Spain 1:1 WIP Need help - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: Spain 1:1 WIP Need help (/showthread.php?tid=57495)

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Spain 1:1 WIP Need help - RealDarko - 08.11.2008

Hello!

As you may know I'm spanish and I'm really interested in the SCW, so I decided to create a map of Spain at 1:1 of course with the help and support of Delvpier!! Thank's mate!!
The map is on the works, you can see the area supported and the height map.





Being a map of this proportions I will need help mainly in two areas

-Texturing

-Populating ( autopop )

About texturing I will need the help of someone that have experience painting the tex directly over map_t Spain is a country of contrasts but we can simplify those contasts. For example msot of the interior area is relatively dry except around the rivers, so this should be easy to do. But I need someone to paint the hills and mountains, is easily understood If you look at this image.



This is the coast near the Ebro Delta, you can see the beaches and once in the interior different textures. Near the Mediterranean, we have a intensive agriculture mstoly based on Orange Trees, fruits and other crops that need water. Then you can see the mountains of the litoroal range with the typical layout of machia and small dry forests. After that the dry crops of olive trees, almonds...
Here's a pic of the Ebro Delta with the big river irrigating the rice crops.



And last the Ebro coming from the interior



Being such a big map with all those cities to populate a autopop guru will be needed to help me. Hope someone is interested in the period and can help me.
I also tought in a "what if" Franco was tempted some times to enter WW2 with the Axis, what if they finally entered? After Torch landings, the Allies land on Spain in order to conquer Spain and threat the French soft belly, with a weak army after the SCW and with half of the pop ready to join the Allies we can have a Italy stule war running in spain with Germany and Italy giving Franco planes and troops...

Well please need some help to form a team and work on this. Feel free to comment and contact me here or by PM.
Thank's

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- Slow - 08.11.2008

Looks nice. Fits with the Rata :lol:

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- kapteeni - 08.11.2008

Slow Wrote:Looks nice. Fits with the Rata :lol:

I was asked to make SCW map, but i found that is too big task for me. I know hardly nothing about Spain. Glad you guys are making it!!!

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- caldrail - 08.11.2008

Look at the list of your texture slots in load.ini. Each is in order and represents a greyscale colour. so...

LowLand0 = colour 0
LowLand1 = colour 1
Lowland 2 = colour 2

etc etc

Woods = colour 26

Get your 'selection' either from your existing map_T or from map_H

Does that make painting any easier?

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- zipzapp - 08.11.2008

I just finished the translation of some more of my population programs and will publish them soon. This includes a random villager for small villages. You will also use my famous actor_worker (You will be the first one, i think ;-). Of course i will help if i can.

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map_t creation - delvpier - 08.11.2008

RealDarko, it is quite unrealistic to hope painting manually a map_t of such a size...

Trying to do this... you'll have your map ready in one year...

Getting the right way to texturize map_t is probably one of the most difficult exercise of map making... and takes a lot of time

... that's the reason why I didn't want to get more involved doing this map...

I think the best way is to find some "automatic" way to get map_t

My opinion is there are 2 basic ways :

1/ you can work with patterns method described by lowfighter and used also by some others...

That's the reason why I sent you 3 different map_t ( 1 color, 4 colors, 16 colors ) with other files.
The most useful is the 4 colors one ( colors are 0, 4, 8, 12 for inland ). I got it simply from Microdem by setting those values in color table file, with this you get a 4 color map with one primary color for each region of altitude (0 for Lowland, 4 for Midland, 8 for Mount...)



Now, you can apply pattern method to fill these four regions ( 16 colors map was an illustration...)
For example, to fill mountain region, make a pattern with colors 12 --> 15 , select color 12 in actual map_t and fill with this pattern... same for other regions... of course you can make several patterns and work by reduced selections. It's up to you to decide what gives you the best visual aspect... you live there...

2/ one other method is to use Microdem, not only with 4 colors, but by multiplying strips of colors from level 0 m to highest point... it gives you a map_t painted by strips of colors but as terrain altitude is allways varying, you can't see it when texturized...

Any method you choose to do the basic job, you'll have to make manually some retouching for final result

BTW, I hope that the map_c with rivers and related map_h I sent you are ok... I didn't paint every affluent of Ebro nor every river between Barcelona and Alicante, only the most important...

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- Charrua - 08.11.2008

Exelente proyecto Darko !!!!!!!!!!!

