Map Building for Beginners

Thanks! That solved it!
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agracier Wrote:This worked great for putting in rivers that were not made by Microdem. I tried it out a few times on an inland map, with no coastline. Rivers came on the map.

But, I seem to have gotten them as deep canyons, not as rivers that flow more or less level with the surrounding land.

Here is what I mean:

Looks nice for a canyon landscape, but for the map I'm working on it is not really the way it should be.

So my question is, how does one make rivers run more or less level with the surrounding land? How to avoid the deep canyon effect?

You need to modify the map_h. Another consideration is that you can only build bridges at sea level. This means you have to have your rivers at sea level, if want to put in a bridge. The sea level colour in the map_h is RGB "0", or pure black.

So this is what I did for my Russia map. Lay the map_h over a reduced version of your map_c with all the rivers drawn in. Make the map_h layer sufficiently transparent so you can read the course of the rivers "through" the map_h. Then paint the map_h RGB 0 along the river courses.

I was fortunate that my map had no mountains or even hills. Therefore, I could paint huge chunks of the map RGB 0 without creating chaos.

Blur the edges of the RGB 0 areas to avoid getting sudden cliffs and canyons. You want to make the RGB 0 painted areas sufficiently wide that you do not get steep canyons around your river banks.
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THANK YOU very much for the useful information!!

Big Cheers
MAX
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Have been working hard with a bunch of new google earth textures with some BumpH textures and a couple of Avala's textures.
Doing a historically correct map is very time consuming but well worth it in the long term.
The other Saturday it took me all afternoon to place a fighter strip on Efate Island in Vanuatu.
I used two photos from pacificwrecks.com an airfield approach photo and a location photo.
Once I've completed Bauer Field near Port Villa and Port Villa I'll post some screenies of this island.
After that it's on to Espiritu Santo Island

Cheers Kirby

Lamphun
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How long do you think till your map is finished?
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Probably about another month.

I have five days off this week and then a week off in another week or so.

I'll populate Efate Island and Espiritu Santos Island and some smaller populated areas on the other islands.

Will leave most of the islands as jungle islands.

A lot of the islands have thier own unique environment. They are all not the same.

Airfields around 5 to do. No copy and paste all newly made airfields.

So have really been getting the textures right (I hope) for the whole map.

Cheers Kirby

Lamphun
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Just for everyone to know - a very big thank you to Kevinp for his help and patience.I had a few problems and pm'ed him a few times and he replied very quickly and was very helpful.Thanks again friend, wish there was more of your kind in this world, I appreciate it!

Pieter du Preez
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Hi Kevin,

Took a short break from doing airfields on Efate and Espiritu Santo Islands.

I have made some more maps

Formosa with part of China.

Timor and surrounding islands.

Ceylon and Southern tip of India.

Borneo a part of the island and surrounding islands.

They all loaded up perfectly no problems this time. Just honing my map making skills.

One question I started on a Kunming area map and realized this is my first map without any ocean/water.

I got the grey and colour no problems

Now Mymap_c This should be completely white yes because it is all land.

When I have they grey photo loaded in Gimp I adjust threshold to 255 and it becomes mostly white with a few black areas.
Do I select the black areas and bucket fill to white.
That is what I am thinking.
Then the whole Mymap_c will be white for land.

There are difinitely no large bodies of water with this map.

So once again just honing my map making skills.

Cheers Kirby

Lamphun
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Hi Kevin,

got the land Kunming map loaded.

very strange working with a white Mymap-c and just a rgb 7 map_T

Here's some screenies of these maps

Just honing in my map making skills

Hell of an improvement from Manam

Thank you KevinP







Top Formosa and China 1:1 scale
Middle Kunming area 1:1 scale
Bottom Ceylon and Southern tip of India 1:1 scale

Cheers for Kevin's tutorial

:o Big Grin :lol: 8) Smile

Kirby Lamphun
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farang65 Wrote:One question I started on a Kunming area map and realized this is my first map without any ocean/water.

I got the grey and colour no problems

Now Mymap_c This should be completely white yes because it is all land.

When I have they grey photo loaded in Gimp I adjust threshold to 255 and it becomes mostly white with a few black areas.
Do I select the black areas and bucket fill to white.
That is what I am thinking.
Then the whole Mymap_c will be white for land.

There are difinitely no large bodies of water with this map.

Are you sure? Kunming has several major rivers running through it, as well as some sizeable lakes (Diandhi and Yangzone lakes). The black areas are possibly these lakes:

[Image: Kunming-map.jpg]

Even if you where making a map without water on it (let's say a bit of Sahara or from the surface of Mars), you'd still have to run the CMapv3 tool.
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Was a bit of guess work he he

easy to do another one if the above is not quite correct.

just honing my map making skills

at first there was some black areas after i was playing around with the threshold

on a second attempt changing the threshold to zero as kevin ps instructions solved all problems.

the Mymap_c became all white I've never seen large lakes show up on a map as rgb 31.

Cheers Kirby

Lamphun
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Cheers Kirby

Lamphun
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