MM RC3 observations

[rickier65]

Just had a little time to fire up Stridors MapMaker version 1.0 RC3.

I was especially interested in the random battle template builder.

Loaded in the newLudwigslust map (the one with the pond added), and went ahead and ran the template builder.

Some comments:

1. the Build template button doesnt have a tooltip pop up. No biggie, but I've gotten spoiled by this on the other controls in MapMaker.

2. After it creates a template, you can find the template in the proper directory along with other templates. This is a mixed blessing. It means that running the template builder and 2 mintues later you can start using your map in random battles! This is excellent. BUT, it also means that when you zip and and distribute your map, you better remember to zip up the template as well.

3. I didn't make any attempt to customize the map for use with the RBT maker, with respect to nameing places, so objectives were not necessarily where I would have placed. BUT when its finished making the template, you have the opportunity to open the template in the template editor. YOu can VERY easily move a few things about is you don't like them. I stress VERY easily. Save the template when you close the template editor and it's there.

4. I like that you get a warning mesage if you already have a template for your map, that gives you a chance to say no. I always like the oh S__T safety buttons that keep me from doing stupid things.

5. I went through and counted spome of the unit type locations - in first run, it came up with more than 40 infantry locations, and more than 30 tank locations. this is very nice.

6. I did notice that in this particular template, it only ended up with a couple of transportation locations. User will need to watch this as it can cause problems if you have more units to place than what you have places for on your template (both in random game generation, and in random campaign generation).

And finally, this thing will save hours of time on a map! If you've ever created a template yourself, you know how much time it takes, and by the time you're getting to the end, you tend to get sloppy about where you're putting things. This runs throught the process in minutes! And you can still go in and tweak it!

I know there were other features added to this version, but wanted to look at this one and get a feel for it.

I'm pretty happy with the results - I have to admit I was a little skeptical, but this tool will save hours of work! ANd if you want to fine tune it (like adding some additional transport locations - it makes it a snap!).

Good job! and Thanks!
Rick

[Stridor]

Rick glad you are enjoying it [:D]

Remember for best results, generate the template after a map build. As MM will then have precaculated the height normal data that the template generator uses to place things. If you don't do this then the template maker sees the world as flat.

6. I did notice that in this particular template, it only ended up with a couple of transportation locations. User will need to watch this as it can cause problems if you have more units to place than what you have places for on your template (both in random game generation, and in random campaign generation).

Actually this is not as big a problem as you might imagine as the RBG if pressed *can* use armour positions for transports if transport positions run dry.

Also if you are not happy with the results you can go and edit the RBTmaker.xml file and change the probabilities of units appearing.

Regards

S.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: Stridor

Actually this is not as big a problem as you might imagine as the RBG if pressed *can* use armour positions for transports if transport positions run dry.

Also if you are not happy with the results you can go and edit the RBTmaker.xml file and change the probabilities of units appearing.

Regards

S.

Of course, I'd forgotten that that it uses Armour positions as a backup. (I think I may be sensitive to this as I've had one or two messages now in the RBG that it can't place xxx platoon for one reason or anohter. But not too concerned as this is on my messing with the 3rd Pz Div battle plan that has way way too many units.

And yes, I I played with that a bit to make sure I could.

I'm close to finishing my base work on the 3rd Pz Division OOB and then I'm going to make soem more changes to the MM guide to reflect the new features.

Thanks again - this template builder is going to be a very useful tool!

Rick

[RyanCrierie]

How do you generate the template?

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: RyanCrierie

How do you generate the template?

To the right of the build button at bottom of screen is a comp screen button, simply click it.

Rick

[invernomuto]

Uhmm, looking for RC3, BUT:

PLEASE NOTE: Map Maker is no longer publically available.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: invernomuto

Uhmm, looking for RC3, BUT:

PLEASE NOTE: Map Maker is no longer publically available.

Drop Stridor a PM.

Rick

[rickier65]

Working a little more with RC3. SOme notes:

1. If you bring in a map created with an earlier version of MM, your texture and structure thumbnails will appear as little red 'x's. This is probably due to the directory changes done for MM RC3. If you hover your cursor over the thumbnail you will still get the thumbnail name. Using this name you can easily find your texture in it's new location using the browse button and thumbnail will appear.

