[fly_zo]

Thanks boomrang for tutorial :!: :!: :!: I'll have some questions later, very noobish ones :wink:
I think development of map textures deserves a separate thread (maybe not a sticky yet), it's extremely important. What do you think? I'll not start such a thread because as I said I'm a noob about images!
Just dreaming about a time when the talented ones could come with new textures and give me some 8) 8) 8)

i'll make sticky in the second ... if there is any interest for it ...no prob


Z

[lowfighter]

Yes Zo, let's see if there's interest, sticky can come later...

[asheshouse]

Is this of any use to anyone?
It follows on from my earlier post about considering expanding the existing Ardennes Map
The same map covers the R Meuse bridgeheads for a 1940 scenario.
The whole area covers approx 100x90miles and encompasses all of the area required for a full Ardennes 1944 campaign.
The existing map is limited to the area Bastogne/St Vith/Marche, shown in the centre.



I have to admit to having no idea where to start.
Is there an easy guide somewhere?
Do you have to start by un-compacting a file in order to see all the map components?

[lowfighter]

Asheshouse, I agree it would be really nice to have a full ardenes map. The one we have is sooo small, and all airfields are placed at the edges, so depressing when you fly and see there the deathland.
Then, it's true thre are no "full" tutorials up to now, except the hints present in this thread or some others. But basically, when the game loads a certain map, it uses a number of files. So if the user have those files and knows how to modify them he can modify the way the map looks in the game. Some of these files are image files, some are text some are "alien-language" for me. Hm, it's hard, maybe later some more hints, or maybe the other map m8's can come to my help! :oops: :oops: :oops:
But you'll get it eventually I'm sure :!:

[Vpmedia]

Lets not forget that the original authors of the 3rd party maps spent considerable time with the map making, lots of things need to be figured out to be able to undertake such big project.

Think about the number of the villages, bridges, trainyards and roads on such map.

You'll also need more detailed contemporary topographic and transportation maps.

What I'm able to do now is to take one of the empty maps for example and place rivers and mountains and retexture it freely.

[lowfighter]

Absolutely Istvan, a decent new map would take a long time to produce.
Now pretty interesting, this reminds me of a discussion on jurinko site, they had a guest, don't remember the name now, another one from the map team, doing Basarabia (maybe Yogy), so they had to talk english, so they were talking about the way to place objects on a map, and i understood they have a function called autofill which places objects automatically on different spots. The slovaks were not using this autofil thing, but rather placed objects by hand. That's one reason their shots look nice. How I understand autofill: you placed one village texture somewhere to represent a village. If you look at it you easily recognise spots of darker texture where houses have to be placed. But this autofill does this automatically, depending on how big the house spot is , it must be placing a smaller or a bigger house from a certain list of houses which the builder chooses. So that makes things fast, but sometimes can give funny results like: On Manchuria map, each village has 2-3-5 country churches of the same type lol, very religious people the manchurians.
Now imagine you place houses by hand, for a not too small not too large land map size, you might expect maybe 10000+ objects, and that done in the ECONOMY way Oleg's maps are done. It's a lot and if you want to do it thoroughly, not just spraying buildings around,it's a tremendous time to spend.
Then as you said, how about roads, railways, and airfields, these are open questions up to now...

[Vpmedia]

Yes, there's an autofill function, other map builders were talking about this too.
I'm pretty sure that for a new map we need the original map building tools which are in russian only.
But I'm not really sad about this because we got lot of maps, each can be modified into unlimited subversions even if we're only talking about swapping the stock textures (summer, winter, autumn, spring, desert, mud, spring, rockland...).

[lionhell]

How to insert:
Create a mission and place an object from "Objects" menu on that map, exit open mission with notepad and change the line corresponding to that object to something like

0_bld Plate$ConcreteRunway 1 72671.58 100244.88 550.00 (the numbers after ConcreteRunway should be the same as those you have for the original object such that runway segment will be at the same position as the original object). The segment will be there, but you'll not be able to change it's position within FMB. Similar things I think can be done with railway segments. Got to go...

It is possible to move it in FMB ... but there is a problem when you save, so I found out a method to avoid it !!!

1- To create a runway place several 'objects' on the map (at least 8).
2- Save mission
3- Edit the .mis file and replace all the X_bld objects you added in Plate$ConcreteRunway
Save .mis file
4- Go into FMB again and reload mission
5- You can draw all the runway pieces !!! Line them up to create a runway
6- DO NOT SAVE NOW !
7- Select, without moving them, each runway piece and change the number of object in the object selector window.
8- Save the mission
9- Edit again the objects in the .mis file to change them in Plate$ConcreteRunway.
10- Save the .mis file

That's all ... now when you load the mission, the transformed objects appear to all gamers as a runway in the game; you can create runways anywhere !!! Be advised to choose a flat area, if not, the pieces would be disjointed, like a stairway !

:wink: SV_LionHell

[Tigershark]

Boomerang, are you editing textures so they are specific for a given map, or are your edited textures pretty much universal for all maps...

anyone know this?

TS

[lowfighter]

Ahaha, LionHell, thanks for this tip :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!:
Now we still have one problem, maybe two: why if I place runways this way, they are visible from only very small distance (I think I measured and it was about 3000 meter)? How can we make them be visible from much bigger distance, like the runways which load by default? I don't understand, maybe there's an instruction in actors.static telling them to be visible at much bigger distance? This is a mistery.
The other question, will the AI recognise such a runway placed by hand?

[boomrang]

Boomerang, are you editing textures so they are specific for a given map, or are your edited textures pretty much universal for all maps...

anyone know this?

TS

I work for the moment on a little map 'Romania " this map serves to me a little laboratory for my work on the textures.i do not to modify all textures of the game it would be a too large work
but why not to work on pack of textures for map creators is an idea .

[boomrang]

Thanks boomrang for tutorial :!: :!: :!: I'll have some questions later, very noobish ones :wink:
I think development of map textures deserves a separate thread (maybe not a sticky yet), it's extremely important. What do you think? I'll not start such a thread because as I said I'm a noob about images!
Just dreaming about a time when the talented ones could come with new textures and give me some 8) 8) 8)

it is very nice but there exists much of very good lessons on the creation of textures on English Internet.

but if you want anthother tutoriaux I see what I can do
my next work will be on the fields and cultures I would still post a tuto.

[Vpmedia]

http://www.google.hu/search?hl=hu&clien ... %A9s&meta=

[ClockWatcher]

Here is just a thought, and I may not have understood the way maps are constructed properly.

Am I correct in thinking that map elevation is basically based on a grey scale picture? If so, for accurate elevation data could you use SRTM data, as used in X-Plane, and convert it into the correct greyscale format. Matlab or similar should be able to do this. And best of all, elevation data is freely available for the majority of the world.

Here are a couple of links to get you thinking

http://www.chromatix.uklinux.net/scenery/index.html
http://www.xpsrtm.com/
http://srtm.usgs.gov/
http://www.xsquawkbox.net/scenery/index.php

[uf_josse]

Sorry for big delay.....

her is the translation of Boomerang's textures tutorial...

Translation mad for me by my friend St