Map Maker Beta ...

[Erik Rutins]

Agreed, that really looks great - and entirely made by the MM, wow.

[Stridor]

Yes 100% pure MM (+ MS Paint for the AI map) (and very little work).

SceneEdit is only used as a map viewer now.

[benpark]

Stridor, how easy is it to add new items to the different selection menus (such as trees and models)?

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: benpark

Stridor, how easy is it to add new items to the different selection menus (such as trees and models)?

It is not much work

There are 3 "things" you can add:

1. New textures
2. New Autogen trees
3. New Structures (models)


To add a new texture

1. Make your texture
2. Save it under you own directory in the Media/Mods folder
3. Write a reference.xml which links to it (or if you have several textures you can write one reference.xml which links to them all
4. Save a small (256x256) thumbnail of your texture(s) in the Map Maker/Textures folder
Done

Now the MM can use that ground or mask or wate or wall texture in any maps you make or distribute

To add a new "Autogen" tree (or brush)

1. Make a tree
2. Save it under you own directory in the Media/Mods folder
3. Write a reference.xml which links to it (or if you have several trees you can write one reference.xml which links to them all
4. Save a small (256x256) thumbnail of your tree in the Map Maker/Vegitation folder
Done

Now the MM can use that tree in any maps you make or distribute

To add a new "Structure"

Basically as above, but save your thumbnail in Map Map/Structure/...
If you want to do some extra work you can make a little .msz (compressed MS3D file) file from your model and then it will show up in MM and you can interact with it in 3D, but this step is optional.

A tree model thumbnail can be placed in both the /Vegitation folder (in which case the MM can use it for autogen) and or in the /Structures... folder (in which case the user can place the tree by hand on the map and its position will stay put)

I hope this helps. In summary it is pretty easy, make your model, stick it in Mods write a little one line xml link and save a thumbnail of its image to Map Maker and you are done.

Regards

S.

[Stridor]

The latest Map Maker Beta 0.8a has been posted and hopefully everyone has got their download link. If I have missed anyone please let me know.

Please also read the Readme doc file which comes with the distro as it will explain most things.

Warning it is big ~ 100MB

It is still beta and new stuff is still being added, but I thought now would be a good time to post.

Enjoy

S.

[benpark]

Good news!

As soon as I finish my 8 hour pork smoking marathon, I'll grab it.

[RyanCrierie]

Getting this error:

[Mraah]

Error here too .... same .

If clicking YES to the dialog box it seems to hang on "Exporting Masks and Labels".

We wouldn't, by chance, need ImageMagick installed ... ?

Rob

EDIT NOTE : By the way, they have a new version ... 07/28/2008 12:45AM ... ImageMagick-6.4.2-5

[benpark]

Never mind, fixed my issue (using ActiveX Manager, was not able to load one of the .ocx files properly, but can now).

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: benpark

Never mind, fixed my issue (using ActiveX Manager, was not able to load one of the .ocx files properly, but can now).

Ben,

You getting any of these error's like Ryan and me?

[Stridor]

That is why I need you guys for beta testers [;)]

Have a look in your Editor directory make sure you have the files convert.exe and composite.exe in that directory. Try running them at the cmd line to make sure they work. They should.

The problem seems that they are not running on your rigs and I don't know why.

Also don't even try to load an old map (0.3a) it will probably break things. Will need to start from scratch.

I will test it in a virtual machine to see if there are any probs.


Failing that you could try installing ImageMagick and see if that helps, but you should't need to.

Cheers

S

[Stridor]

I can confirm the problem has somthing to do with IM not installed.

You can get it from here

http://www.imagemagick.org/download/binaries/ImageMagick-6.4.2-5-Q16-windows-static.exe

This is a free under gpl software.

The final MM version won't need this, obviously there is some reg setting or somthing I have missed which I will add in for the final release.

So if you want to play with the MM today get the link above ortherwise wait until I figure out exactly what it is that IM wants set in the reg and I will fix it for the next release.

Regards

S.

[Mraah]

EDIT ----

Ok, actually I'll wait for you to fix it because if I install IM (and the final of MM won't need IM) then it might "mask"[;)] more problems later on.

Just in case though, I did d/l it ... but I'll wait for the moment.

By the way, from Ryan's screenshot it appears he didn't name his textures/structures using the Name ... We still need to do this ... right?

Thanks!

Rob

[Stridor]

Actually I think I have fixed the problem and will get an update out to you guys in the next few hours.

Thanks for your patience at this time.

Regards

S

[Stridor]

Ok a new hotfix v0.8b of the MM can be found at the bottom of Post #1 of this thread.

This seems to have fixed the problems people have been having.

[RyanCrierie]

Trying it out and it does generate a map; but doesn't generate the layers.

Looking at it, there seems to be a bug with the layers where the color you select with the eyedropper doesn't remain in memory when you select another layer...

[benpark]

I'm seeing the same issue with the color picker as Ryan if I go back to try to change the color selection. Is the order meant to be to select the color before hitting the check selection to save it? That seems to "stick" the color selection with the texture.

EDIT- If you select the color with the picker before the save, it seems to save it.

It's working for me, this one built in 61 seconds. This is an amazing tool. Thanks for all of the hard work.

Now I've got to see how I do with adding structures.

[benpark]

Two questions:

What does the "normalize" setting do to the model?

What is the building capacity code- floors/capacity or capacity/floors?

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: RyanCrierie

Trying it out and it does generate a map; but doesn't generate the layers.

Looking at it, there seems to be a bug with the layers where the color you select with the eyedropper doesn't remain in memory when you select another layer...

After you select a change to a layer or structure or tree etc you need to press the little tick button to confirm the update

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: benpark

It's working for me, this one built in 61 seconds. This is an amazing tool. Thanks for all of the hard work.

Now I've got to see how I do with adding structures.

Thanks Ben