Creatures Caves

Hmmm... well, the machine I'm using right now isn't the most powerful thing in the world, just a loaner using Windows 7. But when my own, relatively modern PC is fixed, I'll try that and see what happens. If it doesn't seem to be relying unduly on one core, I'll investigate using the wraparound seriously. Otherwise I'll stick with a non-wrapping design. It changes very little about how I paint the map (basically, there's a tunnel that connects the two sides of the ocean if it will wrap around - if not, I get rid of the tunnel and restore solid cliffs, very simple).

I would love to use a wraparound if it's feasible and not too costly to be worth it, though, because right now the effect is essentially two separate land masses with water in between and beneath them, whereas if it wrapped around it would become a single island in a single ocean. The map is intended for amphibious breeds; it will allow them to casually walk in and out of the water up and down a beach while providing a reasonable amount of land and other surface areas. I'm making a big tree to hold some lift-connected platforms, sort of an echo of Yggdrasil - heck, could pretend this is some alternate Albia. XD Essentially I'm trying to make a map that has a huge amount of open water like Artemia Sea or the Deep Abyss does, but that also has a moderate to large amount of above-water areas too which require a minimum of lift usage to access. Once I've gotten far enough in painting it that it looks like more than a mess of color, I'll post my progress in the gallery.

I'm really excited - at first it didn't occur to me to make a metaroom of my own, but the more I've worked on the Abysses the more I've wanted a room like this, and nothing available quite suits what I've been dreaming of. Yesterday or the day before I stumbled on a mapmaking tutorial, which encouraged me to give it a try. In the long time it will take to paint the actual art for the map, I'll be able to learn more about CAOS scripting and suchlike and agent-making so that by the time the map needs to be coded I'll be more capable of doing that. This will probably be a very long-term project, but I haven't tackled many of those in my life... I tend to be impatient, ADD and all that, so I often choose things I can accomplish within a fairly brief time. By my standards this is a really epic undertaking (mainly the art part TBH since the coding, though not necessarily easy per se, will still be way way less time-consuming and probably less challenging since I'll be painting all of this by hand with a mouse... ) It's going to be really challenging to stick with it, but the idea of having and using a metaroom I made myself from scratch, filled with my own agents, is far, far too compelling to back away from. So off I go!

Hmmm... the question now becomes, should I do two versions of the art - one intended to be able to wrap and one not - or should I proceed on the assumption that I won't be wrapping it, since it's not very difficult to just erase the tunnel back into place?