Your Style Maps

[Thomm]

Rick,

Thank you very much, this is most interesting!

I think I am beginning to grasp what is possible here.

Best regards,
Thomm

[general_solomon]

I cant believe how easy you guys have made to create maps. especially cc maps. like someone else said before, i often wondered how a cc map would look in 3d. with this new mm its a reality.

the reason the cc community is still around is becuase it was possible for people to add their own maps and campaigns.

I am no artist but would love to see some convert a couple cc maps for us to play.

[HintJ]

ORIGINAL: Rick

ORIGINAL: Thomm

..Could you please just throw that texture on a map with random elevations?

I am just curious what this looks like, because so far I recall seeing only generic textures generated from "solid" color bitmaps.

In other words: I still don't get it!

Best regards,
Thomm

Thomm, I used an existing map and just laid the texture over it. The texture quality isn't what you'd want to use since i downloaded the screenshot resized it to 1000 x 1000 then converted to a dds. ideally you'd do all of your texturing work with some high fidelity source, then convert to dds as last step.

but in about 10 minutes I did this.

Thanks
Rick

Thanks Rick! And yes, that resolution is definitely not the resolution that should be used for the base ground texture. Perhaps a 1000x1000 (or more) pixel texture for a 500Mx500M map.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: HintJ

Thanks Rick! And yes, that resolution is definitely not the resolution that should be used for the base ground texture. Perhaps a 1000x1000 (or more) pixel texture for a 500Mx500M map.

I think at one point the megatexture.pngs that are generated for source editing and the final dds for use are 4096x4096 pixels.

Thanks
rick

[HintJ]

I've got an idea for texturing:

What about taking a normal PC map megatexture, loading it in Paint.net, reducing it to a greyscale (black and white), lightening it up so that only a faint outline of the textures shows, and then printing it (in whole or in sections).

Then I would get out my awesome set of crayons, color the map, rescan the map (in whole or in sections), and then reassemble the map for use in-game?

In fact, couldn't I do this for any texture? Hmmm . . . . or for any game that allows texture mods?

[junk2drive]

I'll point out something about the CC map. To give the illusion of 3D, the designer made the hills/ridges light colour on one side and darker on the other to make it seem like the sun is shining on the light side and shadowed on the other. While messing with programs that turn these types of graphics into DEMs to make grayscale bmps to create terrain elevations, I found that you get peaks with the light side and valleys with the dark side. So don't think that you can grayscale your map and make the terrain bmp for PCO MM. You can however start with a plain gray terrain with your map over it and use the sculpting tools to raise the hills and sink the river.

[HintJ]

I understand what you are saying, but I'm just talking about coloring a greyscale image of the map w/crayons--not necessarily a CC map, but any map or texture.

[junk2drive]

Yeah I understand. It was just something that came to mind from before that I never posted about.

Also there is a graphic with the "official" colours to use for terrain with the rgb numbers. It is in the MM guide. I think that you can use other colours too but Rick is best to ask about that. Might make your crayon job conversion easier, maybe not.

MM uses 8 bit colour. Maybe Rick can explain that.

[Thomm]

ORIGINAL: junk2drive

I'll point out something about the CC map. To give the illusion of 3D, the designer made the hills/ridges light colour on one side and darker on the other to make it seem like the sun is shining on the light side and shadowed on the other. While messing with programs that turn these types of graphics into DEMs to make grayscale bmps to create terrain elevations, I found that you get peaks with the light side and valleys with the dark side. So don't think that you can grayscale your map and make the terrain bmp for PCO MM. You can however start with a plain gray terrain with your map over it and use the sculpting tools to raise the hills and sink the river.

The elevation data of any CC map is easily available in a text file.

One can directly create a greyscale height map from this data.

The same is true for the terrain tile type data, which is also stored in a text file and just has to be translated to a bitmap with different colors.

Best regards,
Thomm

[junk2drive]

Thomm, where the heck is your post with the link to your 3D terrain? Did I dream it?

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: Thomm
........One can directly create a greyscale height map from this data.
Best regards,
Thomm

If thats the case, then it would be easy to import. MM also has a couple of date fields for setting elev. So that if you have a greyscale height map, and know the elev (either actual or relative) of two points on the map, MM will scale the terrain based on these two greyscale values elev input for these two points.

thanks
rick

[Thomm]

ORIGINAL: junk2drive

Thomm, where the heck is your post with the link to your 3D terrain? Did I dream it?

It is still on page one.

http://www.fortunecity.com/olympia/simpson/870/

While the Fortunecity webpage is tedious to read, the images show that the necessary information (elevation, terrain type) is accessible.

Best regards,
Thomm

[Thomm]

By the way, below you can find the overview maps I did for CC5:



Those were a GREAT gaming aid, as they could be substituted for the original overview maps and contained all "internal" data of the maps!

Best regards,
Thomm

[Thomm]

Compare the CC4 renderings:



Best regards,
Thomm

[junk2drive]

Thomm if you can do that I'd say that you have the concept of DEM and map making down very well. You should have a blast with the Map Maker in PCO.

[Mad Russian]

Anyone with the kinds of skill you have Thomm will find MM to their great satisfaction!

It was created for mere mortals not for those of you that don't walk on the ground like the rest of us....[&o]

Good Hunting.

MR

[dazoline II]

Now I know why any troops or tanks in that roundabout in the southwest always got plastered, its got LOS to so much of the map. It was never apparent to me in CC how much it was exposed.

[HintJ]

ORIGINAL: Thomm


The elevation data of any CC map is easily available in a text file.

One can directly create a greyscale height map from this data.

The same is true for the terrain tile type data, which is also stored in a text file and just has to be translated to a bitmap with different colors.

Best regards,
Thomm

I think I found the text files in the map folder. Also are .bgm .los .mmm and a few others for each map. Just wondering, are any of these files the actual map graphic that can be easily converted into a .png?

[Thomm]

ORIGINAL: HintJ

I think I found the text files in the map folder. Also are .bgm .los .mmm and a few others for each map. Just wondering, are any of these files the actual map graphic that can be easily converted into a .png?

I am ashamed to admit that I never dealt with the terrain texture. I recall that there was a program for extracting/re-packing it from one of the files, but I never used it.

Best regards,
Thomm

[HintJ]

Hey Thomm, I found an interesting program written by CplFilth called "CCMold."

From the readme:

"You can also extract an elevation image from a cc map.txt file.

Syntax :
CCMold file.txt file.pgm [/s]

file.txt map file to read elevation from

file.pgm grayscale image filename

/s optional, causes elevation
values to be scaled so that the
highest value found will be
assigned as white. Makes small
elevation changes more pronounced."

*edit--another program called Texturemaker3 extracts the .bgm into a TGA file of the map.