Panzer War Miniature Rules

[KEYSTONE07950]

Recently downloaded the free Panzer War miniature rules. What a great system!!!!!!!!!!!![&o]
Having a great time. I already understand the command rules from playing Panzer Command.

Playing the miniature version has reminded me what a wonderful sim Panzer Command is. What can we do (aside from donating $1,000's to Matrix) to get more content?

[CarnageINC]

What is this mod you mentioned? I've never heard of it...you have a link for it?

[KEYSTONE07950]

It's not a mod. It's the original set of miniature rules that Panzer Command was based on.

[CarnageINC]

Oh...I see now....thanks [;)]

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: KEYSTONE07950

.......
Playing the miniature version has reminded me what a wonderful sim Panzer Command is. What can we do (aside from donating $1,000's to Matrix) to get more content?

I would have like to see more community content developed using the Map Maker and scenario Editor, but it didn't seem to happen. Part of the reason is that even after creating maps and scenarios, the file sizes were so large that there wasn't an easy centralized place to put them for distribution.

Rick

[Ratzki]

I found that I struggled some with the elevation using MMaker. I think that a terrain tile based system would have been great as well. Generating trees and grass and..., got to be a bit of a pain.

[KEYSTONE07950]

ORIGINAL: Ratzki

I found that I struggled some with the elevation using MMaker. I think that a terrain tile based system would have been great as well. Generating trees and grass and..., got to be a bit of a pain.

I agree. I was able to make new scenarios with the existing maps. Making maps was "too much work" for me.

[rickier65]

I can understand your comments, though I recall trying to make a map BEFORE Map Maker was written and I was totally lost. So I guess my perspective was slanted in that Map Maker made things relatively so much easier.

A tile based system would have been easier to use, but the PCO game doesn't use tile based terrain, so it didn't lend itself very well. There is also considerably more flexibility with the type of terrain mapping that is used.

But having said that, I can certainly appreciate that a simpler tile based system might have resulted in more users making maps.

Thanks
Rick

[Ratzki]

I did not make myself clear with the tile comment. I liked the non-tile terrain but would have been good with the MMaker program placing things like trees and grass and such. A genereric tile tree density would have been fine and would have saved alot of work. Just a bit tedious for me. Then there would have been a built in performance limiter stopping us from overloading the memory using too many trees ect. The trees could have just been a generic density and diversity. It could have cut out from this generic tree tile to infill the area specified, same for grass ect.
The other sore points were elevation and water. I got them to work but it required too much tinkering and fine tuning for me.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: Ratzki

I did not make myself clear with the tile comment. I liked the non-tile terrain but would have been good with the MMaker program placing things like trees and grass and such. A genereric tile tree density would have been fine and would have saved alot of work. Just a bit tedious for me. Then there would have been a built in performance limiter stopping us from overloading the memory using too many trees ect. The trees could have just been a generic density and diversity. It could have cut out from this generic tree tile to infill the area specified, same for grass ect.
The other sore points were elevation and water. I got them to work but it required too much tinkering and fine tuning for me.

Probably the hardest things for me were getting elevation for narrow gully type terrain. It would take a fair bit of trial and error for some terrain.

At one point we we created some Map Maker "templates". I'll have to see if they made it into the release. The "templates allowed you to create a map using specific map colors and then by applying the template, trees (with preset densities), shrubs, roads, and textures were created. The template didn't help with elevations, water or building structures, but it was an effort to save some time.

I'll have to see if those made it in.

Thanks
Rick

[Ratzki]

ORIGINAL: Rick

ORIGINAL: Ratzki

I did not make myself clear with the tile comment. I liked the non-tile terrain but would have been good with the MMaker program placing things like trees and grass and such. A genereric tile tree density would have been fine and would have saved alot of work. Just a bit tedious for me. Then there would have been a built in performance limiter stopping us from overloading the memory using too many trees ect. The trees could have just been a generic density and diversity. It could have cut out from this generic tree tile to infill the area specified, same for grass ect.
The other sore points were elevation and water. I got them to work but it required too much tinkering and fine tuning for me.

Probably the hardest things for me were getting elevation for narrow gully type terrain. It would take a fair bit of trial and error for some terrain.

At one point we we created some Map Maker "templates". I'll have to see if they made it into the release. The "templates allowed you to create a map using specific map colors and then by applying the template, trees (with preset densities), shrubs, roads, and textures were created. The template didn't help with elevations, water or building structures, but it was an effort to save some time.

I'll have to see if those made it in.

