Scenario Design 101 - Art of War #3 Map Making Part Two

AlvinS · Post by **AlvinS** » Fri Apr 20, 2001 2:54 am

Thanks Wild Bill

I thought I was losing my mind. I even saved all of my games and re-loaded version 4.5 just in case I had messed something up during many hours of use.

I am looking forward to the mega campaign. Can't wait to play in the sand.

TheZel66 · Post by **TheZel66** » Fri Apr 20, 2001 1:53 pm

Originally posted by Wild Bill:

Zel, run your cursor over the map and to the hex where you have placed the hill and the wall. It should tell you the height. Let me know what it says.

WB, I tried placing the cursor over a hex, but no info shows up. Is there another button I need to press first, or is something configured wrong? Using SPWAW 4.5, I think upgraded from 4.1 or 4.3(??)

bchapman · Post by **bchapman** » Fri Apr 20, 2001 4:24 pm

Wild Bill,
Could you send me a copy of the small map too. I'm having the same trouble as AlvinS, getting a 39 X 99 map.

Maybe you could post it on a site and we could download it?
Thanks,
Bascom

ectizen · Post by **ectizen** » Fri Apr 20, 2001 6:16 pm

My "small" map is also 100x40.

I thought that shrinking it to half the size was to be a future lesson.

DoubleDeuce · Post by **DoubleDeuce** » Fri Apr 20, 2001 6:40 pm

The smaller maps WB is talking about were either in one of the earlier version or available for download from TGN's website (cannot remember for sure, was a while ago). I still have them (most of them) and use them frequently especially the 30x30 one. I am using this size template to make an 8x8 grid (64 maps total!)for a tourney I am doing. This will make it about a 12km sqaure operational map.

Using Fred's SPWAW Map Editor and the map editor in SPWAW the possibilities for map design are limitless. Only thing missing is being taught how to use them. Ooops!

I guess with these tutorials by WB we have all the tools we will ever need.

AlvinS · Post by **AlvinS** » Fri Apr 20, 2001 7:37 pm

To anyone who still needs the small map, let me know and I will email it as soon as I get home. Should be about 4:00 to 4:30 pm central time.

bchapman · Post by **bchapman** » Fri Apr 20, 2001 8:06 pm

Alvin,
If you don't mind, send me one please. I guess I should be enthusiastic enough to go ahead and work on the larger one, but I haven't caught up on my sleep yet.

Thanks,
Bascom

Banjo · Post by **Banjo** » Fri Apr 20, 2001 11:58 pm

Hello all,

While waiting anxiously for 5.0, I have been dabbling more off than on with the lessons on scenario design. While searching through the different wargaming sites I found some real good maps from the Utah beach landings.
www.army.mil/cmh-pg/BOOKS

Look for the Utah to Cherbourg book, great maps and all the details you could want.Now to the main point.

A few months ago, I downloaded a freeware program from another wargame site that's called HEXGRID. This is a simple program that prints a sizable hexgrid over a picture file. I forget where I downloaded it from, and time is limited for now to find the website.

After printing out a copy of a map from the Utah to Cherborg site, I scaled the size of the map to get the size from left to right. Then after running the hexgrid program, loaded the map into it, entered the size in km or miles. Next enter the size hexes you want, 50 meters for SPWAW, and presto!! A to scale map. Of course, lots of details still need to be worked on since that is only the begining of the process, but looking at my 3 or 4 maps of the same area using different maps, they seem to work out to be REAL CLOSE to each other. More than enough for sceario design.

Using this along with photographs of the area, firsthand accounts, and such, scenario design is looming greater on my horizon. It was a real eye opener when I looked at how different the Same map used in the Utah to the Rhine of Ste.Mer-Eglise, and the ones generated the way I mentioned look. Which brings up another topic that I know will be covered soon in these lessons. Accuracy of maps,oobs, etc. The beauty of this game system and the better crew that brings it to us is that it keeps on growing. I can't wait to see this game concept ten years from now. Remember playing pong and then seeing space invaders. Look how far things have come. I hope that when I get done rambling here, the 5.0 will be up and ready to download. Since my order for the cd went out weeks ago, I'm gettting real antsy to play the new version.

