Remastered Radar

[CRRPGMykael]

Like many of my fellow San Andreas fans, I know the map like the back of my hand. This, still, doesn't prevent me from occasionally looking at the radar for directions during a mission, or because I tried to take a shortcut that ended with me crashing into a small unbreakable barrier and having to return to a normal road (this happens a lot in Las Venturas).

 

Simply put, the radar can be quite misleading. Look at the first picture below for a basic spot in Los Santos where a bridge needs to be marked but isn't (I'm sure this has gotten you confused when you needed to take it to get to the docks during the "Robbing Uncle Sam" mission).

 

Not only that, but both radars, PC (128px) & mobile (256px), are pretty low res. So I tried finding a better one, and came across this on GTAGarage, by yojo2- HQ San Andreas Radar (512px).

 

Now, feel free to get this, it's a fine radar, but I found it to be even more inaccurate than the original one. This is thanks to the author's method of recreating it, which most likely any of you can do by simply inputting a bitmap image into a vector program like Inkscape, and having that program automatically convert it for you a few times, one time for every color or so. I'm probably making it sound slightly easier than it is, I'm sure the author also played around in Photoshop as well.

 

Now, all these inaccuracies like tons of missing buildings, no shortcuts, flat out wrong information and the resolution of the radar, have lead me to try to re-create it, fully corresponding with the aesthetic of the original one, but with the problems mentioned above corrected. I am basically going pixel-by-pixel. I have 3 reference points, the original radar, the mobile radar, and the actual in-game map.

 

I have already put many hours into this (just by the nature of paying attention to every pixel), and will have to put in many more. I estimate only around 10% of the radar has been remade. I just wanted to get some input from you guys, if anyone's interested in getting a remastered radar that is FULLY FAITHFUL to the ORIGINAL AESTHETIC of the game.

 

 

Feel free to zoom in.

 

PS: I know the airport part isn't great, I'll probably change it at a later time.

[Blue]

Good work!

[Reyks]

Oh boy! Now this is something that needed to be done for a long time, you definitely should continue working on this even if it takes a while. Looks pretty accurate so far!

[Nihilist.]

I really like the idea - radar maps are usually overlooked, and there's very little modders trying to do something with them, since they're complex graphics requiring absolute precision. The problem is, enlarged or not, the size will be still too small for the modern day monitors, with full HD resolution or even higher.

Also, many changes you've added have straight edges which seem not to completely suit the style of the original map. While they're precisely located (kudos for doing that!), they look a little bit oout of place. It's because of how the map itself was scaled up. Here I've marked few areas with noticeable issues:

 

 

As you can see, curves and smooth corners are pixelated, which look off comparing to perfectly straight, pixel-accurate additions made by you.

The worst thing, though, is if you wanted to fix it all, you'd probably have to redraw all the roads with the pen tool to make them look completely sharp and crispy. It's time consuming, and quite tedious. Oh, and getting perfect curves can be tricky at times.

 

Anyways, I wish you luck - I really like the idea and if you've completed the project, looking both HD and being accurate, I'd use it next time I play GTA SA.

[Reyks]

It would be easier to just get permission from yojo2 to edit his radar IMO, recreating it fully from scratch using the low-res original and mobile map as a base is almost a full time job.

[CRRPGMykael]

I really like the idea - radar maps are usually overlooked, and there's very little modders trying to do something with them, since they're complex graphics requiring absolute precision. The problem is, enlarged or not, the size will be still too small for the modern day monitors, with full HD resolution or even higher.

Also, many changes you've added have straight edges which seem not to completely suit the style of the original map. While they're precisely located (kudos for doing that!), they look a little bit oout of place. It's because of how the map itself was scaled up. Here I've marked few areas with noticeable issues:

pic

As you can see, curves and smooth corners are pixelated, which look off comparing to perfectly straight, pixel-accurate additions made by you.

The worst thing, though, is if you wanted to fix it all, you'd probably have to redraw all the roads with the pen tool to make them look completely sharp and crispy. It's time consuming, and quite tedious. Oh, and getting perfect curves can be tricky at times.

 

Anyways, I wish you luck - I really like the idea and if you've completed the project, looking both HD and being accurate, I'd use it next time I play GTA SA.

Thanks for replying, but a lot of the areas you've marked haven't been touched yet at all, like most of the roads surrounding the city (I simply recolored the overall Las Venturas map and some areas look like that because I haven't gotten to them) and the upper parts of the map that I showed.

