Re: Suggestion for reducing size of map files, ...

[Anthony Thyssen <anthony@cit.gu.edu.au>]

| This is part of the motivation for my original suggestion.  By
| specifying a background on which all other items appear will instantly
| resolve the problem of the "ugly yellow floor" under walls, doors, etc.
| and make creating new maps significantly faster.
| 
| > ... This would not be possible if there was only one "background" element.
|  
| I never meant to imply that there should be only one "background"
| element, nor that the "stacking" of buttons and floor archetypes that
| goes on in some maps should be eliminated.  Floors would remain as
| archetypes, you could put them over the background at will.  (I
| actually think setting a "visibility" attribute for certain objects,
| like buttons, would be a better approach, but that's another subject.)
| 
Yes, the server can transmit the general background type(s) for a map.
any other things can be placed on top of this background.

Altars and buttons can be made invisible by adding another floor image
on top of that. The original floow would not be transmitted as client
should already know it.

server :  background is  "wood"
...
server : at x,y  "altar"
server : at x,y  "wood"

As the background only needs to be saved and given once and other
foor areas can layer over the top (like a road on a grass plain).

This should be very simple to implement without any real loss in
server execution time but client communications and save file size
would be potentially enormous.  One map item for every map point
without any other floor type.


  Anthony Thyssen ( System Programmer )    http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~anthony/
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