Multiscale Mapping

``Multiscape mapping'' is a technique to allow rooms of varying sizes to interlock into a realistic and playable MUD map. Now this advanced concept has moved from the drawing board into accessable sample code which can be downloaded and compiled on your local machine.

The Engine

The concept has been significantly simplified in order to make it suit the wider MUD authoring community. In brief, this engine treats rooms as single point locations so that all characters in the same room are at the same point in space. The scaling only affects the distance between neighbouring rooms so, in effect, the exits understand distance but the rooms do not.

Over the past months I have clocked up a few more versions. Most of them are incremental changes, each a little bigger and more functional than the previous. Mostly, the later versions are faster too. I still have no support for room descriptions but the latest thing is support for ASCII maps that fit neatly onto a 80 column by 40 row screen (and other screens with some modifications). Terrain support is coming along nicely and rooms can also be given identifier numbers in order to link to traditional room description texts. Non-random map making and editing of exits is still a long way off and not currently a high priority.

This code is distributed in source form under the terms of Gnu GPL. You may use this code in your own private MUD without restriction but if you decide to release any MUD code that incorporates this mapping engine then you must also release that code under the terms of the Gnu GPL.

Available Archive Files

I must update these pictures, they are way out of date. At least the PNG files get sent with correct header info now. If your browser wont view PNG files then either patch in a viewer application or get a new browser because PNG files ARE the future of WWW graphics.

Example Map Pictures

Article Explaining Some Concepts

This old article was was written early in the progression of these ideas. It still might be useful as a background explanation of how it works.

This Article was originally published in 1999 for a now defunct web magazine called "Imaginary Realities", there is some interesting archive of this available on the Wayback Machine (but frequently results in retrieval errors, and you need to switch Javascript OFF to be able to view it).

Map Article (Printable Layout)

Map Article (Web Layout)