I will try to find the whereabouts of the Hexgrid program. As it's friday evening, and the beginning of the weekend, my free time is limited if I want to keep my girlfriend. I will try to figure out how to post views of my SPWAW map creations using this method when I get one finished. As far as I know, that part still has to be done manually through the editor.

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Sat Apr 21, 2001 12:45 am

Thanks Alvin for doing this for me, and to you Banjo. Yes, I'd be interested in seeing that hexgrid program.

New Lesson, final one in mapmaking coming Monday. Be ready. Get that map done so you are up to date for the new stuff...

Wild Bill

ectizen · Post by **ectizen** » Sat Apr 21, 2001 4:48 am

I've finished my map, and cut it down to size.

Here's a quick way to reduce the size of a map, for the very adventurous out there:

[ Note that this is probably a dangerous and stupid thing to do, and should not be attempted by anyone who doesn't feel completely comfortable using a hex editor to change binary files, or understand this warning or these instructions! Seriously. And backup before trying this... ]

Still reading? Wow, I'm impressed - you are brave! Here we go:

Load the pzmapXXX.dat in your binary editor. I won't tell you what I use - if you don't have a suitable editor already, you're out of your depth! Stop reading this!
To reduce the width, search for the hex sequence 26 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00. The byte following this sequence is the width. Change it to suit your needs. Note: increasing this value will probably yield strange maps. Exceeding a decimal value of 100 should not be done - it may cause much pain and horrible consequences!
To reduce the height, search for the hex sequence 27 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00. The byte following this sequence is the height. Change it to suit your needs. Note: increasing this value will probably yield strange maps. Exceeding a decimal value of 240 should not be done - it may cause much pain and horrible consequences!
Save your pzmapXXX.dat.
[/list=a] That's all there is to it! Pretty simple, if you know what you're doing. If you don't know exactly what you're doing, don't even think about trying this.

Note 1: The reduced map will be the upper left corner of the original map.

Note 2: Backup any data you don't want to lose before attempting this procedure.

Note 3: If you try this, you are a fool. I did, and I freeely admit my foolishness. If anything goes wrong, it's your problem, not mine. Did I mention that you should backup first?

Hmm... I wonder if anyone read this far

[edited 'cause it didn't have enough warnings...]

[ April 20, 2001: Message edited by: ectizen ]

Don · Post by **Don** » Sat Apr 21, 2001 12:51 pm

Um, what is a binary editor?

ruxius · Post by **ruxius** » Sat Apr 21, 2001 1:20 pm

Very Good programmer Ectizen..now please tell us which is that binary editor..
Your crazyness is only a superior skill

And you know that foolishness is always contagious
Is that program : the WAWEDitor/TOOLS/DUMB FILE section that you used to do that ?
I suppose it goes deep into the binary structure of the saved game file..but now I am still too a novice to understand it at all..maybe later..I am trying to study
Chlanda magic power...
Maybe working directly with bytes will let me finally set NONE weapons like I need..

Don Doom · Post by **Don Doom** » Sat Apr 21, 2001 2:24 pm

I quess I do my mays the old fashion way, by using Fred's wawmap editor. You can make any size map you can think of. I am hopeing someone could tell me how to post maps to forum, oe how they add those banners to their signature.
Keep up the good Classes Mr Wild Bill. Have been reading the lessions faithfully. But do to a prior commitment to Matrix I do not have the time to do the lessions. I have used psrts of the lessions in what I am doing.
Keep up the Good Work.

ectizen · Post by **ectizen** » Sat Apr 21, 2001 7:57 pm

Don: A binary editor is something that allows you to edit any kind of file.

