I just wondered if there would be any noteworthy demand for a totally automatic and also substiantially quicker way to create these overview maps,
that as far as I know all you mapper currently make more or less with the server-side sprite creator and some photoshop magic.

1. if you're talking about the hl-tv overviews just start any map up in developer mode and use "dev_overview 1" to view it as an overview
   
   or ingame start the map, type the following in the console:
   dev_overview 1 0
   developer 1
   
   bind mouse1 to +attack and mouse2 to +attack2 (with them you can zoom), also use the wasd keys to move to the right position and make a screenshot
   
   now you have a *.bmp file of the overview in your nsp dir
   
2. type "buildminimap" in the console (I think developermode must be on to) if you're talking about the map ingame...

I did not ask how to make them, and I did not specifically talk about generic HLTV maps but the NS-specific mini-map.

I just wanted to know if you people do have a real interest in an easier, more automatic and lots faster way to create them, as I thought I could just make
such a tool, if there was just a demand for it.

I think of a little tool that would just make a very consistent basic mini-map
style directly from the bsp on the fly, instead of having them computed
with the original server-based method that takes up quite a while.

HLTV is no longer required.

and BUILDMINIMAP could not be easier.

.. but it could be more flexible.

Hehe lol me and my willingness to help people sometimes takes over

Sorry I read it wrong. But as for just typing "buildminimap" in the console to automaticly let NS create your minimap as ShenTraX stated. Not sure how one would go about making this even more easy...

Even while hltv is not used anymore it's still nice for the mapping forums to show the raw progress of the map in nice textured colored ingame layout

Well if you can make them look far smoother than buildminimap, I'm all for it.
I always end up fixing the sprite that buildminimap creates

Now we're talking about the thing.

Could you make a little before/after sample picture to illlustrate what fixes
you usually have to make manually, that might be automated ?

for example when creating bumping terrain it sometimes shows up transparent in minimap.

And also when you create pillars and such, it'll draw it as transparent space or in that wall-color. I'd like to see them colored as darker blue or as nothing at all, but that's only matter of taste really. The first one is the real problem

And yeah, I'd like to see diagonal lines AA'd

for problems like water creating some black holes in the minimap and other overlapping things which make the minimap seem odd.

One can always delete those offending structeres (and water) then recompile under a different name without VIS and RAD. Create a minimap from this one and rename it to your fully compiled minimap name.
This fixes most of the problems of the minimaps visual errors... But I guess a sprite editor is just as easy to use

Trying to improve on Max's works? Good luck.

While working on my named minimaps I found several problems and things that could be improved (other then the obvious naming of sectors). Most of them are visible in the (2.0) attachement:

• Water invisble.
• Sometimes inexplainable holes in minimap. Probably NULL texture.
• Brush artifacts in the bsp showing up in the minimap.
• Unreachable areas treated like normal.
• Vents (ceiling < certain limit for an extended and confined area) not differently shown.
• Vents under levels not shown at all.
• Func_walls or other entities walling off sections (for example siege room near equilibrium hive. In that specific case also overlapping levels.

The issue with the water showing a break in the map can be seen in one of the offical map, I believe NS_tanith. Most mappers edit thier maps, with colour coding for vents ect.

Thank you for the sample, I think I already got a rough idea.

I'll try puttin something together. If you have more suggestions,
feel free to just add them to this thread.

The only situation i can think of that would be identifiable as totally unreachable is if a space is totally sealed from the rest of the level, like the ready room, and there are no player starts in them.

In most circumstances, it would be very difficult for any program to identify what is unreachable and what is not, ie something behind a forcefield, or whatever. But in the case of tanith and that large area being drawn, making the sky texture invisible in the minimap would probably do the job.

I guess the existing buildminimap borrows a lot of the code used to find whether terrain is buildable or not. That would explain water and steep surfaces not appearing.

For maps with water in them, I resort to deleting all the water in the level, then compiling with csg+bsp, then doing buildminimap and renaming the map to my real map's name. That seems make things look so much prettier, but sure is kind of a pain in the butt