Map building tutorial - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: Map building tutorial (/showthread.php?tid=60954)

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- Uzin - 14.03.2010

Thank you very much, you were right: after creating map_c.tga again, I carefully checked the black colour of the sea and the size of the file is now 65 kB, as it should be.

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- slipper - 22.03.2010

Hi all,

I have just installed IL-2 map builder as per the instructions in kevinp's tutorial, the game loads fine and i can open a map in the full mission builder. However when i get to a certain zoom level on the map the screen turns black, if i then try to zoom out i can not, but a miniature version of the map appears in the bottom left of the screen which is zoomable, any ideas please as to what i can do to rectify.

regards

slipper

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Troubles with coastal line. - Uzin - 26.03.2010

As my first map making project, I tried to create map covering the south east part of
Baltic sea, including Pillau (=Baltiysk) to Koenigsberg (Kaliningrad). It seems to be
overlooked by the map creators, in spite of being the area of interesting WWII battles.
I d/l the files :
srtm_40_01, srtm_40_02, srtm_41_01, and srtm_41_02,
then working according to kevinp's manual Map_building_for_beginners,
I created "Pillau colour.bmp" and "Pillau grey.bmp" files.
When I compared these maps with the Google Maps of the same area, there is substantial
disagreement as it concerns the coastal line,especially in the area of Pillau and that of
Koenigsberg .
Am I doing something wrong, or am I to repair the coastal line by Gimp?
Any suggestion would be welcome.
EDIT:
The map of Koenigsberg-Pillau area was suiccesfully finished and works well in Il2, even if not yet populated, and with the above errors of the coastal line.

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- agracier - 26.03.2010

I've noticed discrepancies like this as well, but I don't know what can be done about it.

One of the older maps, the standard Kyushu was even so out of proportion, that I found I had to resize Google map overlays by as much as 10%, making a resize of 90% height x 100% width. Which means the map was really out of proportion by 10% in height.

Normally I just leave the bmp images (gray and color) that are made from Microdem dems as they are. I don't think it pays to resize them out of their proportions. Dems are the basic blocks from which to make a map and they shouldn't be altered too much if it can be helped.

What I often do however, is fiddle around with Google map overlays, sometimes try to re-preportion them (but this doesn't always work very well), or use a cloning tool to fix and patch up areas and just be a bit creative so that the FMB map looks good.

You don't need Google maps to make a map anyway except to use for an FMB map. As long as you get the coastlines and rivers correctly from your original BW Dems and make a masking layer with the water/ocean/rivers/lakes, you can always fudge around with a Google map in a layer under the water layer, enlarge it a bit or correct it with a cloning tool.

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- Uzin - 26.03.2010

Many thanks for prompt answer, really.
Just for the first sight, here are some screenshots :

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Coastline troubles - kevinp - 26.03.2010

This is a problem we all have because the SRTM data is made from radar imaging which only records the height of land, not the shape of the coastline. You either need to redraw the coastline by hand or find a good map of the area (without name tags all over it) & re-size it to fit exactly with map_c.

Cheers
Kevin

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- Uzin - 26.03.2010

Thank you very much.
I see, this is the invitation into real world of map making .

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Re: Map building tutorial - spitfire1 - 26.03.2010

i might use this info for my ancient map!

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- Guest - 27.03.2010

Hi Kevin,

First, thank you very much for your tutorial. I wouldn't be able to move forward without you. I created the map of Manam with no problems, everything went well. Now I created a new map and I'm painting rivers. I still follow your manual, but I got into trouble.

I painted Mymap_c in full size, in B/W mode, without RLE. Ground is white, river is black. After that I run Map_C Toolbox and here is what I got from it:



Instead of rivers I see only hundreds of very small lakes in a line. What shall be the problem? Full size of Mymap_c.tga is 2176x2176 (which is also the largest size I use), size of map_c.tga (generated by the Toolbox) is 1024x192.

Please could you give me a hand with it? :-?

Thank you very much, Vasek

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map_c problem - kevinp - 27.03.2010

Hi AB1_Vasek

Can you send me Mymap_c and map_c

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- slipper - 27.03.2010

Kevinp,

Thanks for pm, Agracier kindly gave me his conf.ini settings which fixed the problem, can't reply by pm. Thanks again, great tutorial by the way.

regards

slipper

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selection "Elevation" disappeared in microdem Menu - Uzin - 13.04.2010

Trying again to work with kavin's tutorial, now at page 26:
In microdem Menu "Modify"-the selection "Elevation" disappeared, there is only "Map Marginalia" with "Reflectance" just below it. What happened? Any help?
EDIT: re-run microdem_setup.exe repaired the situation.

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- agracier - 13.04.2010

It's in my version of Microdem ... if this persists with different DEMS, maybe you should simply consider re-installing Microdem ...

I tried it with a none-cropped DEM and with a cropped DEM and every time 'Modify/Elevation' appeared in the pull-down menu option ...

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Elevation disappeared - kevinp - 13.04.2010

If that happens again click Modify/Display Parameter to open a sub menu which has Elevation on it. Microdem is always moving things about like this, I don't know why it does it.

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- Newy - 14.04.2010

Great tutorial kevinp.

I've done your tut a couple of times as well as some play around maps.

I've just started a proper map and have a problem with my rivers.

the map I'm working on is very mountainous and i need my rivers to start above sea level then come down.

Is this possible? and how do you do it?

Newy

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