Download Map Maker 0.9x

[benpark]

I've just made a horrrible scenario, but it was damned fun to play on a brand new map. The AI certainly took advantage of cover. My IS II quickly was zapped by this behemoth hiding behind the house.

As far as coding things like hedges go, I've done them as "fences", and they seem to work well after a few run throughs on this map. The infantry fighting seems much improved with more to hide behind.

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: benpark

That is a brilliant PCK screen shot!

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Stridor
P.S. I note a few other people outside of the PCK community are starting to take notice of what the PCK MM can do now [:D]. PCK has gone from having no map maker to having now perhaps one of the best in the business (for these type of games).

We may see others trying to at least get grayscale maps to put in their 3D games.

[benpark]

I'm doing a test on adding a river with a bridge. I think it might be a bit tough to get the MM to decipher where "water" is in most terrain images. The area I've selected is indecipherable from the shadow areas, even at higher color ranges.

Will the program "color" the AI map those areas that are showing as water in the height map? Or is this something that should best be done by hand?

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: benpark

I'm doing a test on adding a river with a bridge. I think it might be a bit tough to get the MM to decipher where "water" is in most terrain images. The area I've selected is indecipherable from the shadow areas, even at higher color ranges.

Will the program "color" the AI map those areas that are showing as water in the height map? Or is this something that should best be done by hand?

Ben.

At the moment 0.9x won't auto color water on the AI map but I think it is a great idea that it does (including the ability for it to autocolor deep and shallow water) and so have made it a top priority for the next MM build. It does increase computational complexity greatly (and map build time somewhat if you keep changing the water level - ie the HM levels) but I think it is well worth it. You shouldn't have to do this by hand I agree.

Thanks for the tip.

Regards

S.

[Stridor]

Any ideas at what depth you want deep vs shallow water?

[Stridor]

Ben,

I have coded it for you!

I have set deep water at 3m.

It adds 20-30 seconds extra to the map build time to draw the water levels on the AI map, but think of all the time it will save, not to mention it is far more accurate. It only redraws the water level if it needs to.

See the SS below for an example which was drawn by the MM

Regards

S.

[benpark]

[&o]

That is going to be a really good feature to have.

I was trying to think of how to figure that one out with doing layers in PSD. It would have required a screen shot in the MM, then layering with the terrain map...convoluted anyhow. This is great.

One thing I just thought of- If the water is on an area that is above sea level, will it still code the water at only 3> Meters? I ask because the map I was doing was such a case. If there is a way for the MM to "see" where the blue areas are in the height map (or by the number entered in the "water" field in the MM maybe?), that may be an ideal solution. If not, the heights could be reset around the MM water settings.

[rickier65]

Stridor,

Had another odd issue with starting MM. Very consistently when I first start MM, I get an error msg that IE can't open file.... (PzCMAm.hta - with path - see screenshot below) Usually, I only have to click ok, close the blank window then double click on shortcut again and MM starts up normally.

This morning it tooks about 5 tries. I checked the PzCMAm.hta properties tab and noticed that after trying 4 or 5 times this morning to start it, the last accessed time flag was still last nite. Which tells me that IE didn't open the file. So I imagine this problem is related to IE and not MM. Not a big deal, but thought I'd post here in case others have problem.

I don't recall having this issue prior to .9x however. For whatever it's worth (it may be that IE somehow knows that MM is going to turn around and initiate an ougoing web call - that's a red flag for some secturity monitors. I'll check some other settings as well).


Rick

[Stridor]

Ben,

Notice how there is now a new water level datum you can enter (which is near the height data entry points). You can set your water level to be non sea level now.

What the MM does in working out how to draw the water on the AI map is to check the depth of the land under the set water level.

If the water depth is < 3m then that is drawn as shallow water. If it is greater than 3 m then that gets drawn as deep water. At the moment the distinction is not user selectable (it is hard coded) but I guess it could be?

Rick,

Hmmm, I think maybe this is firing off because MM is attempting to acces google maps too early during init on some slower computers? It could just be a simple timing issue. I will try and see what might be causing it. If you can collect any more info on what is causing it that would help narrow it down.

Could you also try running PzCMAm.hta directly (not via a shortcut)

Regards

S.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: Stridor

Could you also try running PzCMAm.hta directly (not via a shortcut)

Regards

S.

