Merge of the new terrain system - new map changes

[SkeletonCrew]

For a while a group of developers has been busy with making the Wesnoth engine
to work with a multi-letter terrain system [1] and the final proposal [2].
This system is almost ready now and will be merged in the trunk soon and
thus be in the forthcoming Wesnoth 1.3.1 release. This system is not fully
compatible so this thread tries to mention all problems and the way to convert
UMC.

In Wesnoth 1.3.3 the compatibility for the old format will be removed and this
will render not converted content (including savegames) unusable. Since the
backwards compability layer will be removed in the near future bugs in it
won't be fixed unless they're grave.

[3] The changelog of the terrain branch can be found here, and is splitted from
the changes in trunk it contains some things not listed under [2] since they
were happening in the process.

This post will be updated when there's more news about the exact merge data
or about the branch in general. Note the wiki has information about the new
things but not all content is converted yet.

Here the list with info, put in a code block to keep the formatting proper

Code: Select all

* Known incompatibilities
 * UMC with custom terrains
 * old format terrain-graphics.cfg
 * UMC Random maps, random cave maps need to change the terrain stuff used but
   if no terrain stuff used they are compatible.
 * order of terrains in order is completely different, but in the near future the
   list of terrains will be split in several pages to keep the list a little bit
   smaller. The list of terrains will hopefully get much longer in the near future
   so then the current list will be unmanageable. The system to split the terrains
   is available, but not every thing is splitted yet.
 * The list of explored terrains, used in the help, is not converted so explore
   all terrains again and it's fixed ;)
 
* Untested
 * MP campaigns, single scenarios are tested
 * STARTING_VILLAGES with old terrain letters (if broken it's unsupported)

* How to convert your old stuff 
  * custom terrains [4] [5] [6]
    * add a string to the terrain
    * update the aliases of the terrain
    * update the terrain graphics 
    * add the your custom terrain temporary to the general terrain.cfg (in 
	  order to convert maps properly)
 
  * maps(both in a scenario or stand-alone file) [7]
    * don't use the editor, it does the conversion but doesn't know how to 
      convert the keep the right way so if you use the editor you've do it 
      manually
    * use upconvert in the tools directory, usage described later (the right
      tool used to be map_convert.pl, but upconvert does its job and more).
   
  * scenarios (excluding maps) [8]
    * find all occurrences of [terrain] and "terrain=" and convert them to the new letter 
      terrain.cfg has the translation table at the beginning of the file
    * find all occurrences of [terrain_mask] copy them in a separate file and 
      convert that file, afterwards copy the data back. Updating of the rule
      tags is the same as the [terrain] part.
    * upconvert will convert scenario files, unless you have custom terrains 
       in which case you'll hav e to hand-hack.

  * factions [9]
    * update the "terrain_liked" key to a comma separated terrain list
      the engine uses 1 comma to determine whether the list is the old
      or the new format.

  * abilities [10]
    * [filter_location] must be converted to the new format of comma separated
      letters. Since the old format also uses a comma separated list the engine
      can't determine the format, so an extra key "terrain_format=1" is required.  
   
* usage of upconvert   
  * run it on a directory containing maps and .cfgs. 
  * the converter makes a backup of any files it changes
  * upconvert tries to determine the kind of keep required by the 
    surrounding terrain, and falls back to the human keep

[1] http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10685
[2] http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/User:SkeletonCrew
[3] http://svn.gna.org/svn/wesnoth/branches ... /changelog
[4] http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/TerrainLettersWML
[5] http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/TerrainWML
[6] http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/TerrainGraphicsWML
[7] http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/BuildingMaps
[8] http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/TerrainMaskWML
[9] http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/BuildingFactions
[10] http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/FilterWML

edits:

* added the terrain= to the scenario conversion.
* changed the instructions to describe upconvert

[zaimoni]

UMC Random maps (probably unused)

Mystery Campaign.

I'll be back if I can't figure out how to convert it.

