Exult Forum

Info on how to compile smooth is in the file INSTALL.
Info on the authors is in the file AUTHORS
ChangeLog contains the changes in reversed chronological order
This program is licenced under the GPL


smooth is a program used to help in the creation of maps for Exult
games. Exult is an engine to run Ultima 7 on modern hardware but can
run self-made games as well.

The creation of a map is a fairly complex thing to do, since the map
is 24576x24576 pixels. Fortunately, the map is made of reused chunks
which are squares of 128 pixels, so we need only a map of 192x192
chunk. There is a hard limit of chunks that can be used of 256. It
makes sense then to use an indexed image (less than 256 colours) with
reused colours, each representing a chunk and to convert this image
into a map, thanks to an association chunk colour. The tool to do
this is called mockup and can be found at:
http://si-french.sf.net/tools/

It is noteworthy that even creating such a map is a difficult
task. Either a lots of manual work in done on the image itself, or a
simple image is created, but the real map needs to be adjusted with
ExultStudio. In order to reduce this work and to automate tasks (thus
reducing errors), smooth has been created. smooth takes an image as
input and creates an image as output, making automatic changes thanks
to a config file. The changes that can be made for instance are:
* randomizing: to make a area (based on colour) appear in random colour
(from a pool set in the config file). Useful for forest for instance
* streamlining: transform a single colour representing a road into
adjusted colours to reflect the changes in direction. Usually, a chunk
for a east-west road piece is different than one for a north-south
piece.
* smoothlining: when 2 colours are beside each other, representing 2
chunk types, it is better if the transition from one to the other is
smooth. For instance, water and land would look better with a shore
between the two.

smooth uses a config file to know how to convert one colour into
another based on what is around or on what change to make.
Each section starts with [name]. A comment starts with a ';' or a '#'.
Each line in a section starts with the slave colour, that is, the
colour to transform into something else. This something else is found
somewhere in the rest of the line. Which one is picked depends on
which section it is in, and what the surrounding factors are or just
chance, as in the randomize section.

Most of the time, the order in which the colours are put in the config
file matter. If you happen to change the colours in the config file,
make sure you adapt accordingly the file "mapping.txt" from mockup.