[|ZUTI|]

Hi all,

i'm having problems with texturing my map in progress. The thing is that i want to experiment with different land textures but whenever i change those, roads/cities/railways textures change too, even if i only modified LowLand0... and this kind of parameters in Load.ini file. I left City0 alone and it still changed the texture. I have no idea how to get this working. I was reading CWs MicroDem tutorial where he explains how to create roads and railways but i had no luck (i am working with photoshop though). I used "diference" layers for roads and then put it over the map_t layer. I'm not sure if this is the same as it is described in CWs tutorial but i guess it isn't, since roads and other mentioned objects have all kind of "nice" textures with them.

I construted a sample test map that you can have a look at. In that folder is also a photoshop file with the layers in question.

Any help regarding this texturing would be MUCH appreciated as i am getting really frustrated with it. Why can't land texture just influence land! And not other things. I must be doing something wrong!

Test map: http://zuti.mine.nu/MyUpload/TstMap.rar

Thank you!

[|ZUTI|]

Hm, the difference is not good as it's not the addition mode of gimp that i was searching for in photoshop. But what is? I really am not good with these graphical programs :S

EDIT: perhaps photoshops blending mode Screen is equal of Gimps addition? Can't try it out right now, shame :\

[Vpmedia]

dont use any blending modes in photoshop when playing with exact colors

[|ZUTI|]

Still, when i examine other map_t files they all have different gradients of textures for roads, railways etc. That's why i was curious what i have to do

[zipzapp]

You have to set

countryroads 32
rails 64
highways 128

That are the greyscale values on a scale from 0 to 255 in gimp, don't know nothing about photoshop here.

Paint them in separates layers and be shure colours are "added" when joining with your map_t. Don't know how to do that in ph. Result must be: Map_t may be grayscale 7 at one point, so countryroad there = + 32, result on map_t = 39 and so on. Also crossing lines must be added, thats why you have to use differend layers for rails, highways and c-roads. Rails highest layer, than highways, than c-roads.

Of course you can paint them also in rgb mode and change the picture to greyscale before joining and saving m_t. Heard, ph. is botching here, don't know if that's true.

Had a look at yours files, no idea what you made there ;-)

[|ZUTI|]

Could you please have a look at theese two sample maps:

http://zuti.mine.nu/MyUpload/maps.zip

Can you tell me why on the "empty1a" map city in lower left corner is nice and on "TstMat" it's nothing like on the first map? The load.inis are identical, so are the main values in map_t and map_h.

I'm at total loss here.

EDIT: Linear Dodge (Add) is the alternative in PS. Now to translate those RGBs to Grayscale and we'll see what that does. Still need someone to enlighten me about those city textures on the sample maps. Have no idea :S

[zipzapp]

I still don't know what you are doing. I don't understand the names of the layers "Vode" pp. Your map_t ist just textured with "5" and nothing else. "Vode_Dno" looks like rivers. Thats for map_c with other values.

May be you have a problem with photoshop and don't know how to set the right values or you did not understand even the basics. Read the tutorials, i can't help here.

[|ZUTI|]

EDIT: instead of going agains the flow, i'm just gonna ride it. Copy/paste from working map and then create a templates to use later on, a very good recipe by Fly_Zo! You da man! Would have done it sooner but you know me, stubborn like an ox. But i've just had enough!

[Dleg]

I say just give up and go GIMP. It's free and it seems to be what everyone here is using, so there is far more help available than for PS.

[|ZUTI|]

If i would know this from the getgo... then yes, but now almost everything is done in PS and porting would be too hard, me thinks But, lession learned!

[canonuk]

Photoshop doesn't handle greyscale RGB in the correct way. It's sesnsitivity is too low i.e. it can't really tell the difference between RGB 3 and 4.

Seriously - use GIMP for all your greyscale tasks. Works perfectly and isn't a million miles from PS in terms of learning to use it.

[|ZUTI|]

And that's exactely why i had problems with cities! Dead on. But like i said, too late now, still, new projects will be done in GIMP

Ty!

[|ZUTI|]

Ok guys, this "try GIMP" just didn't leave me alone, so... i went and tried it one more time. Problems, big problems.

The file in question ish map_t.tga. I went to MicroDem, extracted a area and converted it with "Terrain texture 16 RGB v2.dbf" from CW. I saved the result as BMP and the converted it to grayscale in GIMP and saved it as map_t.tga.

Now, if you can have a look at the pictures, you will see what is bothering me :S Gimps map_t is all wrong regarding texturing. I used default load.ini parameters from online mountain map and this is the result:
http://zuti.mine.nu/myupload/Game_Gimp.jpg

Then i repeated the procedure of creating map_t.tga from BMP but i used Photoshop. Result is much better, but there are still some vilages on the mountains that should not be there (and are there because of the way that PS manages grayscale transformations):
http://zuti.mine.nu/myupload/game_ps.jpg

Can you give me any insight as to how to alter the gimp procedure to have an OK results?

If you need the map_t.tga files, they are here:

gimp: http://zuti.mine.nu/myupload/Map_T_gimp.tga
ps: http://zuti.mine.nu/myupload/Map_t_ps.tga

Any help greatly appreciated! Gimps map_h.tga is quite nicer!
Z

[Dleg]

From what I understand, the above results have nothing at all to do with Gimp vs. Photoshop. The "automatic" tiling created by using MicroDEM with Clockwatcher's curves is the culprit. Depending on your load.ini, it aboslutely WILL leave your landscape looking like a mess.

I've chosen to avoid that with my map_t on the (still in infancy) Marianas map. I created a map_t from scratch using the un-blurred map_c, and the "borders" tool in gimp to highlight the coastlines to apply surf, and cleanly delineate land from water. Then I just blanket painted every bit of land as forest, and will be going back in, by hand, to "paint" in the individual textures I want. Which I imagine will be very time consuming, but I've only got a fraction of the land area that most other maps around here have. so it makes sense, but maybe for this project only. (and yeah, the automated MicroDEM textures looked awful on my map, too)

By now, though, you've probably figured out how to edit the Clockwatcher's dbf file used for the MicroDEM "automated" method. I bet it would be realtively simple to set it up to provide a slightly less varied appearance, and then make sure your load.ini settings match up with what you want at different elevations.

[Dleg]

Oops - forgot to mention that fabianfred posted a "test" load.ini in the map making guide thread in the stickies section, designed to let you see more clearly how the Microdem-assigned textures are laid out, in kind of a layercake appearance.

Also, in case it wasn't clear, the difference you see between the GIMP and Photoshop produced map_t is purely the result of Photoshop combining the grayscale shades, in essence "throwing away" data from your original map_t. So, really, it's actually a sign of a fault with Photoshop, not GIMP, which handled the grayscales without losing any data. (But if you prefer the PS map_t, then by all means, go ahead and use it).