MAP EDITING DISCUSSION

[nodlew]

Need a thread dedicated to this as well.

Anyone with comments, info, questions related to editing maps, put them here.

[nodlew]

I'm also delving into map editing which has it's own mysteries. I have figured out how to place a trench along a contour, but not how to make the trench sunken into the terrain. Placing minefields--don't know how to make a minefield yet. I was able to fill a contour with mines, but there were a million of them, like grass. Also, does every single mine have to have a big sign saying "Minen!"? That seems a counter-productive to the point of having a minefield in the first place, and would make mines extremely limited in their potential use in missions.

Here is a question to any who might know--is it possible to edit existing maps without having to start over from scratch? The video tutorial only showed one method of generating a map for editing, and it results in a blank map with nothing on it. What if I just want to add a fortification for one mg?

My comments from the other thread. I have learned that to make trenches, you use the Hill selection under the Landscapes tab. There are presets for infantry, guns, vehicles, etc. Quite easy.

[Rends]

Guess if you want to edit a stock map you need to extract it from the datapack first if not the map generating button will be greyed out.

[Stig]

As more knowledge gets disseminated on this subject, I'd like to see us explore coming away with a tutorial on

1) Creating NEW maps, using specific GPS info (such as Google Maps) for historical placement
2) Terrain sculpting and modification (perhaps to de-modernize get the map "back to 194*") and then
3) Unit placement and UI scripting
4) Setting objectives and "playbalancing"
5) Writing briefings
5) How to install new splash screens (so that we can explore other theatres and create different mod looks)


After that, it would segue very nicely into a "CREATING NEW PLAYER CREWABLE VEHICLES" thread.

[Rends]

As more knowledge gets disseminated on this subject, I'd like to see us explore coming away with a tutorial on

1) Creating NEW maps, using specific GPS info (such as Google Maps) for historical placement
2) Terrain sculpting and modification (perhaps to de-modernize get the map "back to 194*") and then
3) Unit placement and UI scripting
4) Setting objectives and "playbalancing"
5) Writing briefings
5) How to install new splash screens (so that we can explore other theatres and create different mod looks)


After that, it would segue very nicely into a "CREATING NEW PLAYER CREWABLE VEHICLES" thread.

I´ve done all that and it took me what 2-3 weeks to discover the stuff.
But i simple have not the time to write a tutorial.
1. to get terrain datas from google maps search for your location. Zoom in (remember that the actual SF map is about 2x2 km).
My Prokhorovka map is about 1:2 scale because i wanted the road and the river in it. In google maps choose terrain from the menu and you get a heightmap. Make a screenshot and open it in your graphic software. Now eleminate the names and roads from the map and make it greyscale.You also need to change the resolution to 256x256 (default) or 512x512 ( than you need to change the initial_size   = 512 in your mapname.poly file in the levels/envs folder)
Save it as hei.tga uncompressed in your envs folder.

2. will be harder. It´s more importand on cities but with the lack of buildings it´s not that interested. About the roads check old maps. Most times it´s the major road you find in google maps that was also present in the 40s.

3.+4. That belongs to the mission editing thread.

5.+5. arn´t difficult. I´ve posted  (german language) howtodo here in a different thread and nodlwe made a babbelfish translation.

PS: if anyone knows a free desktop screen recording software for free (like i can do with quicktime on my mac here) i would make some videotutorials.

[Stig]

On your answer to #2, about "modifications", would it be possible to manually edit the height map using Photoshop, provided you can get a clear visual understanding of the heightmap "greys"?

And, as an alternative, can one opt to make the hei.tga a 256-color map (so that you have more visual contrast between the various colors to edit with)? Or must it be only a greyscale?

[Stig]

As to #5, can you or nodelw post a link to that English translation (or to the thread)? Searches for "screen" and "splash screen" don't seem to uncover it.

Thanks.

[Rends]

You can create your own heightmap using Photoshop. What you need to know is that the darkest color will be the lowest part while the brightest color will be the the one with the most height. You can work with colors but at the end you need to make a greyscale (even if saving as tga will make a 24bit image out of it).
It´s important to make your image seemless because the game repeats the terrain at the edges of the map. Photoshop can do that and PSP i use here can do that too.
What you also need to know ist the max height entry in the .poly file i mentioned before. So if you set it to max h= 256 every grey color from black to white will make a difference of 1 m. the good thing is if you use not only google maps but google earth too and move the mouse over the terrain area Google earth shows the terrain height in meters too. My Prokhorovaka terrain for example has a max height of 30m.
One thing more if you don´t need water on the map set water height to -1 .

About the babbelfish translation read more about it here:
http://graviteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=528.0

About the splash screens. Which one?
The loading screen when you fire up the game (the image with the 3 tanks in it) is located in the loc_rus/images directory and is called splash2.tga. It´s about 1280 × 950 Pixel resolution. Don´t search in the directory for the image it´s compressed in one of the datapacks but i guess if you copy a new image in this directory it replace the one in the datapack. Try it out.

[Stig]

Slowly, but surely, we're getting all this info out.... thanks everyone who lends a hand.

[nodlew]

Guess if you want to edit a stock map you need to extract it from the datapack first if not the map generating button will be greyed out.

Thanks for all the info, Rend. Wow, dude, didn't know you made that map from scratch. Impressive.

I've been working on a little custom version of a stock map. Things I've learned to do: Use the Hill option in Landscapes to make trenches, anti-tank ditches, gun revetments (stuff to hide behind); apply different textures over an area--like black earth over a defensive position to make it look "worked on"; use smoothing bending around a contour to make edited textures and polygons look more natural...and I think that's about it right now, but the night is young.
It's very satisfying to see a battle take place in an environment you created yourself.

