[turtle]

I added a new layer to the map: Overhead view. This will make it easier for screen capturing sections and such.

I'm likely going to move it to the 3rd layer rather than the first, but wanted it up front off the start so you guys could see it.

I've asked about the compass and if that will be updated and will post back once I get feedback.

Also, If you guys have any other feedback or request about the maps, let me know and we'll see if there is anything else we can do to make these maps better for us all.

Once I have confirmation about the server setup and we are stable with this world I will be setting up cron jobs to completely automate the map making process. I'm currently looking into setting the process to run the player positions every hour or maybe even half hour if I can without over taxing the server. This is a pet project, but hope I can do this during my Christmas break at school.

[drewprops]

Has anybody asked for a map of the Nether yet?

...

[turtle]

Originally Posted by drewprops Has anybody asked for a map of the Nether yet? ...

Yes.

No.

[drewprops]

Okay

Hey, Dellphi isn't showing up on the map, btw. Do you have him in your system thingy?

(and have a good day, eh?)


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[turtle]

Hm.... I'll check to see if he's listed in my map's white-list.

See, the thing about Nether maps are that they are worthless. If you stand in nether you see there are blocks all around you. These get rendered covering everything you might want to see. So, while I wouldn't mind doing it, it's really a waste of disk space.

Turns out Dellphi wasn't on my copy of the white-list. He is now. I'll go ahead and make a new map too!

[drewprops]

PLEASE send him some ducks!!!!

[Brad]

Originally Posted by drewprops Has anybody asked for a map of the Nether yet? ...

Overhead-view maps of the nether don't work because the nether is all effectively "underground". There's always a ceiling above. So, the map would look like one solid block.

[turtle]

So, with the help of chucker I have been able to fully automate the process of map making. It will run 4 times a day doing a full update. So feel free to check back regularly.

Any request about changes to be made in the map? I hid players, beds and signs by default since it was starting to really clutter up the place. Just click the button and you can see them again.

[turtle]

So....

Seems this latest round of exploring has forced me to make some changes with the map and take it offline while I get the size worked out again.

I read a comment by one guy saying switch from PNG to JPG and so I am. Also cutting to .75 compression from 1. Let's see what happens.

[drewprops]

Jeepers, man.
Okay, go ahead. You have my permission.


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[Bryson]

Wow, the map really grew. What size is the "world" now, in GB? Are we ever going to push the edges of the SSD?

And still no snow. 3 villages, though.

[turtle]

Total world data (Nether, The End, etc..) 378M. Not bad really given the growth. Some of that is also world files for the other worlds we used to have that are stored on the drive too so Brad can move the buildings over for us too.

So will we ever reach the capacity of the SSD? Well, Bill Gates said we would never need more then 640k....

[drewprops]

LOLOLOL

Dammit!!! I told Dellphi I wanted to go WEST of Spawn.... which is DOWN on the map. He started going that way and I joined him when I got home. Now I see that we were going UP on the map!!! Well shit!! I have to see if he was having a little joke on me or was actually confused....


Edit: I just noticed he marked his last stop as "Wrong Way".
I suppose that means that he figured it out?


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[billybobsky]

Uh. Can we not do whatever it is we are doing to make the map so freaking huge?

[Brad]

Originally Posted by billybobsky Uh. Can we not do whatever it is we are doing to make the map so freaking huge?

This please. Sure, we have a nice big SSD, but a multi-hundred MB map is going to be a nightmare for me to maintain off-site backups. It also means the backup script locally is going to take longer to run, as well as raising other potentially unforeseen resource issues.

Do people actually plan to move their homes out to some remote corner kilometers away… just because we "can"?

[drewprops]

Sorry, I seriously had no idea how far we'd gone. Please lop off the northerly excursion. Mea Culpepper

Edit: stupid auto erect

Edit2: giving up now

[billybobsky]

auto erect!

LOL

[SpecMode]

Originally Posted by drewprops Mea Culpepper Edit: stupid auto erect

We need to start a running list of these Drew-isms. Great stuff.

