RBP11 IT and Tech Issues Thread

[Kuro]

I already planned on T50 overviews and the like. Adding in a T25 one won't hurt, for me at least.

[suttree]

I don't get a t25 overview, I mean I doubt anyone will have more than one city...

Barring unfortunate encounters with animals, many players will have uncovered a good portion of the map and are planning their initial dot map, expansion efforts, etc. Since this game is a bit of a learning experience for me, I'd love to go back and read how players planned to expand and compare that plan to the result. T25 is interesting (for me) exactly because it comes before the first city is planted but late enough that players have made some choices about their initial expansion.

Please, nobody feel compelled to spend more time than you have, but know that at least one person will (eventually) read what you write.

[Sisu]

I don't get a t25 overview, I mean I doubt anyone will have more than one city...

Barring unfortunate encounters with animals, many players will have uncovered a good portion of the map and are planning their initial dot map, expansion efforts, etc. Since this game is a bit of a learning experience for me, I'd love to go back and read how players planned to expand and compare that plan to the result. T25 is interesting (for me) exactly because it comes before the first city is planted but late enough that players have made some choices about their initial expansion.

Please, nobody feel compelled to spend more time than you have, but know that at least one person will (eventually) read what you write.

This is exactly what I was going for. You're right, Oxy, that lurkers won't need an overview to get a sense of your empire, but it is nice, from my own experience reading threads from past games, to see what sorts of things people are planning and what their sense of the game is unfolding to be.

Besides, I bet Commodore is looking forward to all of us complaining about how terrible our starts are and how unfair he was to us

[suttree]

The following is intended for players who plan to post large, stitched screenshots. For a one off, it's probably easier just to use paint

1. Download Hugin to stitch.

2. Hugin needs to know where (approximately) the screenshots meet up in order to stitch them. You can do this manually or you can automate the process with Autopano. I recommend the latter.

3. Install Hugin and drop the autopano executable in your Civ4 Screenshots directory.

4. In Civ4, use alt-I to remove the interface, alt-F to enable the satellite cam, and take your screenshots. Remember that Civ4 will remove resource bubbles near the edge of the screen, so they might be missing from your final panorama.

5. Generate control points with the command:

autopano . /name:overview /project:hugin

Autopano will scan the current directory for panoramic photographs, generate control points, and output corresponding hugin projects. Since there is exactly one panorma in your Screenshots directory, the output will be a single file "overview0.pto"

6. Edit the project with the command:

hugin overview0.pto

Since you've already invested some time, why not write a little script on your desktop that does all this automatically!

7. In hugin you will see this:




8. Unless you are stitching just a few screenshots, Hugin will complain that your control points suck - Civ 4 tiles look so similar that autopano has probably linked screenshots that don't belong together That's ok, your screenshots don't require any fancy algorithm to join, Hugin just needs to place them at the right X,Y.

9. Switch to the "Opitmizer" tab and Optimize using the "Custom parameters below". Use the check button to select the X,Y parameter for all photos, then deselect the X,Y for a single photo, your control. Optimize, then click yes to apply the changes. See the screenshot below.




10. Switch to the "Stitch" tab, change the projection to "Rectilinear", and click the three buttons to calculate optimal FOV, Image Size, and Crop. Set the output format as you prefer.




11. In the screenshot above, see that I've highlighted "Fast Preview Panorama" in the toolbar. Use this to adjust the image crop as you like - Hugin doesn't always pick the best crop, though it will come close.

12. Finally, close the Fast Preview window and click "Stitch!". Hugin will ask you to name the output photo and generate your stitched screenshot!

With some practice, you can stitch up an overview map in no time at all!

Hope this helps - suttree.

[spacetyrantxenu]

If you're trying to create an empire-wide overview map why not use the flying camera, toggle on bare map (CTRL+B) to light everything up, and take the screenshot that way (Windows' snippingtool is my tool of choice to grab/crop in one go)? It seems like using Hugin to do it will create a giant screenshot that will most likely crash my ancient cell phone browser.

[suttree]

It seems like using Hugin to do it will create a giant screenshot that will most likely crash my ancient cell phone browser.

Xenu is right
If you're playing on a high resolution monitor you might generate some large maps. I play on a tiny 10" netbook, however, so this is the only way I can generate overview maps that provide a useful level of detail.

Even at high resolution, a stitched screenshot might be useful if you want enough detail to see units, tile yields, etc. Just be sure to spoiler the resulting image for those surfing on cell phones.

[NobleHelium]

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/r...s/ivm/ice/

[suttree]

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/r...s/ivm/ice/

Thanks Noble! That's much more convenient.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get ICE to work with my current turn - it seems to recognize/stitch some but not all of the component screenshots, perhaps I need more overlap?

I'll try again next turn.

[NobleHelium]

I don't know. I've never actually used it, Gaspar does.

[Kuro]

How do you active flying camera again?