[Programmer Needed] Map Art Creation

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by supereskimo, Dec 19, 2013.

  1. Greetings, EMC.

    If you don't know me, I used to make map art on EMC (see http://empireminecraft.com/threads/18381/ for examples and more details). The problem with making map art is that it's very, very time consuming. For this reason, I want to make a program that speeds up the process. The program will, ideally, be able to create a schematic file based on an image or map.dat file. This schematic file can then be opened in Schematica and built in smp.
    This may seem like overkill for such an obscure problem, and you may be right. But having such a program would save me countless hours of work, and would potentially enable more people to create map art. The program need not be fancy or have extra features - it just needs to create the schematic file with either a map or image as input (whichever is easier to program). There is already a program called Imagetomap that creates map.dat files from images, and can convert an image's colors to map-friendly ones. Feel free to make the program as simple as possible

    If you think you could create either a program or MCedit filter to do this, please contact me. If you have created MCedit filters before and have advice, I'd appreciate that too. I'm somewhat familiar with C++, but I have no experience with Python or manipulating/creating files, so any help is appreciated.

    Payment is completely negotiable. Map art sells for a high price (I auctioned one off for 50k once), and I would be glad to give part of my next project's profit as payment. I also have quite a few Steam keys laying around if you like games. I would even consider gifting a month or two of supportership, so if you're able to do the work, I'm sure I can find something to make it worth your time.

    See http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Map_item_format for more technical information about how maps work.
  2. Cannot wait for you to get back into doing this! If you open up to public will you do those large maps? (such as the 4x4 item frame maps for example?)
  3. Unfortunately, that won't work. Map colors are tricky, and you can't expect a map to look exactly like the blocks it's using. Plus, a map's colors depends on the blocks height; Spritecraft only makes flat schematics.
    I even contacted the maker of Spritecraft directly once, but he didn't give a direct answer. I'll try again, but I doubt he'd be willing to do it.
    Also, I just contacted the creator of ImageToMap - it seems like a closer fit to what I'm trying to do. Hopefully he/she will be willing to help. Wish me luck!
  4. Bump. I did a little research, and it seems like a python script for MCedit wouldn't be too hard to make. Still, any help is appreciated :)