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- RealDarko - 08.11.2008

Yes the new map with the rivers is perfect. Now we have two options someone to help me with the painting of Map_T or me learning all the process and losing some months.

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- delvpier - 08.11.2008

RealDarko Wrote:Yes the new map with the rivers is perfect. Now we have two options someone to help me with the painting of Map_T or me learning all the process and losing some months.

losing some months... of course not !

First, made by someone else... it will take quite the same time than made by yourself...

Second, you have not to learn so big things... creating patterns is well described by Lowfighter post, see http://allaircraftsimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9071
once patterns created, I'm sure you know how to select by color and fill with pattern in Gimp... this is not so difficult... only basic manipulations in Gimp... someone else would make it exactly the same way...

Third, the real difficulty is to find the good way to make patterns giving a good and realistic visual aspect, for that you have to try different patterns... as someone else would have...

Fourth, consequently, as you live there in Spain, I think you are better placed than anyone else to know what is realistic and what is not...

I'm sure you can do it by yourself :wink:

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- RealDarko - 09.11.2008

Got the idea mate, I can make a general repaint this way, but what about the mountains? How I know where they are? I need to repaint them by hand?

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- zipzapp - 09.11.2008

There is a heigt range select tool in my mapping tools now. Start to create sixs or seven or so masks with different height levels from sea to the highest mountains, import them to gimp as layers.

Assign to each layer a special texture. Take a rocky texture for the highest reagion, for the lowest take a green one.

Of course the result is boaring.

So start to diversify each layer. Use the rgb-noise in gimp, for example. Select some points and assign other textures to them. For example textures from the next lower and naxt higher region at the beginning. The rest rechange to the orignal texture than.

There might be steep areas even in lower areas. There is a filter "Find edges" or somthing like that (Don't know the english version) with a filter "Sobel" (There is also an other "Sobel" in the filters, that is useless). The Sobel you need is not in the latest gimp version but in V 2.4.5.) Sobel shows the contrast of your map_h. Contrast is a function of the height difference. So step areas will be white there, flat black. Select step areas. Assign some rocky textures or others to some pixels there with the rgb-method in a new layer. Due to the progessive character of the map_h you should create different sobel masks for different heights. Use the height range tool again here.

Select areas suitable for fields and woods with the same methods.

To avoid anoying repetition of the same texture (Have a look at the stock normandy map or the italian map - terrible) always mix textures with the rgb-noise method or something similar. Use that also to delete randomly pixels.

To avoid trees on roads and rails extract them to a layer (But you will already have one). Duplicate it, move the new one one pixels up. Duplicate the original again. Move that one one pixel to the right. Duplicate the original a third time. Join all duplicates to a "no-trees & fields-with-trees-here layer." Do the same with your river layer and join it with the "no-trees-here." Select all not painted areas, inverse the selection, paint roads, rails and water red or what ever you want. Select them. Delete all tree textures here and exchange field textures with trees to one with no trees (...tga,2).

At least create a layer for special textures for special regions, if you want.

I had underlaying textures for diffent heights with only one texture in my Alpen map. Then i created a lot of additional layers with texture variations. One for each field type, some for woods of different density, for steep slopes and so on. At last it were more then 60 layers. Its a good idea to consider the right sequence when joining them ;-)

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- delvpier - 09.11.2008

RealDarko, I worked on map_t this morning, I will send you a first shot tonight, not definitive but much better... and I'll make some adjustments tomorrow...

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- RealDarko - 10.11.2008

A huge improvement!! Thank's mate!! I arranged some of the load entries for a more Spanish look, fell that is very good! Thank's to your work. What do you guys think??

Ebro Valley ( this is the zone of the big 1938 battle )



Here the interior area of the country



The Alicante coast, ( for all those Brits passing the summer there )



And for last Ibiza ( anyone going to Pacha?? )



What do you guys think?

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- Loht773 - 23.11.2008

Looks Great!, cant wait to dogfight Fiat C 32 "Chirris" with a nice Polikarpov I-16 "Mosca" high over Spain, is Madrid going to be included on the map?


Cheers!

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- agracier - 23.11.2008

Looks like a great map in the making. The splotches of green on mountains gives a good impression of Spain. But I would say that the cultivated areas are a tad too dense - maybe the textures should try and reflect a more sparsely cultivated land, with more scrub perhaps, less enclosed fields ...

Just a small suggestion from a Spanish Civil War enthusiast.

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