Normally, you'd use a program designed specifically to handle certain types of files. For example, to work with Microsoft .DOC files, you'd typically use either Word or Wordpad. Similarly, to work with SP:WAW .DAT files, you use something like SP:WAW, WAWMap or SpWaWEd. These programs work by taking the raw data in the files, interpretting it and presenting it in such a way that the user can manipulate it without having to know how it's stored. These programs can only handle their own files - Wordpad can't display SP:WAW maps, and WAWMap can't edit Word documents.

A binary editor is different, because it allows you to edit any file. It doesn't try to decode the contents of the file, it simply displays it as it's stored - a great big list of numbers. If you know how the numbers are arranged and what they mean, you can change them. And this is why it can be dangerous to use these things: even if you don't know what anything means, you can still change it. If you change the wrong number you can damage the data, making it unusable. For exmaple, you could change the width of a map to 170 - SP:WAW wouldn't expect this (the maximum width is 100), and might say that the file is corrupt, or might even try to use it and thus cause a blue screen.

Hopefully I've shown that if you know what you're doing, this can be quick and easy, but if you don't, you really shouldn't try it.

ruxius: The editor I use is called "XVI32". This isn't a SP:WAW tool - it's a general purpose utility. There are many different binary editors, I just happen to like this one. You can get it from here. But if you do try this, backup first. And read the help to find out how to search for things and change them. And backup first.

Don Doom: Yeah, I tried WAWMap but couldn't figure it out easily, so I resorted to the method I knew would work - using hard-earned knowledge from the development of Map Thing

To add pictures to your messages, you'll need to put them on a web server, and add something like the following to your posts:

[ img]http://www.dondoom.server.com/yourdirectory/picture.jpg[/img ]

Note that the [ img] and [/img ] don't actually contain spaces (they were needed to stop the forum from trying to display the picture).

Note also that if you use a free web hosting service (like Geocities) they may not let you do this.

BruceAZ · Post by **BruceAZ** » Sat Apr 21, 2001 8:32 pm

I guess I will go down to Triple AAA and get my map editor... They have a sale on new Binary Models for those that are technically challenged.... :rolleyes:

RockinHarry · Post by **RockinHarry** » Sat Apr 21, 2001 9:24 pm

Hey,..as Don says, changing map size in Freds WaWMap Ed is easiest!

Open inspection window, type map size in "size" field, press "retain" button...done.

To see the changes, save the map and reload it.....

BTW: Don´t confuse with the offset! A 40x60 map (or whatever) is shown as 39x59...it simply starts with 0, not with 1!

_________
Harry

ectizen · Post by **ectizen** » Sat Apr 21, 2001 11:46 pm

Ahh... so that was my problem! I didn't realise you had to save and reload to see the changes.

That does seem pretty easy!

ruxius · Post by **ruxius** » Sun Apr 22, 2001 1:03 am

Thanks Ectizen , this thread is one of the most advanced..I will look at that binary editor..the problem will be only that you should recognize from number showed their possible meaning and what's more you have also to pay attention to some range limits..I understand a triple backup is necessary ..have you got any scheme about SPWAW files ? and because I see you very prepared I would ask one thing more..where can I found a screen capture which works with SPWAW ? I have looked for some one in www.tucows.com page but that one I downloaded is active only when
the application bar is visible..

ectizen · Post by **ectizen** » Sun Apr 22, 2001 1:28 am

I've recently started compiling some documention on the file format, based on my discoveries, and some other info. I'll make it available when it contains enough to be useful. At the moment, the only useful info in it has been covered in the above messages.

A utility for screen capturing? I'm afraid I wouldn't have a clue. Mine was done with a digital camera

Don · Post by **Don** » Sun Apr 22, 2001 2:36 am

Ruxius,

Go to www.hypersnap.com and look in the downloads section for version 3. They offer free licenses - it will work without the license but you get a big hypersnap logo in every capture. This program is easy to use, and also works on DVD capture.