tile-based heightmap idea

What most people do is place the type of tile by the height of it. When it gets higher, it tends to become rockier, about mid-level it's grassy, then to dirt, then to water.

At least that's how I think most people do it. [smile] Indoor > Outdoor

I think that this is not much usefull [smile] simply define map as:

BYTE map[256][256][256];

and you have same effect, and if you save this map as binary file (16MB) , compress it and you will have 50kb file.
Heightmap with gray scales (or any other) are usefull for defining as it name said heightmap because you can define easily smooth hills and walleys with interpolation of gray (or R, G, or B value).
If you want to store map data as backgrounds, layers and objects simply use above method. For example you don't need 255 layers :) I don't know that any game use so much layers.
A little memory saving ;):

#define MAX_LAYERS (16)
#define MAP_WIDTH (256)
#define MAP_HEIGHT (256)

BYTE map[MA_WIDTH][MAP_HEIGHT][MAX_LAYERS];

and if you need more than 255 tiles, simply use int instead of BYTE.

Also extracting an writing data to BMP file is not so much faster than

map[10][10][1] = 5;

I didn't have 255 layers, I have 3 layers: base, lower, and objects. Each color then represents a layer, and the 'brightness' of that color represents a tile (0-255)

And my iso isn't height based, so that idea wouldn't work.

[Edited by - Programmer16 on August 13, 2005 2:58:33 PM]

I'm curious how it would be any better to have say a 50x50 bitmap than a 50x50x3 byte array. Perhaps if some bitmap operations had meaningful analogues in map manipulation, but I can't imagine how.

Quote:

Original post by streamer Also extracting an writing data to BMP file is not so much faster than map[10][10][1] = 5;

I still stick to my opinion that extracting and writing data from/to bmp file is much slower AND if you want to manipulate bitmap(gameworld) from your game you need to make procs for that (for example if you have movable objects in game: boulders, doors etc.). Still one line of code is much more simplier, isn't it?
Anyway why do you need bitmap oriented map?

Quote:

Original post by captainmikey I'm curious how it would be any better to have say a 50x50 bitmap than a 50x50x3 byte array. Perhaps if some bitmap operations had meaningful analogues in map manipulation, but I can't imagine how.

I'm with captainmikey. Personally I see real advantages to a 50x50x3, no messy color filtering/blending when you want to see/work on only one layer of the map.