You need to click on the checkmark to keep the association. And of course, you need to build your map in order to save your changes.

Rick

[rickier65]

Another item - question on MapMaker.

It appears from some playing with the strucute sink value is measured in game scale units rather than meters.

Could Stridor or someone confirm this?

Also, a suggestion, Stridor. If you tinker with the structure section where you place the water level structure, you currently report the x, y coordinates of the centroid. It would help if you also reported the z coordinate. (this way someone could easily calculate just what absolute height the water would be at). Which would help ease the terrain scultping.

Thanks,
Rick

[benpark]

I realized that 2 textures that I added need to be cleaned up. One is a forest texture that just looks odd, and the other is the "cobblestone" texture that I must have swapped by accident- the stones look too large.

I'll put the fixed textures up in a few days.

[benpark]

I've lost my GE image in the MM. I upgraded it, without thinking that it was going to delete the previous version (I'm thinking I'm using my Mac partition sometimes).

[rickier65]

Ben,

Did you try the F5 to refresh?

Which GE image are you referring to? I'm running the RC3 version and have both the startup GE image as well as the last ludwigslust image and map. ie I didn't loose anything as far as I can see.

thanks
Rick

[benpark]

The new GE (was beta) 5.0. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the older version, no good. I also reinstalled the MM, and no luck.

In the main MM screen I see this:

[rickier65]

Stridor,

IU've been going through the water plane structure so I could understand, and demonstrate the multi-water level feature.

Some comments you probably already know this, but so some others here who might try it also know.

When using the water structure, it may take a lot of playing with the sink control to get it just where you want it.

If you don't define the structure type as deep or shallow water, no water will be on the AI map (so it will be treated as whatever the underlying terrain is).

But -- if you do check structure type and set to shallow or deep, you have to choose one or the other ( though I suppose you could layer the two). BUT when the AI map is drawn, the AI map will show the entire defined rectangle as Water, not just the 'acutual' submerged part.

The minimpa will show no water.

You can work around these issues, by editing the AI map after EVERYTHING else is done. To do this I'd suggest NOT checking the structure type for water at all. You can take a top down screenshot in Scene edit and use that as a template to to cut the water area then create a layer with just that area coded water type and over lay on the AI map. But do this last, as any changes you make will mess this up!

All of this of course, assumes I didn't overlook something in MM that totally eliminates the need for this.

My thoughts are if you don't need multi-level water - stick with the simple WL designator in the upper part of control pane.

But the multi-water levels do give you some nice options; See the pond formed on the left side of the Road with the outlet channel on the downstream (right) side of the road. The lake level is around 3-5 meters higher than the stream water level.:

Thanks,
Rick

[Stridor]

Ben,

Very odd? Defn a GM issue. As Rick said try F5.

Rick,

I will check if sink is in game units or meters. I am pretty sure it is in meters (at work right now)

In terms of secondary water layers they proved difficult to implement in a purely automatic fashion. So they don't auto color (except as the entire rectangle as you have discovered) so you would still need to draw that in by hand.

Given that secondary water layers would only be needed very occasionally I didn' think it was worth the major programming effort required to fully automate them.

So bottom line is that yes you can do secondary water, you just need to do a bit of color work [;)]

I hope the rest of RC3 meets your approval.

Regards

S.

[rickier65]

So far I've been focussed on the Template builder (this is a great feature in RC3!), and thw water structure. I haven't looked at the structure cuts out terrain yet. It sounds like this needs specially designed structures, so I might see if Ben or Ryan can make one. I know Ryan had some foxholes, maybe he can edit one of them to work.

I'm writing a manual section on the water as structure procedure. Thats why the comments above. And I agree, I think it's use will be pretty rare, so I wouldn't spend any more programming time on it.

So RC3 looks good to me! (the template section alone is worth it). The new directory structure looks like it will simplify finding things too! (thanks Ben).

Thanks again!
Rick

[rickier65]

Stridor,

Hope you didnt spend too much time on checking on the sink value units. I did some more checking and they do apprear to be in meters.