As far as a tutorial goes, I aim to do one for the English (American) speaking Universe. But I want to do one that will 1) Look decent 2) Be logically organized, clearly worded, and as hard to misconstrue as possible, and 3) Be accurate and reasonably comprehensive.

Those things meaning, I need more time with mission and map editing. In the meantime, these two threads we have going here increase the amount of available knowledge to the novice doing a Google search by about 1000 percent, and provides a place to ask a question of people who are likewise interested in modding the game.

Putting briefings in the game, adding splash screens, custom tactical maps, or putting symbols and text on the map, or in-game radio messages, etc., etc., like Rend says is not difficult once you know how to do it... Until then, it is impossible, as I can attest. It requires that you develop a familiarity with how the game cfg files recognize text, the format those text messages have to be provided in...it can be tricky. The difference between { and [ is a make or break difference. I haven't got it all figured out yet, but I'm on my way and willing to help anyone else to the extent of my present understanding.

The mission I'm working on now with the custom map is the first one I've made that has an Title, Intro Text, and Briefing--still no in game radio messages yet. Maybe work on that later tonight.

Good to see this discussion get such a healthy start!

[nodlew]

PS: if anyone knows a free desktop screen recording software for free (like i can do with quicktime on my mac here) i would make some videotutorials.

I may have found just what the doctor ordered. Check out this link: http://camstudio.org/

I downloaded it, and it works. Haven't done any extensive testing yet, but it might be great. Anyway, it's tiny. You've got nothing to lose by trying it out.

edit: I have tried it more thoroughly now, and it works great! To hell with Fraps, I think this is much better. The video files it produces are flash video--swf format. They can be viewed by simply dragging and dropping the files anywhere into your web browser, although with a conversion program, they can be turned into avi, mpg, whatever. Camstudio will record from a microphone, or record the sound coming through your desktop speakers. It doesn't seem to require much processor to work either. I recorded the playback of a mission in the editor and there was no slowdown at all, though the quality was not terrific, but there are options to improve video quality. I did have to do some tinkering with my audio in control panel to get the sound to record and synch with the video. If you need any pointers there, Rend, say the word.

[Rends]

dl camstudio last night and tried it out. Works so far.
Biggest problem right now is that the Mission Editor runs always at Fullscreen (1440x900). So recording at this big size is waisting lot of space. I would like to have the ME running at 800x600 for recording. But havn´t figured out where to change to window size.

[Stig]

Rends noted:

1. to get terrain data from Google maps, search for your location. Zoom in (remember that the actual SF map is about 2x2 km).

My Prokhorovka map is about 1:2 scale because i wanted the road and the river in it.

Is this a hard limit? Must the map be 2km by 2km, and must it have square (as opposed to rectangular) dimensions? This is an important distinction because that can really limit the scope of mission design. For example, it would seem to eliminate the possibility of "traverse ground" scenarios, where you might want a map that is long and narrow, with a road running through it, so you can task the player with moving a convoy of trucks from one side to the other... or ambushing a convoy that's traversing the same area.

[nodlew]

That was my next question, Stig. Got to be a way to make bigger maps. 4 square km is ridiculously small--I sometimes have a hard time positioning my troops on a map where they wont be immediately under enemy fire. It is possible to place AI much farther away, put them any where you want I think, but any action that involves the player must take place in that 4sq km or the mission will fail. Placing the player unit outside of that area will cause the localization error and the map will not load into the editor or start in game. Given this limitation it is difficult to make missions that take a long time to play. It would be neat to try to make a mission that lasts for hours, going from evening into the night as forces attack, counter attack, reposition, etc. Another thing that limits this is the inability to save a mission while in progress. Can't do that, right? So everything turns into a short, fierce firefight. You take a position, repel a counter-attack, you win, etc., etc. Starts to get a little repetitive.

Rend,

I don't see any way to run the editor in a window, or run it at a lower resolution, it's full-screen all the time, or minimized to the task-bar. It is possible to use Cam Studio to record at different resolutions--any res you want, but a lower resolution will only capture a portion of the screen, so parts of the editor will not be visible in the tutorial. Clunky. Alternatively, it might be possible to record the vids full-screen in stages so they don't get too big, then convert them into a highly compressed format and join the sections together using editing software.

There is quite a lot of forum discussion on-line about Cam Studio 2.0--the free version. It is a very popular free ware as it actually works very well for a lot of applications and does so without restricted functionality. You could Google.

Here's a thought, what about changing your screen resolution to something lower--say 800 by 600--using scaling, then use the Fixed Region mode of Cam Studio to only capture that portion of the screen. Might help some. Edit: Nope, don't bother, doesn't work. The editor will not run at anything lower than 1440x900 period.

[Estnische]

OK, so I have tried to follow the SFK42 documentation Creating Missions and Maps, and Fabian Fred's tutorial. Prior to doing this I successfully made and used a basic mission using the ME to place it in the User Missions menu.

My first step, from what I can see, is to use the Create New Poligon program, to create a new map name 'Blue_Hills00'. Tick!

Next step, 'Generate' the map. The program seemed lost, so I created a folder in data/k42/loc_rus/envs/ called Blue_Hills00. Then I tried to save it as the file Blue_Hills00.poly and it stops with a last_bug.txt message appearing:

Exception core:
001: Error initialization program.

Any ideas?

[lockie]

To generate a polygon u've to start, i.e.:
 "C:\games\Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942\bin\rel\shell.exe" root\programs\polygen.program