Yes - tried that as well with same result. I suspect you're right on the timing issue. But not sure if there is anything to be done about it - but no big deal, as long as folks know to try the second time.

Rick

[Stridor]

Here is a new test version 0.9y

Hopefully it should:

1. Fix Rick's timing issue (if it doesn't I can increase the delay for the next build)
2. Add the ability to auto draw water for both the main map and the minimap (this turned out to be a big job in the end!)
This was a great idea of Ben's! No more neededing to specify water anymore (ie during the terrain import) as the correct water data will come with the height map import now! Thanks ben [&o]
3. Fix the other little bug Ben found if you try and import your terrain map with GM zoomed in too far
4. Slight improvement to build speed in some cases (note: drawing water adds ~ 20-30 seconds to the build time but is only done when it needs to be done)

To install just UNBLOCK the zip and unzip the PzCMAm.hta file into the PCK root and overwrite all existing files.

As with any new build:
1. It may not support older MM saved maps (in this case it does, but this is just a general disclaimer for the future)
2. If you do attempt to load and older MM version map into a later MM build, then please make sure your very first rebuild of the map is a forced rebuild (eg Hold down the shift key when you click the build button). This is to ensure all the map dependencies are brought up to date. If you don't do this your map may get out of sync, this normally corrects itself with future builds, but it is just best to avoid it all together with a total rebuild at the start. You only need to do this once and then only with a MM build change. Any map made with a single MM version won't need this as they will remain internally in sync during the building process. Mainting correct temporal and spacial dependencies is a huge part of what the MM now does. I invite you to take a look in the map media directory to see how much data the MM needs to keep track of and process for what appears to be just a simple map [:D]

Regards

S.

EDIT: OLDER 0.9y VERSION REMOVED NOW FOUND IN POST #1.

[Stridor]

WARNING:

The server which MM connected to, to serve up SRTM tiles is no longer responding.

I don't know if this is likely to be a short term or long term problem.

I will investigate other ways of getting the SRTM data.

Any SRTM tiles you have downloaded locally will still work fine.

Regards

S.

[Stridor]

I have found a way to get SRTMv4 tiles back again but it will require a small fix to MM.

Stand by.

[Stridor]

What we should do as a community is get as many SRTM tiles as possible, that way even if the servers do go down we can still make maps [;)]

Or perhaps Matrix could serve the tiles up as a more dependable source?

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Stridor
What we should do as a community is get as many SRTM tiles as possible, that way even if the servers do go down we can still make maps [;)]
Or perhaps Matrix could serve the tiles up as a more dependable source?

I'd be happy to do that. If we can get a complete set we can certainly host them here (or would it make sense to include them in the installation)?

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Stridor

I have found a way to get SRTMv4 tiles back again but it will require a small fix to MM.

Stand by.

Stridor,

I went here .... http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/ ....

Then went to the link from that website to the anonymous FTP site ... ftp://e0srp01u.ecs.nasa.gov/srtm/
Then went to version2 ... ftp://e0srp01u.ecs.nasa.gov/srtm/version2/

From there SRTM3 ... blah blah blah.

Does this help at all? The zip files are named differently.

Rob

EDIT NOTE .... Seems these version 2 ... not v4 [:(] ... Like there would be a difference?

[Stridor]

Yes there is a big difference.

SRTMv4 has much cleaner and fixed up DEM!

I have fixed the problem with the next build will allow you to enter the name of a server if the current one doesn't work anymore.

I know of at least 2 more (working) servers with SRTMv4 datasets. I am also pulling down a local copy with as much of eastern europe + USSR as I can so just in case there comes a time when no more servers exist, then at least I will be able to give Erik my local cache.

There are a total of 91 tiles which cover all possible WW2 battles we could ever be interested in ~ 3 GB of data. This is why I think that Matrix should get the data (I can tell Erik where and how to start stockpiling it) and then serve it up to all players as they need it. Or do people want a 4GB PCK install on their machines?

Regards

S.

[Stridor]

A New 0.9y version with user selectable servers + some other SRTM data validation improvements can be found in post #1 of this thread.

I suggest that we all start stockpiling DEM tiles to share amongst ourselves.

Regards

S.

[benpark]

Should we divide and conquer? I will try to get as much of Germany/Hungary as I can if that helps. I have lots of free HD space.

What is the download to the SRTMv4 that you are using? How are you knowing what you getting when you choose the files on the server?