Giant spike of land near Truk

[Rockin Robbins]

We should find a way to incorporate it into FOTRSU.

[propbeanie]

I'm sorry, I deleted that...

[propbeanie]

OK, discovery channel time... The Land of the Spike (aka: "SH4 and the Beanstalk":

It took me a while, but I did find my old RFB v1.5, and opening the file for Truk, which there are only two changes in RFB, and they are both for that area. Look closely at the left edge, and you can see about 6 pixels wide of anomalies, up and down that left edge:



Look even closer, in the upper left corner, and if I zoom in on it, you will see this:



This is from the E151N008 sector, and the E152N008 sector has a similar "bump" in the upper left of the file. This is all the further though, that you have to look. I had similar issues doing the Pearl Harbor, and again when doing Osaka Bay, where the RAW format can only "translate" once, and once only. It can also not be temporarily saved to a different format and re-opened the next day or week or ever - no future editing. All of the edits have to be performed in one fell swoop, saved to RAW, and never opened again for editing, but then translated to ZHF (Zero Height Format). The ZHF file system does not like us mere mortals messing with its files in PhotoShop at all... If I get time after FotRSU and CMN mods, I might take that on in a few of the other mods, but in the meantime, will a volunteer please step forward? aanker, you appear to be standing all alone all of a sudden...

[aanker]

All the major mods use Carotio's Truk mod and most use the Panama Canal mod (did Ref make that?). So, if you fix one you've fixed them all. It wouldn't be a bad idea to post the repaired E152N008 folder in the downloads section.

Please be sure to give Carotio credit for the Truk mod, he said in his Readme to do whatever you want with it but to give him credit for the initial editing of the "Truk Corals Harbours Cities Locations" mod.

I'm surprised that only a few of us have come across the 'beanstalk'. I think I started a Topic here with screenshots asking, and I also recall emailing a couple people asking them to sail to 8° 0' N, 152° 0' E to look for it.

One guy replied but played the Stock game without the Truk mod. Of course now I know why he didn't see it, it wasn't there! At that time most had deleted SH4 and moved on to SH5, and I thought I was the only one with the 'beanstalk' anomaly.... lol

Did you say you had beanstalks at Pearl after you edited it?

[Barkerov]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Very interesting... So Barkerov, which mods are you using?

I am using RFB, RSRDC (For RFB), TMOplot and the Improved Ship Physics mod for RFB.

Now we just need to find out which one of you is responsible for dropping the magic beans overboard?

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by aanker

All the major mods use Carotio's Truk mod and most use the Panama Canal mod (did Ref make that?). So, if you fix one you've fixed them all. It wouldn't be a bad idea to post the repaired E152N008 folder in the downloads section.

Please be sure to give Carotio credit for the Truk mod, he said in his Readme to do whatever you want with it but to give him credit for the initial editing of the "Truk Corals Harbours Cities Locations" mod.

I'm surprised that only a few of us have come across the 'beanstalk'. I think I started a Topic here with screenshots asking, and I also recall emailing a couple people asking them to sail to 8° 0' N, 152° 0' E to look for it.

One guy replied but played the Stock game without the Truk mod. Of course now I know why he didn't see it, it wasn't there! At that time most had deleted SH4 and moved on to SH5, and I thought I was the only one with the 'beanstalk' anomaly.... lol

Did you say you had beanstalks at Pearl after you edited it?

No, no beanstalks, but other "land masses" that were not in the Real World. To do my initial attempts at "dredging" the Pearl (we had LOTS of issues with ships bottoming-out), I would open the already existing folder with Pearl in it, W158N022, convert the ZHF to RAW, edit the RAW file in PhotoShop LE, maybe save it in PSD as an interim format, since I didn't want to take the time to do it all at once (you have to zoom in all the way, and work on one pixel at a time - boring). When I finished the edits that first time, I of course did not take it for a test drive, and posted it for our FotRSU team... ~Then~ I "tested" it... and had to pull the upload immediately, because I ran into a "reef" West of Pearl while I was enroute to Midway. Not cool. Where'd it come from?

So, I did a re-do, and another and another, getting weird "artwork" on the West edge of any sector I edited, unless it was a "fresh" pull and converion... I re-read the GWX team's instructions with their extractor / converter, and kept trying and kept trying, and I would get all sorts of weirdness, with land masses where they shouldn't be, some rather large, but I did not find a brown "beanstalk" - but then again, that particular sector would be in the upper left of the image, so you would have to travel more toward the North side of the remainder of the island chain from Pearl to get to there. Going by the looks of things, there should be one of those where I was showing on the maps in my first reply to Barkerov, but there is probably a 2nd one in there, West and North of Truk, as in the actual 601x601 RAW file in the post above. What I finally did at Pearl was to just "chart" the existing edits, using a grid, and just make the same edits, but with one color darker. I still managed to mess it up, and now I'm wanting to add-in the sub base where it belongs, so same sitch... We also did edits around Truk, eventually just making an all-new file with a slightly different layout, and eliminating the reefs Carotio had, and keeping all of the Anti-Sub nets from FotRS (TMO v1.7)...

It comes down to that ZHF format and the RAW format, and these editing programs not quite getting everything correct. If you export a clean, stock sector, convert it to RAW, do the editing (which for Truk is significant), convert back to ZHF, and leave that alone, no problem. But, if you need to take a break, or say you convert it back and it's not quite right, and you then re-convert that file you'd just made, something goes awry, and even though the file shows as being 601 pixels by 601 pixels in any info fields or "File Open" dialogs, when you click on the open button, the computer will warn you "The file is smaller than stated. Are you sure you wish to continue?". Nervously, you do, checking and double-checking the file, and all looks OK. You do your edits, Save again, convert back to ZHF, "test" what you did, and lo and behold, those weird pixels show up on the borders - every time...

I have not figured out how to "fix" an existing ZHF. What I've had to do to fix the boo-boos that happen, or any desired further edits, is to re-extract the "Stock" sector, and start all over again, never saving until ~ALL~ the edits are finished, then convert back to what SH4 understands (ZHF). I at first thought it was my software, but I've seen, like you have, several other mods with similar issues... Once edited, it's done...

Originally Posted by Barkerov

I am using RFB, RSRDC (For RFB), TMOplot and the Improved Ship Physics mod for RFB.

Now we just need to find out which one of you is responsible for dropping the magic beans overboard?

I'll double-check and see if RSRDC added any more edits to the Terrain folders Edit: - there aren't - Truk is also in the TMO version of RSRDC with the same "pillar of dirt"...

We'll have to blame Lieutenant William Bligh and Mister Fletcher Christian, and their disagreement with each other, as a contributing factor... No one knows if the bean seeds went on the Bounty, or the ship's launch... but such a tragedy. Jack had traded the beans for a portion of rum... There's also the theory that the beans ended up mixed up with the breadfruits, and fell over accidentally when someone was consuming the breadfruits after the mutiny...

[aanker]

Thanks for the detailed explanation propbeanie.

My beanstalk is a nice bright off white-cream color. (you know about guys & colors; I think this is because young girls got the 500 color box of crayons while young boys got the box of eight... lol ). I plan to keep the Truk beanstalk. I haven't spotted any near the Panama Canal yet but now I know where to look. It could be way inland and out of sight.

Once I find a decent imaging hosting site I'll re-post my screenshot in my post. I relied on Photobucket too much. I've deleted my images, folders, and accounts from that.

Happy Hunting!