I came up with an idea for how to compile the client/server maps from the map editor a while ago, and finally implemented the code that I dreamed up over the last few days. As you can probably tell from the title, the results were WAY beyond anything I expected:
128x128 map compiles to ~ 40 KB
512x512 map ~ 136 KB
1024x1024 map ~ 634 KB
For comparison, these are the uncompressed sizes:
128x128 map raw data size = 393 KB (90% space saved)
512x512 map raw data = 6.2 MEGAbytes (98% space saved)
1024x1024 map raw data = 25.2 MB (97% space saved)
(these results only include the map data itself, not the texture/mesh/etc. data)
SWEEEEEEEEET