What through me off was that the Water sructure top is off-set by 1.9 meters. So to bring get a specific WL elev using the structure, you need to take the desired WL elev, and subtract the (Ground Elev + 1.9). ie. ground elev at structure - 37, deisired Water level elev. = 41.5. THen sink value = 37+1.9 - 41.5 = -2.6. EDIT - No not consistently

I got the above by testing out various water structures (kept sinking in a known elev. until it disappeared) and then double checking with the GSU pointer in Scene Edit.

I'll use this 1.9 meter offset in the manual instructions.

EDIT OK - Tried to use this value in anohter area on same map, and found no offset at all. I'll have to recheck now.

Thanks again!

Rick

[Stridor]

Yeah Rick I checked and it should all be in meters not gsu. I don't see any offset, that doesn't mean that there isn't a bug which has it, just that I can't see it in the code. If one has an offset all should however.

Regards

S.

[Mraah]

Stridor,

I loaded up RC3 ... nice improvements ... but, I got some bugs ....

BUGS :

1. When first attemting to build a template it gave me the "> than 32 colors" when it was trying to build it. I checked the AI/Map color count, was 5. I closed MM and reloaded the map ... it was able to proceed with the template builder no problem. I don't know why but I do remember minimizing/maximizing MM earlier (when nothing was going on, ie no build in progress) so I'm wondering if something was lost or added during the min/max window changes.

2. When initializing MM and you're "offline" it will give you an error dialog ... occurs for both regular and HIRES mode. See attached screenshot below for the dialog window.

3. Ok, this next one is really bad ... To make a long story short ... Do not adjust the Water Structure position in the structure list !! During the "Exporting Map Placeable" build it will loop or hang on the convertEXE ... Bad enough that the only way to close the convertEXE is to shut down windows.

Ok ... now for the long story ... Here's what I did :

1. Load up an RC3 map that has structures.
2. Create a Water Structure.
3. Build the map.
4. After the build is done, reposition the water structure to the top of the list.
4. Create an autogen structure, ie trees or whatever. When you click the map to drop the location it will change the water structure icon to a building (note, it changed mine to a building but unsure what yours will show).
5. Now, everything seems normal ... Click to build the map ... Wait for it to get to the "Exporting Map Placeables". Sure, it takes a few minutes but in my experience with RC3 in shouldn't take 10 minutes [&:].

Now, for the good news (kinda) ... After rebooting, I was able to load that same map back in and reproduce the problem.
What I'm going to do is see if moving the water structure back to the last position helps ... but frankly I dunno.

I'll PM you my map.

TEMPLATE BUILDER :

Now that the bug report is done ... I have something to say about the Template builder ... Nice feature [:)] ... but (you knew I was going to say this) I have some comments and a suggestion.

Comment - Your default MIN setting for tanks and transports should be 10 and 5 respectively. This is the default for Pck vanilla template but I don't know if Pck will hiccup if it cann't fill a 10 tank platoon in a <10 slot ... or, if Pck will find another platoon to continue placement. In either case, it will either break or split up the 10 tank platoon across the board. I dunno ... I just figured this should be default. Not a big deal, I made my own change in the XML.

Suggestion - The objective flags don't seem to autogenerate ... The only flag it built was the one I made it build by giving it a unique name. Any thoughts about creating "canned" or default objectives? There should be ~ 30-40 objectives to give the full effect. I have an idea that will position 49 default flags using random/default names if you want to hear it ... but I'll wait for your comments [;)].

Thanks for your time and work!!

As always ... much appreciate ya !!

Rob

EDIT NOTE : ... Water bug ... I can't PM you the map because it's too big ... I'll email you the map. Further testing show'd that repositioning the water structure had no effect. However, during the build process I noticed that it does the "Exporting Map Placeables" twice, one before "drawing map" and after ... it's the second time (after drawing map) that it hangs in convertEXE.

EDIT NOTE # 2 : ... SS below regarding offline ...

[benpark]

Has anyone else gotten the MM to work with the new beta version of GE? I tried rolling it back, installing the old version and nothing works to get the GE map to show in the main screen.