Thanks
Rick

That would have been an excellent addition. Some templates for terrain features would be great.
The elevation still requires way too much tinkering to make it enjoyable to do. Is there anywhere a greyscale template for the height where we could take the height map created by the MMaker and just paint in the grey colour with a paint program. Not every elevation increment would have to be represented in the template, just a a couple dozen would probably enable us to get by, as long as the height adjustment increments are equal. At the moment I do not know what gret shade represents what height and it just does not feel that intuative the way that it is now.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: Ratzki

....
That would have been an excellent addition. Some templates for terrain features would be great.
The elevation still requires way too much tinkering to make it enjoyable to do. Is there anywhere a greyscale template for the height where we could take the height map created by the MMaker and just paint in the grey colour with a paint program. Not every elevation increment would have to be represented in the template, just a a couple dozen would probably enable us to get by, as long as the height adjustment increments are equal. At the moment I do not know what gret shade represents what height and it just does not feel that intuative the way that it is now.

I hadn't even thought about using a template for grayscale heightmap. Let me do some checking, maybe I can put together a grayscale template for elev. I'm not sure though. I'll check and see what I can do.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Rick

[Mobius]

I on most of the my maps I made my own grayscale maps. (Granted I made them before Stridor coded the grayscale part of Mapmaker.)
I start with the 1000x1000 color map then make a grayscale from it. That way the terrain will line up with the elevation. Then I make a 65x65 grayscale map from the 1000x1000 grayscale.

[Ratzki]

How course is the height map generated by google earth? It always seemed to make little sense on my maps. I would have to smooth it out several times in order to get anything that was usable, but by that time it did not even look close to what was originally generated.

[Mobius]

The one in Google Earth is pretty good, if you mean by moving the mouse over the map and seeing what is shown at bottom of the page. Though to me it looks like it may be something like 10m off if you try to match objects like river beds.
The one generated by MM is accurate to height but it makes squares of the height zones. Even by blurring. I have to use a paint program to round off the squares to make it more natural.

[Ratzki]

Ok, I thought that something along those lines was happening but was not sure. So, do we know what size MMaker makes those squares? Not important if you do not know off hand. Just wondering. I am gonna load up the editor when I get the chamce and see how mamny separate grey shades are available for use. Unless someone knows off the top of his head.

[Mobius]

There are 256 shades of gray.
The height map is from SRTM data. Non-US is something like 90m resolution. But it is different at latitudes than longitudes.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: Ratzki

.....

That would have been an excellent addition. Some templates for terrain features would be great.
The elevation still requires way too much tinkering to make it enjoyable to do. Is there anywhere a greyscale template for the height where we could take the height map created by the MMaker and just paint in the grey colour with a paint program. Not every elevation increment would have to be represented in the template, just a a couple dozen would probably enable us to get by, as long as the height adjustment increments are equal. At the moment I do not know what gret shade represents what height and it just does not feel that intuative the way that it is now.

I've done some more checking and the summertemplaterr1 did make it into the final release. I've rechecked to make sure it still works.

Some abbreviated instructions can be found in the media folder under the summertemplaterr1 folder. There is a file named terrainmap.bmp. You can look at it in a paint program. OR just load up the summertemplaterr1 map into Map Maker and you can read the instructions there. I've also attached a copy of it here. You can create your own templates as well.

There are more detailed instructions in Appendix A of the Map Maker Guide in the Manuals folder.

I'll look into how or if a similar approach could be used to create a Heightmap template.

Thanks
Rick

[Ratzki]

I have been playing around with the heightmap images that you get using the SRTM 4.1 image in google earth. I can grab the google earth image and zoom down to about 304m view level. This gives me on my screen a close to 1000x1000m map. If I use the "google earth start location" I will be pinned in this view. I can then printscreen the image and then generate the colour SRTM 4.1 height map as well with another print screen. Once trimmed square and placed on separate layers in paint.net on a 1000x1000 canvas I am in business. Paint.net allows me to greyscale the height layer. The issue that I have at the moment is that it is very small differences in the grey scale from low point to high point. Even when viewed in coloour I cannot for the most part see too much difference in shading. Still playing around to see what I can do with the height map. Back at work for the next couple days so limited play time.
Thanks for the colour template.
Oh, just FYI, I am getting a API key needs to be fixed in the Mmaker. I found my way around it but not that straight forward, should others have the same issue.

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Ratzki
The issue that I have at the moment is that it is very small differences in the grey scale from low point to high point. Even when viewed in coloour I cannot for the most part see too much difference in shading.

In MM you can set the upper and lower elevations to the shades available so that it produces much larger variation in heights.
Or, you can adjust brightness/contrast to extend the ranges of gray in the height image.