Zugg Software :: View topic

Newbie Joined: 07 Jul 2007 Posts: 4

Is there a better map for this? I know it says you pull these files from the game itself but I don't know where the files you use are coming from because I haven't seen them in the game. I have seen other sites that use the radar map for their projects and they look very good, better than this even. If I zoom in too far with this it gets too grainy.

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 6:20 pm

It's because of the JPEG compression that I'm using. As I said in one of the other posts, if I displayed the map at full resolution, Windows would need 400MB of memory! And nobody is going to run a map at the same time as the game that takes that much memory. The maps on the web site can achieve better images because is the server machine that has the entire map loaded, not your client machine. But that's why it's slower to zoom and pan with a web-based map too.

The images used in zExplorer are the ground-level radar images stored in the game files. The actual game client draws the trees and buildings (and rocks, etc) on top of this base image and then displays it in the radar window.

Sorry if you are disappointed with the map...it's the best I can do and still keep the memory footprint of zExplorer low. And it's still plenty good for identifying locations within the game (at least in my own opinion, and I use the map everyday while I'm playing)

Newbie Joined: 07 Jul 2007 Posts: 4

How does one go about extracting their maps from the files as you did?

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 12:36 am

Sorry, but I'm not currently willing to share detailed code for my method. Someone else will eventually figure out the .DAT file format, and then it will be public. If I ever stop playing LOTRO myself and doing the zExplorer updates, then I'll publish the code and method if nobody else has figured it out. But right now, it's a combination of extracting the images from the client .DAT file and then shading the result based upon the terrain elevation data, then manually "tweaking" the image, and then converting it to a set of tiled JPG images. The manual "tweaking" part involves masking off some of the areas on the map that you can't get to within the game, and recoloring some of the rivers and lakes so they look more like water.

Would people be interested in a non-compressed version of the map, even if it meant that zExplorer would take up something like 400MB of RAM while running?

Newbie Joined: 07 Jul 2007 Posts: 4

I would be. 400mb is nothing to my system.

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 6:42 pm

I'll see what I can do the next time I update the map.

In the meantime, keep in mind that if you put a file called LOTRO-MAP-FULL.JPG in your zExplorer directory, then zExplorer will open that image instead of the normal .DAT file. This allows you to use any image that you want. The tricky part is getting the image the correct size and the correct offset from the edge of the map.

You can also load the LOTRO.MDB map database into zMapper and then go to the Zone/Background menu where you can change the filename, and also change the scale and offset values used to overlay the database icons on the background image.

So, if you find a better map on another site, this information should allow you to get it working with zExplorer.

Newbie Joined: 03 Sep 2007 Posts: 1

Id also be interested in a higher res map

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 1:22 am

It's on my to-do list for the next time that I update the map for LOTRO. So far they haven't had any content updates that require a new map. So whenever they add the next big area, then I'll be doing an update. I'm not playing LOTRO very much right now, so if I miss an announcement by Turbine on a new area, post here to let me know.