Funny, I am just reading this exchange now...
Well it is possible to have DGen use a modded map if actually DGen is "tricked" to take it as a stock one; this is what I did with my Battle of Britain and Fortress Europe 1943 campaigns (see different thread here).
I edited the mission templates to remove ships from the area newly covered by your land textures, Fly_Zo. Basically the key is to change the actors_static without changing any airfield or town location. Towns can be added on new land textures such as London, and will just be ignored by DGen.exe, but existing ones shall not be moved or deleted. And I see this is what you did with your BoB summer map, so that was possible for me to work it out.
However since it changes the default map, related mod must be disabled to play other missions or campaigns, in order to avoid problems such as stationary ships on land, or more serious bugs.
By the way the mission templates I uploaded can be used for other sub-campaigns: I just made the Channel40 .mis templates work for a Battle of France sub-campaign (the last one of the three, which I renamed), no problem. And the Channel43wb .mis templates can be used for later war stuff too (need to remove those Gladiators though...). You just have to copy
Normandy:Channel40
at the top of the .DB for the early war sub-campaigns using the Normandy map, and
Normandy:Channel43Wb
at the top of the .DB data bases files for the later war stuff based on the Normandy map.
No other changes are required in DGen campaign files, which therefore work both with and without the modded Normandy map.
Yes, it I is no problem to use modded versions of existing maps in Dgen, I did the same in the modded version of my Norway campaign, where I used the winter map by GilB57, that has different textures and uses different map_t and ed_m0 files. It doesn't cause problems as long as the positions of airfields are not changed and the modded map files are in the folder of the original map.
One question to you Vincent.
I have just downloaded your modded RAF campaign. Please correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like you have replaced one of the existing Normandy maps with fly_zo's version. I am not sure if this is really necessary. In my Norway folder the modded map files use different file names than the original map. To use the modded map I just used the following entry in the .db file of the Norway Winter subcampaign:
Norway:NorwayW
And the following entry in the red and blue template files:
MAP Norway/GW_load.ini.
Instead of replacing one of the existing Normandy maps with fly_zo's version it might be possible to give fly_zo's map files different names so they don't overwrite the original map files. So far I haven't tested this method with the Normandy map, but if it works, it would have the advantage, that it is not necessary to remove the modded Normandy map files when you want to use the original.
I have tested the method I described above, but it didn't worked for the Normandy map. I was able to create a working map in the Normandy map folder that used fly_zo's renamed files without replacing one of the other maps. But it wasn't possible to use this map in Dgen the same way I did it with GilB57's Norway map. When I changed the entry in the red and blue template files Dgen didn't recognised the map correctly and I got the error message "Cannot find town Atlantis".
Unfortunatly replacing one of the existing Normandy maps seems to be the only way to use fly_zo's modded map.
Yes, I already tried this, of course. That was even my first idea. Finally the only way I could find was to change the original Normandy map. Hence the use of JSGME, very convenient to handle such issue.
However in this case the actors_static of the map is changed, there are additional land areas and cities, so it is a more substantial change than different map_t and ed_m0 files?
It is interesting though to see that your method could work on the Norway map. Maybe it could also work with a different actors_static file for Norway? (but in the case of Norway the map is fine). The British islet/Atlantis on the Normandy map is really miserable, so that is quite welcome to change the actors_static on this one, but not so useful for Norway IMHO.
Another good candidate map to change with different land would be the Sands Of Time map: it could be nice to have it only with land, to simulate inland desert warfare.
winter versions do also work for the berlin map.
just point the dat file to any wberlin.ini on your system, that was pretty trouble free or me.
just teh automatic change from summer to winter as in the regular reasoned maps by date does not work, you ned a seperate winter campaign AFAIK.
Yes, good news! The East Africa map is certainly a good candidate. Could you send me your files? I would like to have a look at them and see if it makes sense to use them for my RAF or Armee de l'Air desert campaigns. I am fed up with the Sands Of Time map to represent everything from Tunisia to Syria, Lybia, Morocco, etc...
i tested canons Bob map and Lal Ronne
Here is the link to Kapteeni's east africa map:
viewtopic.php?t=4530
So far I didn't noticed problems when I used it in Dgen, but I think I have to do some more tests to see if it really works without errors.
Here is what I have done to use the east africa map in Dgen:
First I renamed kapteeni's map files to the following names (first make a copy of the files):
map_c1
map_c1
Kt_map_h
map_F1
actors1
labels
map_T1
texts1
kt_ed_m01
kt_ed_m02
load2
Then I edited the load2 file. Thats how the beginning of the edited load2 file has to look:
[MAP]
ColorMap = map_c1.tga
HeightMap = Kt_map_h.tga
SmallMap = map_M.tga
TypeMap = map_T1.tga
FarMap = map_F1.tga
ReflMap = map_R.tga
[LIGHT]
LandLight = LandLight.mat
CloudShadows = CloudShadows.mat
[MAP2D]
kt_ed_m02.tga
kt_ed_m01.tga
[WORLDPOS]
CAMOUFLAGE = SUMMER
MONTH=6
DECLIN = 0
PRESSURE = 745
TEMPERATURE = 30
[CUBE]
Down = Cube_bott.tga
East = Cube_right.tga
North = Cube_front.tga
South = Cube_back.tga
Up = Cube_top.tga
West = Cube_left.tga
[static]
actors1.static
[text]
texts1.txt
Then I copied the files into the sands of time map folder and I included the following line into the "all" file:
SandsOfTime SandsOfTime/load2.ini
To test the map I used the italian Africa campaign by Ijekio Ulmar. You have to change the first lines in the Africa40blue and Africa40red files to:
MAP SandsOfTime/load2.ini
[quote="Boelcke"]i tested canons Bob map and Lal Ronne