Download Map Maker 0.9x

[rickier65]

Ran into a problem trying to zoom google earth view in (or out). I was in the Novorossic(sp) area.

I had earlier imported a height map in a pretty rugged mountainous area (trying to see if there were elev limits) and it displayed the heightmap data, but acted like it imported, but the height map was uniform grey.

So i moved to a more reasonable area and tried. thats when I got error. I'll close and try again.

error msg below.

I've had no startup errors and no >32 errors with lates build.

Rick
EDIT : I closed MM and restarted. I was able to duplicate the error below in different location (NE of Novorosik.). Same error msg.

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: Rick


Ran into a problem trying to zoom google earth view in (or out). I was in the Novorossic(sp) area.

I had earlier imported a height map in a pretty rugged mountainous area (trying to see if there were elev limits) and it displayed the heightmap data, but acted like it imported, but the height map was uniform grey.

So i moved to a more reasonable area and tried. thats when I got error. I'll close and try again.

error msg below.

I've had no startup errors and no >32 errors with lates build.

Rick

Rick,

That is a google map error. It has happened a few times to me as well. Simply click No and then click on one of the GM navigation buttons (left or right) and the problem fixes itself up.

Can't do much about that one as the issue is in googles code.

It seems to happen if you get very agressive with panning and zooming the map, but can be difficult to reproduce.

Regards

S.

P.S. You will be pleased to know that I have simplified and imporved the terrain import filter. It now takes only 2 options, Filter strength and Num of colors. The new version produces better much better processed terrain maps!

[rickier65]

Thanks.

I went back to Seelow area and zoomed in too far and also got same error message. It may be that the Servers are busy, when i first loaded it up this evening, I got a Servers are down message. But tried again and it came up.

I'll probably working in the height map controls a bit. I know I had earlier done quite a bit of zooming in too much but hand't run into this problem before. I'm working on the height map sculpting tools part, so Im am going in and out a bit.

I'll go back and check the Exhibit for terrain import as well! Thanks!

Thanks!
Rick

[Stridor]

Rick,

I did some more research into this error and it appears to be a new GM api error (ie on their end). To confirm to do this

open your regular web browser (I suspect this is only a problem for IE based browsers)and go to maps.google.com (ie google's main map page). Pick a sat map. Then pan over to somewhere remote (like the pacific ocean) and start zooming all the way in unitl you get the "sorry no imagery at this zoom level" now try and zoom in more and then zoom out. Notice how you will get an error (in the status bar) and then the map will be broken unitl you refresh. It is the same thing which is happening in MM. I don't remember this being a problem a few days ago!

I suspect google will fix it in short order, I have seen a few other posts about this online today.

Regards

S.

EDIT: I can confirm it only happens with IE based browsers (which MM uses). Safari and Firefox are unaffected.

[Stridor]

Added Geocoding to the google map interface so even if you don't know where something is exactly, if you type the name like:

"Kotelnikovo"

The map will zoom over to the location.

Might help find those obscure battlefields?

[invernomuto]

Hi,
I've finally successfully generated a basic map (just some trees and
roads) using the latest version of MM. I've imported the map from GE,
imported the heightmap and associated map colors (8) to the different
textures. Thanks Stridor for giving us this great tool.
There's one thing that I cannot understand.
How I generate the AI map from Map Maker? For example, how do I
associate light green to light forest?
Thanks in advance

[rickier65]

Invernomuto,

if you left click in the left control pane where there are no controls, and drag it up, you'll see a set of controls that will let you map from terrainmap to AI Map colors.

See pic below.

Rick

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: invernomuto

Hi,
I've finally successfully generated a basic map (just some trees and
roads) using the latest version of MM. I've imported the map from GE,
imported the heightmap and associated map colors (8) to the different
textures. Thanks Stridor for giving us this great tool.
There's one thing that I cannot understand.
How I generate the AI map from Map Maker? For example, how do I
associate light green to light forest?
Thanks in advance

Good stuff! Any chance we can see some screen shots?

Thanks Rick for answering the Q

Cheers

S.

[Stridor]

V1.0 RC is now out. See post #1 for details.

[junk2drive]

Dos Rick need any help with the manual? Proofreading?

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: junk2drive

Dos Rick need any help with the manual? Proofreading?

junk2drive,

emails sent

Thanks!
Rick

[Stridor]

Ok a few little tiny things are still bothering me with RC1. So there will be a RC2!

