Thoughts: Extending the mapper

All and any discussion and development of the Mudlet Mapper.
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darklajid
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Dec 07, 2014 5:03 pm

Thoughts: Extending the mapper

Post by darklajid »

Hey.

I'm extremely happy how easy the mapper is so far (my MUD of choice supports gmcp and the data is reasonably good, so most of the implementation so far is just a simple trigger). Works like a charm.

But there's a catch, a small thing that - now that I have a map and get used to it - starts to bother me: Z coordinates/heights. This MUD here has various maps that are hills/mountains, and ('correctly') changes the reported Z coordinates accordingly. The thing is, there are no different layers in these cases. Nothing's below the hill (vs. floors on top of each other in a building for example). It's just a regular map with some topological details, if you want to put it that way.

Trivial example would be a hill side like

0,0,0 -> 1,0,1 -> 2,0,2 (that is, x/y/z, x is constantly increasing/I'm always going east but also up)

The mapper is designed for the (probably more common) building case: It shows rooms on the same height level only. Which means that a lot of my maps are less useful than I'd like, because I stand in a single room with exits leading ~somewhere~ and have no awareness of my surroundings: Neither the path to the top nor the way back down is visible.

I jumped on IRC and people were quite helpful, but in the end the discussion lead to 'probably bad luck' and as far as I understand, the mapper itself is not written in Lua and not supposed to be customized (map data is, not the mapper itself though).

Given the description above:

- Is there a magic option in the mapper that might make this possible already? Did I miss something?

- If we imagine that I'd have unlimited time and enough interest, would it be possible to 'fix' that use case while staying with Lua only? Any pointers?

Thanks in advance!

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Akaya
Posts: 414
Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2012 1:36 am

Re: Thoughts: Extending the mapper

Post by Akaya »

You can use 3D mode to view the z axis. There is a toggle for it on the mapper UI.

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Vadi
Posts: 5035
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:13 pm

Re: Thoughts: Extending the mapper

Post by Vadi »

Yeah, Lua only - don't map it on the Z coordinate but change the X/Y coordiantes. For example, for a lot of up/down rooms in a row, I'd just map them one below another - actually being "north-south" then. Works like a charm and it is very intuitive once you start walking on it:

Image

darklajid
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Dec 07, 2014 5:03 pm

Re: Thoughts: Extending the mapper

Post by darklajid »

Thanks for the replies.

3D mode: I .. guess I have to admit that I just don't get it so far. Toggling zooms out quite a bit and however I try, I cannot figure out how to use that thing. I guess that _could_ be the solution to my problem, but so far .. doesn't work for me.

Ignoring the Z coordinates is a viable workaround, but there are cases where this isn't possible. Ignoring buildings/obvious z-layered stuff I encountered one map that is a hill (mostly on the x/y axis), but has a slope that leads 'beneath' another room if you run in a circle.

I'm considering the Z filter, but imagine that this would mean that I'd drop information and decide that on a case by case basis (a table of sorts? hard-coding regions where that would lead to an easier map vs. regions where I cannot drop the z coordinate?)

Vadi: My MUD gives me XYZ right now and I use those unfiltered. I assume with your free layout you're assigning coordinates freely, based on exit destinations for example? That .. might work as well of course. Might need a lot of thoughts first. I'll grab a pencil and see what I can come up with.

Thanks.

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