances, private instances, etc.
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Unread 12-01-2017, 02:31 PM  
ENDrain
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Yes, thank you for a thorough answer. I've had the impression that it's about respect, a respect of one developer towards another. I personally sometimes put common sence above other things - like you said, it's PUBLIC beta. But there you go, its your plugin. As for me, I pay respect to SSG and their work in cash.

Oh, and thank you for long-expected update!

Last edited by ENDrain : 12-01-2017 at 02:32 PM.
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Unread 11-25-2017, 03:19 PM  
Garan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ENDrain
Quote:
Originally Posted by Garan
I don't publish or discuss anything that isn't on the live servers as that has a way of irking SSG. So Beta, even open Beta, stuff is off limits.
I'm sorry, but why do you care about SSG's opinion so much? Do they own this website or something?
Short answer: Respect

Long answer: There are usually many ways to approach any relationship but I have found that when you respect others they will tend to respect you as well. Turbine and now SSG are the owners of the material that I work with for these plugins so I always try to respect their licensing and work within the limits of their intended use for their product. There are times that I stretch those limits but I always try to avoid breaking them outright. Why do I care? There are many reasons, first and foremost, it is the right thing to do, morally, ethically and legally. Secondly, it makes for a much better, mutually respectful relationship. Most of what I do is only possible because Turbine/SSG provides an environment where my plugins can run and provide resources for those plugins to present which allows players to have a more enjoyable experience in some way. It is a win-win scenario, Turbine/SSG get happier clients and I get to play with plugins. As a professional software engineer I've spent the last 30 years (yech! has it really been that long?!) developing software applications, many for fortune 500 companies, some with rigorous schedules and client demands. I write plugins to relax. They are fun. The last thing I want to do is create an antagonistic relationship with a company that lets me have fun. Respect has always been a much better approach in my experience. There will undoubtedly be those who can not grasp the concept of a mutually respectful relationship, nor the desire for such a relationship. I have no desire to argue the case, it's my chosen approach and has worked well for me. Hopefully that answers your question.

Respectfully,

Garan

Last edited by Garan : 11-25-2017 at 04:45 PM.
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Unread 11-25-2017, 12:12 PM  
ENDrain
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Garan
I don't publish or discuss anything that isn't on the live servers as that has a way of irking SSG. So Beta, even open Beta, stuff is off limits.
I'm sorry, but why do you care about SSG's opinion so much? Do they own this website or something?
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Unread 11-22-2017, 08:15 AM  
Odinson
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Thanks guys! I've just downloaded. It's interesting that there's a lot of new tiles in Pelennor Fields, I wonder if that is After the Battle or if it's a newer version that is yet to be released.
Thurallor, please update the plugin again with U21.3 when it releases. I think we might already see a little glimpse of Northern Mirkwood...
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Unread 11-21-2017, 10:39 PM  
Thurallor
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: One more question

Quote:
Originally Posted by Thurallor
Still, it is probably far better than the old version of IRV. Does it at least allow filtering or sorting by image size? That would be the one feature that Odinson would be looking for since all of the terrain tiles are 200x200 images.
Yep, it's very good at that.
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Unread 11-21-2017, 10:22 PM  
Garan
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: One more question

Quote:
Originally Posted by Thurallor
It also has a couple of bugs that I'm not very motivated to fix.
Alas, I know that feeling all too well

Still, it is probably far better than the old version of IRV. Does it at least allow filtering or sorting by image size? That would be the one feature that Odinson would be looking for since all of the terrain tiles are 200x200 images.
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Unread 11-21-2017, 09:04 PM  
Thurallor
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Re: Re: Re: Re: One more question

Quote:
Originally Posted by Garan
You should probably check out AssetBrowser - I don't know what features it has, but it should at least let you see the set of valid image resources.
It doesn't have a scan feature in it. The only images it knows about are the ones I found in my scan the last time I updated the plugin. I do keep it updated at major game updates, though.

It also has a couple of bugs that I'm not very motivated to fix.
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Unread 11-21-2017, 08:50 PM  
Garan
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Re: Re: Re: One more question

Quote:
Originally Posted by Odinson
Cool! Thank you for the explanation! So you use IRV to scan for new tiles? How can I do the same?
Well, as I explained, the version I now use is several versions newer than the one I published years ago - that one predated the Turbine bug fix for invalid image resources (around 3 years ago) which prevented it from effectively scanning for new images (I wouldn't even waste the time downloading that version if I were you). I don't have any time or motivation to consider refining and publishing the latest version, there's simply not enough interest to justify the time and effort required.