I have no idea what used to use Random scenarios. It's plausible they'll crash-on-launch (the patch that brought Mystery Campaign up for 1.1.8 was for Random maps only; duplicate the patch to bring up Random scenarios if someone can figure out how to activate that code path).

[SkeletonCrew]

UMC Random maps (probably unused)

Mystery Campaign.

I'll be back if I can't figure out how to convert it.

Hmmm never played it, the conversion is pretty simple, if you run into trouble feel free to PM me

I have no idea what used to use Random scenarios. It's plausible they'll crash-on-launch (the patch that brought Mystery Campaign up for 1.1.8 was for Random maps only; duplicate the patch to bring up Random scenarios if someone can figure out how to activate that code path).

Httt SoF uses a random map other then that I also don't know.

[Chris NS]

Will the map editor be able to convert formats?

[SkeletonCrew]

Will the map editor be able to convert formats?

Code: Select all

* How to convert your old stuff 
  * maps(both in a scenario or stand-alone file) [7]
    * don't use the editor, it does the conversion but doesn't know how to 
      convert the keep the right way so if you use the editor you've do it 
      manually
    * use the map_convert.pl in the tools directory, usage described later

So yes but you've to fix your keeps manually, so the conversion script might be a better solution.

[edit]
Changing from the new to the old format is not possible, since the old format will be phased out.
[/edit]

[SkeletonCrew]

The terrain branch will be merged this weekend. A reminder for those who have svn access, the trunk will be frozen starting Saturday (GMT) that's in about an hour.

[turin]

My campaign Sceptre of Fire uses a random map for a cave scenario. :/ How does one convert those? I don't see that information in the original post.

[SkeletonCrew]

My campaign Sceptre of Fire uses a random map for a cave scenario. :/ How does one convert those? I don't see that information in the original post.

I didn't write about them because I thought there was no UMC which used the random maps. I'll update the first post with that information, after the merge has been completed.

[SkeletonCrew]

The terrain branch has been merged and thus the trunk is thawed again.

The only MP map I haven't tested in the team survival map, so if people want to test it and post their findings here I'd be happy.

[Eleazar]

On behalf of all the terrain artists,
many thanks.

[SkeletonCrew]

On behalf of all the terrain artists,
many thanks.

You're welcome I hope the new engine will result in a lot of new terrains
I saw you already added some new bridges for the swamp and deepwater

[Eleazar]

I saw you already added some new bridges for the swamp and deepwater

Yeah, but bridges over different types of water don't interact properly. Somebody with greater WML skills should take a look.

[SkeletonCrew]

I saw you already added some new bridges for the swamp and deepwater

Yeah, but bridges over different types of water don't interact properly. Somebody with greater WML skills should take a look.

Best ask mog, he did all the terrain conversions in terrain branch as well.
I'm very happy he did that part of the conversion since I'm also not too familiar with that kind of WML.

[SkeletonCrew]

My campaign Sceptre of Fire uses a random map for a cave scenario. :/ How does one convert those? I don't see that information in the original post.

It seems the cave generator has all terrains hard-coded, Httt-SoF uses "map_data=" but it's bogus and I'll remove it soon. So random cave scenarios are the same as normal scenarios for converting, but they should be fully converted since the engine expects all terrain items in these maps to be converted already.

I did add info about the normal random maps[1].

I finished the conversion of UtbS.

I added [2] the option to add groups to the editor [3][4]. Now the list of terrains can be split in multiple smaller lists. Eleazar already started to split the terrains further in groups and add visual appealing button icons. (The ugly buttons are mine, that's why I'm no artist )

First post updated with this status info as well.

[1] http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/MapGeneratorWML
[2] https://mail.gna.org/public/wesnoth-com ... 00205.html
[3] http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/TerrainWML
[4] http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/EditorGroupWML

[santi]

Might be a nice idea to start a thread in the Campaign Scenario&Development Forum pointing out which UMCs are broken.
Wish Scott were around, I think he'd have started one already...