[RowdyScot]

Originally Posted by drewprops Mea Culpepper Edit: stupid auto erect

[turtle]

The awesome part is we don't need to expand. The big thing I've been doing is looking for snow. I think I might put the world on my computer and look for it there. Then we can set up a portal to it or something.

Also: Maps are fully automated now.

I have the script run every 6 hours to update the map. This makes map updates much smaller now too.

I also tweaked the setting from PNG images to JPG at 75% and this has really helped a lot with size. Total map with all 6 layers it is only 6.62GB!

Please let me know if you have any other changes you'd like to see on the maps and I'll see what I can do. Also, I've started to see about getting the map generator developer to adjust North and such to match Notch's comments and change in orbit. We'll see what happens with that.

[Brad]

Bear in mind that searching for snow might be fruitless. I believe the seed algorithm allows for snowless worlds, and given the wide search we've already seen...

[turtle]

Well Boo!

Guess I'll set it up with a terrain generator and let it to it all by itself then.

[drewprops]

I would, at this point, like to say that I'm not really a fan of this world.

There. That feels better.


...

[Bryson]

Um, yeah, that. I really like my house, but the whole world, not so much. The fact that there might be no snow at all is a big freakin' deal, IMO.

I think the spawn moving weirdness was at least partially to blame.

[drewprops]

It's not just that... I don't know what it is. This time around there's no place that feels like a cool settlement. Unlike last time we decided to stick around Spawn, and theres's such a jumble of disparate settlements there now. The cake didn't seem to bake as nicely this time.


...

[billybobsky]

Just wait... It took time last time for the settlement to build up. It felt scattered in BP originally....

[turtle]

Yeah, I remember when we made the push to build up BP a while ago. Most of us had our own "camps" and went from there. Then we centralized and had our camps.

[709]

It feels a little bit broken right now, but I think that's mostly the fault of the abrupt Spawn displacement. Now we have two settlements at a time where there really should only be one central one with a few outlying posts. Though, it's still way early in our world, and I suspect that the 2 cities will eventually be joined along the coastline. They're not that far away from each other:



The feel of the 2 are very different too, which is a good thing imo. New Spawn feels more like a place I'd put a cottage ala Loch Greene, where Old Spawn feels like it could turn into a new Bridgeport.

Plus, we're really only getting started on community infrastructure. Eventually there will be roads and subways (and possibly skywalks?) connecting the two areas together. The mob trap is key, and now there's a comm exchange, so maybe the next thing that needs to be built in that area is a subway station. I think the skywalks helped expansion and pulled the areas together in BP immensely, so once we get the subway going I can see a little more cohesiveness happening.

I don't really believe we have a world without snow, though it looks like it's a ways away. I'd suggest to those who really want to build in a snowy biome to load the world up in creative mode (seed: 1664852336) and do some exploration without bloating our SMP world. Once we have coords we can built a path in the Nether, but make it clear that connecting the area in the overworld is a no-no.

[billybobsky]

3675 y 102

done

[Elysium]

Originally Posted by 709 Plus, we're really only getting started on community infrastructure. Eventually there will be roads and subways (and possibly skywalks?) connecting the two areas together. The mob trap is key, and now there's a comm exchange, so maybe the next thing that needs to be built in that area is a subway station. I think the skywalks helped expansion and pulled the areas together in BP immensely, so once we get the subway going I can see a little more cohesiveness happening.

Exactly.

I don't really believe we have a world without snow, though it looks like it's a ways away. I'd suggest to those who really want to build in a snowy biome to load the world up in creative mode (seed: 1664852336) and do some exploration without bloating our SMP world. Once we have coords we can built a path in the Nether, but make it clear that connecting the area in the overworld is a no-no.

I've been mucking around doing just this on my machine. The world bloat is out of control to try and find the snow 5000 light years away from everything else. Hopefully we can find some, but I'm resigned to the fact that we may not have it.

I secretly holding out for the longshot of some smart guy to develop a world edit function that allows for the complete cloning of chunks with biome data from one map to the next. Then we can pull snowy regions from BP and drop them in a largely useless expanse of ocean near the settlements we have.