Hopefully I will get these new features in as well

1. Transparent water. You will be able to set the degree of transparency of the water
2. On the fly Texture modification. Similar to the skymap tiniting control (but better) this system will allow you to take a texture which you want to use, but is not quite ideal (eg too sharp, not sharp enough, too bright, too green, etc etc) and then change it in inside MM. MM will then make a new texture for you to use based of the "base" texture and the processing paramters you have set. I think this last change is important as it will allow an almost endless pallette of textures to chose from. No PCK map should ever look "same 'ol" ever again!

Regards

S.

[Stridor]

Ok RC2 now has transparent water and on the fly texture mods working well now.

You can adjust a texture sharpness or blur level, brightness, saturation and hue. So there is loads you can do with new system.

Check out the following SS.

These are from Ben's map:

The first is the default textures

[Stridor]

This one is with the textures desaturated and brightness turned up to give a winter effect. Note these are not new textures, rather on the fly processing to the original textures:

[Dean J]

Stridor,

That is really impressive work - and your turn-around time on the changes/additions is no less impressive.  You mentioned in an earlier post that, in the near future, you will have less time to devote to PCK.  Given the quality of your work, I hope that "near future" isn't too near.

-DJ

[Stridor]

Thanks Dean.

New RC2 is out. Full changelog included in post #1.

Many many thanks to Rick who has kindly included a draft copy of the MM manual for this build. It even includes an index.

Cheers Mate.

Regards

S.

[Mraah]

Stridor,

I'm running version 1RC2 ... It's great ... BUT, there's a big bug with the smoothing heightmap that I saw from previous versions.

Ok ... follow these steps ...

1. Start MM - has to be a cold start.
2. Find a location for your map, import the heightmap from google.
3. Import the terrain
4. Using "shift" scroll, scroll to view the heightmap
5. Press Smooth ... Here's the bug, it doesn't smooth properly.
6. Now, leave your project open, and LOAD the heightmap BMP from the DEMS folder ... it's the same heightmap.
7. Then, press the smooth button again ... You can see that it smooth out the map better, ie, making it 64x64 smoother pixels.

The smoothing bug only appears from a fresh start of MM ...

EDIT NOTE ... The only way I could get the smooth to work properly was to take the original 16x11 and resize it to 64x64 ... then after it took the 64x64 I was able to get newer 16x11 bmp's to smooth properly ... that is, smooth out where every pixel is changed.

EDIT NOTE 2 ... John, I can't get the smooth function to behave according to my procedure above ... basically, it doesn't want to smooth properly and I can't narrow it down.

Rob

[benpark]

After just a quick look -

I see that I left the "kiosk" and "ruins" thumbnails in but I had pulled the models. I can either re-include them, or we can delete the thumbnails from the MM folder.

There also seems to be two extra folders in the thumbnails folder: "German Houses Thumbnails" and "Urban and Factory Thumbnails".

[Mraah]

Stridor,

The SS below is an example of what I'm talking about (smoothing not working)...

The image on the left is the 16x11 that you see in MM ... The right image is the same image resized to 64x64.

Now, when I click smooth it doesn't change the smooth properly and it basically still looks like a 16x11. I did the smooth at least 10 times and it just did a little bit.

So, what I did was I loaded up the 64x64 that I did ... then, I reloaded the 16x11, and clicked smooth and MM smoothed the map out to make it look like my 64x64. After, that, I couldn't duplicate the problem ... it was still stuck looking like a 16x11 with a slight blur.

Does this make sense?

So, I was wondering ... Can't you just resize the 16x11 (or whatever dimensions get imported) to a 64x64 ?? I think it's suppose to do this on the first smooth click but it's not [:(].

Rob

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: benpark

After just a quick look -

I see that I left the "kiosk" and "ruins" thumbnails in but I had pulled the models. I can either re-include them, or we can delete the thumbnails from the MM folder.

There also seems to be two extra folders in the thumbnails folder: "German Houses Thumbnails" and "Urban and Factory Thumbnails".

ben I don't see ruins or kiosk in my map maker I don't think they got inlcluded.

Yes there is still German Houses and Urban and factory. Did you not want this?

I think RC3 needs a complete reorganization of the thumbnail dirs

Eg

Walls
Fences
Large Bld
Small Bld
Ruins

etc