If the average colour of that subtile is mostly green (that is, when comparing the RGB component values, G > B > R) then I’ll insert a grass tile: I’ll then do a simple RGB analysis to determine the “average” colour of each subtile. To choose which tile images to use, I’ll divide each 256px x 256 tile retrieved from Bing Maps into smaller 32px x 32px subtiles. But, instead of returning the tile image direct to the client, it converts the features on that tile into appropriate 8bit sprites and returns a new tile composed of those sprites to the client instead. The handler for the tile layer requests aerial imagery from Bing Maps.
So, here’s the plan: I build a Bing Maps application that uses a custom tile layer. Converting Bing Maps Aerial Imagery to 8bit tiles And I wondered if it was possible to do this based on a simple image analysis of the corresponding aerial tile from Bing Maps. So, I need some way to automatically determine whether a given area should be represented as a water tile, or a grass tile, say. Now, I’m no graphic artist and, even if I was, the thought of drawing the 275 billion tiles required to cover the world at zoom level 19 would probably put me off the idea anyway. But wouldn’t it be cool to create an 8bit-style tileset of the real world that you navigate around? The world of Hyrule is undeniably beautiful – its deserts, rivers, and forests becoming ever more intricate in each successive game in the Zelda series. This one’s from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link:Īnd here’s The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: Here’s the world map for the original Legend Of Zelda: (If you’ve ever tried to do this yourself, you’ll appreciate the ingenuity of the “ lost woods”, which are very hard to map on paper!).Īs a result, I’ve always personally found the overworld maps of Zelda games to be a thing of beauty. My mum would bring me home sheets of graph paper from work, and I would spend hours laboriously drawing the layout of each room in every dungeon, and how each of the screens in the overworld connected to each other. In those days, games rarely had their own in-game maps, and it was long before GameFAQs or Prima strategy guides existed, so the only way to keep track of where you’d been in an adventure game was to create your own maps.
Following on from last year’s Bing Maps tribute to Grand Theft Auto, I thought I’d do another videogame-themed map hack inspired by perhaps my most-loved game of all time – the Legend of Zelda.Īlmost the entire year of my 10-year old life was spent playing the Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Time for something light-hearted, I feel.
0 kommentar(er)
