CIC Guide
Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 7:53 am
Jancsika and Lowell have encouraged me to write a guide for CIC (Clean Install Compatible) maps.
The CIC concept is a straightforward, open standard, developed by Lowell and myself for advanced SMR maps. It simply requires that a user-written map will run successfully (crash-free) to completion in a newly patched but otherwise unmodified ("clean") SMR installation. A CIC map is self-contained (stored in a single map folder with all required files), in the USERMAPS folder.
By now, any current SAM map (as defined recently by Jancsika here) would also be CIC, but for two small remaining differences:
- the use of the .fpk files (even that is now optional in SAM, I see, which moves both concepts even closer together).
- event files are optional in SAM - that is not CIC, because a map without its own event file is not self-contained and will crash sooner or later.Citation
Except for these one or two issues, the current SAM guidance will produce a CIC map. The advantage of the CIC standard is that it leaves the door open for future discoveries and improvements. The advantage of SAM (as currently summarized by Jancsika) is that it provides clearly structured guidance, which is a great help to new map-makers.
The history is that both Lowell and Snoopy arrived at similar, good SMR user map formats from different starting points. Both deserve a lot of credit for that. From my own, extensive tests, Lowell's maps are fully crash-free, and SAM maps without their own event file can easily be fixed to be crash-free.
In my opinion, the first to have the core insights needed to construct stable SMR maps was Universum with the "Utah" map. It introduced the idea of switching on and off the "Goods, Difficulty and Tunnels" files for stability (this issue is now solved by having only a single user map active at a time) and it introduced the idea of replacing compressed .fpk files with transparent asset files, which minimize maintenance problems for map-makers, testers and players.
I pointed Lowell to Universum's map, and he developed his own filestructure from there. It is important to note, and Lowell would be the first to agree, that Lowell's file structure is not the only way to a CIC map. I am quite prepared to believe that Snoopy got his ideas independently, inadvertedly making SAM maps "self-contained" by reducing unnecessary/harmful elements being loaded into memory.
The path to harmony is accepting that variations are possible in achieving a crash-free SMR map: Lowell's, Rodea's, my own (which is based on the Utah style of Universum), and, of course, SAM. For beginning map makers, Jancsika's current SAM guidance here is (almost) perfect CIC guidance as well. But I don't see any benefit in trying to force all advanced map-makers into the exact same format.
The CIC concept is a straightforward, open standard, developed by Lowell and myself for advanced SMR maps. It simply requires that a user-written map will run successfully (crash-free) to completion in a newly patched but otherwise unmodified ("clean") SMR installation. A CIC map is self-contained (stored in a single map folder with all required files), in the USERMAPS folder.
By now, any current SAM map (as defined recently by Jancsika here) would also be CIC, but for two small remaining differences:
- the use of the .fpk files (even that is now optional in SAM, I see, which moves both concepts even closer together).
- event files are optional in SAM - that is not CIC, because a map without its own event file is not self-contained and will crash sooner or later.Citation
Except for these one or two issues, the current SAM guidance will produce a CIC map. The advantage of the CIC standard is that it leaves the door open for future discoveries and improvements. The advantage of SAM (as currently summarized by Jancsika) is that it provides clearly structured guidance, which is a great help to new map-makers.
The history is that both Lowell and Snoopy arrived at similar, good SMR user map formats from different starting points. Both deserve a lot of credit for that. From my own, extensive tests, Lowell's maps are fully crash-free, and SAM maps without their own event file can easily be fixed to be crash-free.
In my opinion, the first to have the core insights needed to construct stable SMR maps was Universum with the "Utah" map. It introduced the idea of switching on and off the "Goods, Difficulty and Tunnels" files for stability (this issue is now solved by having only a single user map active at a time) and it introduced the idea of replacing compressed .fpk files with transparent asset files, which minimize maintenance problems for map-makers, testers and players.
I pointed Lowell to Universum's map, and he developed his own filestructure from there. It is important to note, and Lowell would be the first to agree, that Lowell's file structure is not the only way to a CIC map. I am quite prepared to believe that Snoopy got his ideas independently, inadvertedly making SAM maps "self-contained" by reducing unnecessary/harmful elements being loaded into memory.
The path to harmony is accepting that variations are possible in achieving a crash-free SMR map: Lowell's, Rodea's, my own (which is based on the Utah style of Universum), and, of course, SAM. For beginning map makers, Jancsika's current SAM guidance here is (almost) perfect CIC guidance as well. But I don't see any benefit in trying to force all advanced map-makers into the exact same format.