You should probably check out AssetBrowser - I don't know what features it has, but it should at least let you see the set of valid image resources.
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Unread 11-21-2017, 08:12 PM  
Odinson
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Re: Re: One more question

Cool! Thank you for the explanation! So you use IRV to scan for new tiles? How can I do the same?
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Unread 11-21-2017, 07:02 PM  
Garan
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Re: One more question

Quote:
Originally Posted by Odinson
How do you search new tiles with Terrain Map? Like how you searched the tiles of SA Blackroot Vale.
short answer: You don't.

long answer: You don't.
The only legitimate way (without violating the EULA) is to use a Lua plugin to view all of the available resource files (there are many, many thousands at this point) and identify potential terrain tiles (over 26 thousand actual tiles at last check). Once you have identified which resources are tiles then you have to try to figure out where each tile fits in the world map. As the TerrainMap plugin description says, it's like a "26 thousand piece jigsaw puzzle where not all pieces are guaranteed to exist, some pieces are covered in crayon and others are duplicates" and the overall puzzle is an unknown irregular shape.

That is why I wrote a couple of utility plugins for my own use to make identifying and organizing the resources a bit more manageable. I had previously published IRV, the Image Resource Viewer, but the published version is horribly out of date (may not even run anymore) and I haven't kept up maintenance on it enough to try publishing any of the newer versions - it's crude but works well for this one purpose, scanning for new resources and creating a list of all 200x200 pixel resources (the potential tiles). Once I have the current list of potential tiles I import that into another plugin, MapMaker which was written expressly to help manage tracking which tiles go where in which regions. Basically it is a series of grids where I can place tiles, either representing a region or a "scrap bin". Tiles that are totally blank and not in a sequence with other valid tiles go on the scrap region. The plugin also lets me flag a tile as a duplicate of another existing tile. That way, when a new release comes out all I have to concern myself with are the tiles that aren't already placed or flagged as duplicates. MapMaker also automatically cleans up any tiles that are no longer valid - i.e. they are no longer 200x200 images. MapMaker also assists in creating the pre-zoomed tiles as well as the regional overviews. Neither of those utilities will ever get published, mostly because they are quite ugly and unwieldy - they have obscurely or incorrectly labeled buttons for undocumented functions and in some cases require use of the debug window to call functions manually to crank them along - it would take far more time to clean up the UIs and make them suitable for anyone else to use than it would be worth - I run through a checklist on them once every 6 months or so (whenever new content comes out) and then forget about them for another 6 months.

Last edited by Garan : 11-21-2017 at 07:03 PM.
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Unread 11-21-2017, 03:33 PM  
Odinson
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One more question

How do you search new tiles with Terrain Map? Like how you searched the tiles of SA Blackroot Vale.
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Unread 11-15-2017, 11:06 PM  
Odinson
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That's very interesting. Thank you! They have also updated a little bit of Ithilien since U21, like the mountain between Băr Tarnaher and Cirith Negen. There's the big house for the hobbits as well as some trees and maybe some other stuff there. Also I would really like to see if the terrain map for Minas Tirith/Pelennor Fields during the coronation of Aragorn/the Wizard and the King instance.
And are you able to see if there's new terrain in Northern Mirkwood to the west of Dale/Northeast of Grimbeorn's Lodge in the live servers?
Sorry for asking so much, I am an explorer on LOTRO, I even managed to get out of Dale in the instance, but there's nothing that can be seen in the horizon that suggests a green land area anywhere near, although the place is so filled with trees that it's hard to tell.

Last edited by Odinson : 11-21-2017 at 02:26 PM.
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Unread 11-14-2017, 12:48 PM  
Garan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Odinson
It appears in the Session Play "At the Stone of Erech", it is part of Region 2, you can even see a little bit of the area on terrain maps to the south of Kingstead/Helm's Deep. It is not the same blackroot vale from Region 3, it is Second Age Blackroot Vale. There is a city there called "Morthond", that doesn't exist in Third Age Blackroot Vale.
Interesting. I'll have to run another character through that session play to see what it looks like. There are a number of small terrain areas that I've assembled but was never able to associate with a location in the game world so perhaps it will be one of those.

EDIT: I believe you may be referring to Garth Lotheg, a Gondorian Fortress in Morthond. The coordinates however are a bit curious if we use the coordinates for the Stone of Erech from the session play and try to place the fotress relative to that location, it winds up covered by the start of a branch of a river so there's a small discrepancy in the terrain, not really unusual for a session play that the devs never expected to be placed relative to the rest of the game world, especially when the rest of the game world wasn't developed at that time. I'll look into it a bit more, but it's unlikely that it will fit at the location it is supposed to.

EDIT2: Well, that explains a fairly large 16x21 tile segment that was on my 'scrap region' because I hadn't placed it in the world. It looks a lot different in the Region 2 version than the Region 3. I may still include it once I can verify the coordinates since it answers the question about where the session play takes place. It also gives an interesting reference point for lining up Region 2 maps with Region 3 maps since the Stone of Erech would now appear on each (despite the river missing from R2). FWIW, the "city" in question is indeed the fortress, Gath Lotheg. I'll post a zoomx2 version of the segment when I get a chance.

EDIT3: Here's that segment slightly zoomed from my "scrap region" (with tile names superimposed because that's how my map maker plugin shows the tiles when I am working on a map). Click for larger image.

Last edited by Garan : 11-14-2017 at 03:38 PM.
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