 

Some however, I did considered as "finished", like the pyramid area with the Sphynx. I did it with the pen tool and by hand, ensuring perfect symmetry and good curves (anti-aliased) but still having it remain accurate. It is rather difficult to do some curves and have them not look pixelated, especially when you see that both the original and mobile maps are pixelated to f*ck as well and there's not THAT much of a res increase. However I do think that an even bigger res would be redundant, considering the radar takes up like 5% of the screen and the in-map menu can't even be zoomed onto that much (doesn't reach the actual pixel size, always downscaled, at least when using the 512px one).

 

Edit: However, it has been taken into consideration. I'll be working on blurring some of the curves more.

Edited October 2, 2016 by CRRPGMykael

[M.&.M]

this looks so live

[Ash_735]

I like the effort put into this though, all the small details, would be good to see you attempt other maps such as VCS, VC, etc.

[LanGonCer9807]

Nice!

[IzaqueBR2015]

Adorei a Ideia! Sempre procurei por uma versão do Radar que fosse bem detalhada, sem ser aquela do radar estilo satélite, o legal é que no radar original possui erros, como casas que existem no jogo, mas no radar não são mostradas, espero que fique pronto logo, parabéns pelo trabalho

[airplaNe72]

It is really epic and I am really interested in having a remastered version for out MTA server. Anyway, I don't get why you spent all the time doing it this way? Why don't you rather spend your time remastering the streets any everything with vectors in Adobe Illustrator? That way you can have it in a way bigger size and in the end you have something nobody has ever made before.

 

Cheers

[CRRPGMykael]

Why don't you rather spend your time remastering the streets any everything with vectors in Adobe Illustrator? That way you can have it in a way bigger size and in the end you have something nobody has ever made before.

 

Cheers

I have thought about it, but there is not much point. Both methods (vector and raster) have their own flaws, and at 900p (the highest my monitor will go), the aliasing is very small on the radar (which only occupies less than 3% of the screen to begin with). Modloader and the game itself already struggle loading in the 4x bigger map (6144x6144), making an .asi file that loads all 144 pieces of the map at the same time a necessity. The point of the mod is to make a reliable and "clean" radar that's still in the same spirit as the original one. For example, I am marking unbreakable fences on the map, while omitting breakable ones.

 

Still, I will probably end up converting the map to to vector graphics when I am done.

 

You can get the FullStreamRadar.asi here:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35476123/Sources/Modding/GTA/ASI/FullStreamRadar.zip

[DanteN]

Good...

[ZipoLabs]

It appears that the image will not load, preventing me from saving it. Could you please provide a working link? Also how would I install this?

[goodidea82]

 

Why don't you rather spend your time remastering the streets any everything with vectors in Adobe Illustrator? That way you can have it in a way bigger size and in the end you have something nobody has ever made before.

 

Cheers

I have thought about it, but there is not much point. Both methods (vector and raster) have their own flaws, and at 900p (the highest my monitor will go), the aliasing is very small on the radar (which only occupies less than 3% of the screen to begin with). Modloader and the game itself already struggle loading in the 4x bigger map (6144x6144), making an .asi file that loads all 144 pieces of the map at the same time a necessity. The point of the mod is to make a reliable and "clean" radar that's still in the same spirit as the original one. For example, I am marking unbreakable fences on the map, while omitting breakable ones.

 

Still, I will probably end up converting the map to to vector graphics when I am done.

 

You can get the FullStreamRadar.asi here:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35476123/Sources/Modding/GTA/ASI/FullStreamRadar.zip

 

Is it compatible with fastman92limitadjuster? I would like to use it for SAxVCxLC, but it has different dimensions.

 

Can you tell me which tools you use to read and write the radar txd files and how you stich and decompose the image in to tiles?

[Grinch_]

 

 

Why don't you rather spend your time remastering the streets any everything with vectors in Adobe Illustrator? That way you can have it in a way bigger size and in the end you have something nobody has ever made before.

 

Cheers

I have thought about it, but there is not much point. Both methods (vector and raster) have their own flaws, and at 900p (the highest my monitor will go), the aliasing is very small on the radar (which only occupies less than 3% of the screen to begin with). Modloader and the game itself already struggle loading in the 4x bigger map (6144x6144), making an .asi file that loads all 144 pieces of the map at the same time a necessity. The point of the mod is to make a reliable and "clean" radar that's still in the same spirit as the original one. For example, I am marking unbreakable fences on the map, while omitting breakable ones.

 

Still, I will probably end up converting the map to to vector graphics when I am done.

 

You can get the FullStreamRadar.asi here:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35476123/Sources/Modding/GTA/ASI/FullStreamRadar.zip

 

Is it compatible with fastman92limitadjuster? I would like to use it for SAxVCxLC, but it has different dimensions.

 

Can you tell me which tools you use to read and write the radar txd files and how you stich and decompose the image in to tiles?

Well there is a X radar editorfor this works.But i tried it.It only supports the map of orginal game.

[firedihm]

Is this project dead?