MAP making tutorial

[ProdigyofMilitaryPride]

As one that's interested in Armored Brigade, is there any alternative to the Earth Explorer? As it seems to be suffering from this...

The requested service is temporarily unavailable. It is either overloaded or under maintenance. Please try later.

EDIT: Nevermind, it was only temporary!

[tebeinteresno]

ORIGINAL: cmb20

Is there any other way of converting the .tif file to bmp when I put it in command prompt after convertheight.exe im getting another error saying 'Error: Input file not found'

I think any modern graphic editor can be used to convert tiff to bmp.
Photoshop or Gimp for example
if you stuck so hard then send me the tiff I can convert it to you.

[tebeinteresno]

When I try to export the osm as image some parts of rivers turn into squares, obscure buildings and look allround stupid. It is fixed when I lower the dpi but then buildings outside of towns and smaller roads are not in the final image. I also tried to export it through option A but then it straight up doesn't work. I fill in all the information but when I press OK nothing happens.

When I compared the pictures I got they are very much blurrier than the image you helped another user make. The text is more pixelated but I set the quality as high as I could so I have no idea what could be causing this.

I would love to get some help because I am very interested in making this map!

maybe use satellite images?
in fact, for the preview image, I rendered a fairly large image of the sector and then reduced the resolution in a graphics editor.

It seems to me that the problem is that when you render a picture in a projection different from the Mercator, the picture tries to adjust to the desired projection and you can get a pretty crooked picture. If you render a little bigger image and then reduce the resolution, then it seems to me that this distortion will go away.

[Mr9million]

maybe use satellite images?
in fact, for the preview image, I rendered a fairly large image of the sector and then reduced the resolution in a graphics editor.

It seems to me that the problem is that when you render a picture in a projection different from the Mercator, the picture tries to adjust to the desired projection and you can get a pretty crooked picture. If you render a little bigger image and then reduce the resolution, then it seems to me that this distortion will go away.

Thank you! After a little break from trying to make this map, I have been able to properly export a preview image. The problem I am having now is that when I load the preview into the game and try to open it with the editor the game crashes. I tried to lower the resolution using the preview from South-east Finland map. But this removes most of the detail and cities just look like a grey mess. (The preview is a OSM map. Exactly like you did in the tutorial.)

Do you know how to resolve this? I am sorry if I sound needy but I am not experienced with computer programs and what error messages mean etc.

Also, how does it work actually creating the new map with all the files. What I have done currently is that I copied the South-east Finland folder, changed the names and the paths in the map.xml file, took the terrain.bmp into a image editor and made it blank and of course I changed the preview.png, preview_small.png and height.bmp into my images. How do I change the locations.xml, lights.png and info.png? Can I do it in the game editor or do I have to do it by hand? Is there a simpler way to create blank files?

Thanks in advance, I know this is a lot of questions!

[blaa]

The map for scenarios is limited to 15x15 km, which is also not the limit and everything depends on the power of the computer (on my relatively powerful computer I was able to run the scenario in the size of 27x27 km until the game crashed at biggest size).

How can we unlock the map size?

[Af1352pasha]

What is the relation between preview.png and preview_small.png in the game?

I am busy to make a new map but I faced a white box in the map screen! I change all dimensions in both files and all possible solution but it did not disappear.

I faced this problem recently and maybe after new patch installation ( before this problem did not happened).

Is there any comments or solution?

Check the attached picture.

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: Af1352pasha

What is the relation between preview.png and preview_small.png in the game?

I am busy to make a new map but I faced a white box in the map screen! I change all dimensions in both files and all possible solution but it did not disappear.

I faced this problem recently and maybe after new patch installation ( before this problem did not happened).

Is there any comments or solution?

Check the attached picture.

preview_small.png is used in that screen when you see the text 'left-click to select the location'. As you can see in your screenshot, the roads look very distorted if you use a high-resolution image here, so it's better to use a smaller image. After you've selected the location and see the 'right-click to zoom' text the high-resolution preview.png is used instead.

