Map Modifying Discussion - History (Read Only) - Printable Version

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+---- Thread: Map Modifying Discussion - History (Read Only) (/showthread.php?tid=51019)

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- fly_zo - 02.02.2008

FltLt HardBall Wrote:I notice that it's possible to modify the place names on some of the maps using the files in the i18n folder.



Somebody probably mentioned this already - it's a fast and dirty way to customize a map. I see many people in the past have used an existing map in place of another area, but have been stuck with the immersion-killing original map names.

For example, the famous "White Sun, Blue Sky" campaign used the Crimea map as China. Using this simple editing technique he would have been able to personalise the place names on the map, thereby adding to the immersion

You can also edit the drop-down menu in the FMB and make your own, more descriptive menu items by editing the maps_ru file. For example I changed Online4Summer to NetMountains, which seems more intuitive to me.



Sorry if someone already posted this.

yup, but not all maps are listed there m8 .... better way is to modify texts.txt file of specific map and more: have text.txt with different name ( change line in map load.ini to it ) and having new map listed (all.ini) . That way you can keep the original and one with changed names .

anyhow.... thanks for sharing

Z

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- ClockWatcher - 07.02.2008

As we are all too readily aware, IL2 limits the number of textures we use, and that can be a pain for large or small maps. An example is airfield textures where we could have had specific textures for each airfield but we are heavily limited. So why not "cheat" when using textures? Il2 already does, i.e. "land/summer/Countries.tga" has 16 villages on it covering 1 pixel each. So just place 1 pixel on your texture map and you have 1 village. So I thought, why can't we do the same. The image shows 1 texture, 1024x1024 to get the definition, with 4 separate images on it.



The first part is the whole texture, the second is selective placement of the textures pixels to get the separate images. Ignore the "Green Grass"

The only issue is that the texture has a definite placement on the map, so getting a specific area of your texture, ie the chalk man, in the right place has difficulties unless carefully planned when the texture was made.

Hope fully this may trigger some thoughts.

CW

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- spud - 07.02.2008

I wondered about that.

So this technique works, but only for places where super precise placement of all the images within the texture is not required, right?

Ie: It would be hard to use a shared texture for an airstrip that is literally a few meters from the coast since the chances the texture tiles would line up would be small, right?

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- ClockWatcher - 07.02.2008

Spud,

A normal 512x512 texture covers 7 x 8 pixels. You could be very precice, but you would have to work out texture x and y co-ordinates and make the texture to suit. You may even find you could "split" your texture, glue the top to the bottom, or the left on the right, and get it to fit exactly where you want. Fiddly, but possible.

CW

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- spud - 07.02.2008

So that is why the woods have a bit with no forest, just green ground?

tater

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- big_yamato - 07.02.2008

ClockWatcher Wrote:The only issue is that the texture has a definite placement on the map, so getting a specific area of your texture, ie the chalk man, in the right place has difficulties unless carefully planed when the texture was made.

Hope fully this may trigger some thoughts.

CW

Add a -2 behind the texture entries inside load.ini and its doubled in size and coverage. It's up to -8 (8x) i think.

Ofcourse you'll lose definition, but you can arrange the placement of the - say - chalk man more precisely. Just make a 1024x1024 tile with all the details in half size and double the size of the whole tile.

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- ClockWatcher - 07.02.2008

The texture above used the same background, the lowland series, which is used as the ground texture in the map. But the snapshot of the lowland used for the texture is a different shade/hue. Any idea why it has changed?

CW

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- zdenek - 07.02.2008

I try do temlate for fly_zo BOB map ( London & Portsmouth ) with actor.static but when I want put it to map I dont see " load as " in my FMB menu. Are you use another tools for moding map? If it's true where I could got it?
Thank's for answers.

P.S. Soory for my English.

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- Neil Lowe - 07.02.2008

Quote:The texture above used the same background, the lowland series, which is used as the ground texture in the map. But the snapshot of the lowland used for the texture is a different shade/hue. Any idea why it has changed?

Lowfighter noticed, that alot of textures have also a *.bmph (bump/spec map) file of the same texname. Basically an 8bit grayscale of 512x512px saved as a tga file then change the extension to .bmph.

Adding this changes the look of the tex a lot . Prolly that's why it looks so different.

So, for eg: lowland.tga needs a bump/spec map called lowland.bmph in the same folder. Have a look at some of the original game bmph's and they'll give an idea of whats needed.

Cheers, Neil

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- spud - 07.02.2008

There are two sets of wood textures in the load.ini.

The first set, under [WOOD] defines the forest layers.

The second set, under [FIELDS] is the underlying forest floor (Wood0)

What are the other WoodN layers there?

Wood2 is the far LOD, right?

Wood1=?

Wood3 is always blank.

I'm curious because I had the idea to change the Wood0 to something with some lighter colors (ideally splotchy) to avoid the sawtooth effect against the beaches since the forest actually appears in a sort of line, and the under texture forms hexagon shapes that stick out.

On a lark I set Wood0= the coralcoastline.tga, but instead of rendering it white, it was bright green.

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- fly_zo - 07.02.2008

zdenek Wrote:I try do temlate for fly_zo BOB map ( London & Portsmouth ) with actor.static but when I want put it to map I dont see " load as " in my FMB menu. Are you use another tools for moding map? If it's true where I could got it?
Thank's for answers.

P.S. Soory for my English.

care to share your work ? I'm finished with populating London but another WiP is just taking too much of my time so i could drop it and incorporate your template in second version of my BoB normandy with full credits given ..... if that ok with you

regards,

Z

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- lowfighter - 08.02.2008

This is a very very useful idea!

ClockWatcher Wrote:As we are all too readily aware, IL2 limits the number of textures we use, and that can be a pain for large or small maps. An example is airfield textures where we could have had specific textures for each airfield but we are heavily limited. So why not "cheat" when using textures? Il2 already does, i.e. "land/summer/Countries.tga" has 16 villages on it covering 1 pixel each. So just place 1 pixel on your texture map and you have 1 village. So I thought, why can't we do the same. The image shows 1 texture, 1024x1024 to get the definition, with 4 separate images on it.



The first part is the whole texture, the second is selective placement of the textures pixels to get the separate images. Ignore the "Green Grass"

The only issue is that the texture has a definite placement on the map, so getting a specific area of your texture, ie the chalk man, in the right place has difficulties unless carefully planned when the texture was made.

Hope fully this may trigger some thoughts.

CW

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- ClockWatcher - 08.02.2008

Neil,

Your speculation of BumpH changing the shade, thought you might be on to something. Just tried it for solid BumpH maps of 0, 150 and 255. But no difference

The solution/reason must lie elsewhere.

CW

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- Neil Lowe - 08.02.2008

ClockWatcher Wrote:Neil,

Your speculation of BumpH changing the shade, thought you might be on to something. Just tried it for solid BumpH maps of 0, 150 and 255. But no difference

The solution/reason must lie elsewhere.

CW

Just tried it with my Airfield tex and seemed to make a difference :wink:

I took my airfield texture, changed to grayscale, inverted and saved as tga. changed file extention from .tga to .BumpH results below. Just a test to show the difference.

The extension for the file is .BumpH not .bmph as I mentioned ealier.

Cheers, Neil
with BumpH..


without BumpH..

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- Neil Lowe - 08.02.2008

But.. I digress, apart from adding the appearance of bumps it doesn't seem to change very much the shade/hue of the base tex. It does just not very much.

Maybe, it (the problem with your tex being lighter)has something to do with the mapping values used.

Cheers, Neil

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