Custom Overlays are FANTASTIC and easy to use - thanks, devs!

Take command of air and naval assets from post-WW2 to the near future in tactical and operational scale, complete with historical and hypothetical scenarios and an integrated scenario editor.

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ColonelMolerat
Posts: 479
Joined: Wed Sep 23, 2015 10:36 am

Custom Overlays are FANTASTIC and easy to use - thanks, devs!

Post by ColonelMolerat »

One of my concerns before getting CMANO was that I'm relatively new to such hard simulation - I like to be able to zoom right into maps and get a sense of place. Basically, I was worried that the zoom level might not be detailed enough to make me feel comfortable.

Anyway, I was looking at custom overlays. It took me about 10 minutes to learn the basics, and about 20 to start feeling really comfortable with them.

I went back to playing the game, when I realised what I'd thought was a valley was actually a lake... So I thought back to custom overlays.

Within less than ten minutes, I had a map of the area, from a zoomed-out view of the whole AO, to individual streets of the city I was fighting over.

I wanted to make this post to say, if you've not looked at custom overlays, do so - they are INCREDIBLY easy to make, and to say to the devs - thanks! This is a BRILLIANT feature!!

To those looking to make these overlays, instructions are in the CMANO manual - here are three quick tips it doesn't mention:

1. The output image files are saved to the desktop... It took me too long to realise this!

2. The manual says to use detail level 17... However - you can select a large area, use a lower detail level, then zoom in and repeat at a higher detail level, and keep going until you have a number of overlays, gradually focussing at higher details on smaller areas. Load the overlays in CMANO from the furthest-out to the furthest-in, and they'll show on top of each other nicely. In my attached images, I used detail levels 10, 12, 15 and 17. When practising, I even made overlays from the entire UK down to a single neighbourhood!

3. If you need to, you can open the .pgw files with a text editor and change lines 5 and 6 to alter the longitude and latitude if, for some reason, your outputs don't match up.

So, thanks again to the CMANO team! Custom overlays are implemented brilliantly!


Pictures here (they're a touch dark - it's night in-game):

Imgur Album

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Tomcat84
Posts: 1952
Joined: Wed Jul 10, 2013 5:13 pm

RE: Custom Overlays are FANTASTIC and easy to use - thanks, devs!

Post by Tomcat84 »

If you follow the link in my signature and check out my tutorial "Multiple Blended Overlays in Command" it'll show you how to blend the multiple overlays into each other so you don't see the hard rectangular edges. [:)]

You'll get an effect like this:

Image
My Scenarios and Tutorials for Command

(Scenarios focus on air-warfare :) )
ColonelMolerat
Posts: 479
Joined: Wed Sep 23, 2015 10:36 am

RE: Custom Overlays are FANTASTIC and easy to use - thanks, devs!

Post by ColonelMolerat »

Yes! I've seen this video! I'm excited to try it myself once I'm more 'settled in' to CMANO. For now, I'm just impressed just how quick the 'quick and dirty' method can be. Your style looks much nicer though.
Dimitris
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RE: Custom Overlays are FANTASTIC and easy to use - thanks, devs!

Post by Dimitris »

You are very kind; thank you.
Vici Supreme
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Joined: Wed Dec 04, 2013 6:06 pm
Location: Southern Germany

RE: Custom Overlays are FANTASTIC and easy to use - thanks, devs!

Post by Vici Supreme »

Absolutly! The function to add custom overlays to a scenario is brilliant. Overall, overlays are awesome and add a lot of depth to any scenario. I even edited a few overlays using photoshop, adding tents, weather shelters, SAM sites, etc. to hypothetical locations.
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comsubpac
Posts: 115
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2014 4:53 pm

RE: Custom Overlays are FANTASTIC and easy to use - thanks, devs!

Post by comsubpac »

You could also take a look at this: http://baloogancampaign.com/2015/03/15/power-overlays/
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