About the white box: info.png is rendered on top of preview_small.png. Perhaps you have something wrong in the info.png?

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: Mr9million

Also, how does it work actually creating the new map with all the files. What I have done currently is that I copied the South-east Finland folder, changed the names and the paths in the map.xml file, took the terrain.bmp into a image editor and made it blank and of course I changed the preview.png, preview_small.png and height.bmp into my images. How do I change the locations.xml, lights.png and info.png? Can I do it in the game editor or do I have to do it by hand? Is there a simpler way to create blank files?

Our map designer is quite busy these days, and I'm not familiar with the tools he's using, but I can say that the locations in locations.xml can be added in the in-game map editor.

In the 'Blank Map' thread I posted a blank map for those who are starting with map making.

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: blaa

The map for scenarios is limited to 15x15 km, which is also not the limit and everything depends on the power of the computer (on my relatively powerful computer I was able to run the scenario in the size of 27x27 km until the game crashed at biggest size).

How can we unlock the map size?

This was an experiment in an ancient pre-alpha build.

[Af1352pasha]

Thanks,

yes your comment is helpful My info.png lost its transparency! now my problem solved.
Hope to publish L5928 Hassfurt Germany map soon.

[qsmiron]

Hello, I have three questions.
First I can't access the map editor despite editing the development.cfg file. - this work [&o]
Second
How to create a locations.xml file. Can the data be imported into a file from some database?
Three
Do terrain.bmp must be done manually. Is it possible to speed up the creation of this file.[

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: qsmiron

How to create a locations.xml file. Can the data be imported into a file from some database?

I think our map designer copy+pasted every location name manually in the editor.

Do terrain.bmp must be done manually. Is it possible to speed up the creation of this file.[

So far we haven't found a way to automate the cleanup process. The official maps have taken a massive amount of work. It would be awesome if someone could come up with a technique that speeds up map making. The only way to do it may be making maps that are more generic, using map 'assets' as the building blocks.

[qsmiron]

Hellow

thank you reply.
And you can implement at least two tools like Free Selection (Lasso) or Color Picker to speed up the work: D

Regards
P.S This is a great game I love in it

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: qsmiron

And you can implement at least two tools like Free Selection (Lasso) or Color Picker to speed up the work: D

You mean for copy+pasting areas? That could be useful. Of course it's possible to use any image editor for more sophisticated editing features.

The mouse right-click picks a color.

[jakemyork]

Hey so I've successfully loaded in a map file and everything has gone fine - except that the majority of the map is labelled as impassable terrain. There is coastline in the map so I'm wondering, is it because the coastline is such a lower altitude to the rest of the map (between 600 and 1600 m altitude)? Is there a way to compress the altitude of a map to make it usable in the game? Or is there a way to override the impassable terrain logic in the game?

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: jakemyork

Hey so I've successfully loaded in a map file and everything has gone fine - except that the majority of the map is labelled as impassable terrain. There is coastline in the map so I'm wondering, is it because the coastline is such a lower altitude to the rest of the map (between 600 and 1600 m altitude)? Is there a way to compress the altitude of a map to make it usable in the game? Or is there a way to override the impassable terrain logic in the game?

It's not possible to override it. Perhaps we can add the .xml option in a patch.

Having low elevation in one part of the map should not make the other areas impassable. 1000 meter elevation difference sounds very mountainous to me, but I would need to see the map to know more.

[jakemyork]

I've attached the map and the heightmap in a zip. Some advice on how to go forwards would be great!

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: jakemyork

I've attached the map and the heightmap in a zip. Some advice on how to go forwards would be great!

Is there a part in the tutorial where you'd need help?

In the tutorial section '2) using software' is mentioned the convertheight.exe tool. You can use it to compress the elevation data.

[dobrodukh]

The author of the guide to this editor does not want to write it in Russian?

[Perturabo]

Is there any other way to get the SRTM data? Registration on the Earth Explorer site doesn't work for me and the SRTM downloader plugin seems to be broken.