Spooky. Ain’t it?

I hear it is, anyway. It’s Spooky Season, which, if you’re lucky, means cosplay, candy consumption, and creepy media.

But what’s a sample of the things going on here? I’ve done almost no additional work on the HL Tracker info boxes. The map update with a more complete data set is a significant reason for this. I’ve modified the Hogwarts castle minimaps with a nearly complete mod to fix errors, remove non-existent bits, and fill in missing pieces. I believe some of the missing information is for secrets. I decided to treat the minimap more like the Marauder’s map. I would fill out secrets, at least to a reasonable degree. I was about to release it, but I realized I should build the maps with a codepage out in a more likely empty, random integer instead of the current 111 it’s built with. This is the only mod I’ve ever worked on, so I never changed it from the example replacement mod instructions I used to create it. Not knowing where I was going with this, something else happened.

Here’s some back-story. RyselZ on Nexus mods posted a Minimap mod for Hogwarts castle to improve the look of the castle map. After messaging them, they responded and gave me directions and links to resources. I was going to build on the back of theirs, but instead, I ripped the originals and started upgrading them as necessary. I did a first pass that made several fixes, focusing on building out the bell tower passages. Still, I owe RyselZ a debt for the assist.

Recently, I finished all the most salient issues I found with the map. At approximately the same time, I performed a current dump of most of the game UI components. I discovered that more minimap components were successfully decoded, including Hogsmeade and the actual Highlands information.

I had made my Hogsmeade the same way I had started the castle by assembling hundreds of little minimap discs. My highlands map was a complex workflow. Multiple overhead captures of the main map were blended to de-snow the model. I made the captures based on each square section using the latitudes and longitudes of the map. Even in this case, I could not unmake the vanishing point’s effects on the edges of the third-dimensional map. I massaged all the squares together, not accounting for any other variation. I sectioned the result and used it in multiple scales for my highlands map.

Now I have good originals. However, when I started to fit the maps, I found significant variations that wouldn’t allow me to scale the data I already had with my assembled maps. I even noticed that while I could scale and fit Hogsmeade onto the Highlands pretty smoothly, Hogwarts does not seem to be able to be scaled and fit to the grounds on the Highlands map.

Opportunity and depression.

What else? The maps are external to the WordPress structure and could benefit from being part of the group. Also, the HL Tracker’s implementation is standalone. Its javascript could live as part of the site’s Node build.

So I stepped back. I didn’t want to stop working altogether, and data from the dead MediaWiki needed importing. I found a means to break open that database and poured over some of these documents. Some style elements and updating later, I have a few documents to add from a context even less popular than Hogwarts Legacy!

I’ll be adding Ultima documents and other articles from the defunct Wiki. I plan to make a new map using new sources and update the data. The Hogwarts objects will also be localized in the site database, assuming another blockade doesn’t fall in the way. There must be another half dozen things going on that may show up in further updates.