Dear ed -not sure where to put this, but it's a
tip for assisting in the painting of new maps.
Thanks to you great modders, and Oleg, & his wonderful Il2, I've had [almost] free entertainment, for
years!!
I'd like to give you all something back - but I'm an old coot not good at computers.
I have been working on a map to share - but dont hold your breath!
The map building has been tremendous fun too, because I'm just as keen on geography as I am on
aviation.
Anyway, by way of thanks to you all:
here's an idea I came up with to assist in map making.
Thanks to KevinP, the author of" Map buiding for beginners" whose terrific "Il2 Map Builder" I use.
[Google his great tutorial].
You will need to know how to use this map builder, and have it running on your PC.
Warning: I am not using KevinP's latest version, and I'm not sure if the new version of Il2 map maker
will accommodate, or need, these tips. But all of you map makers will know!]
The main problem I find in map making is adding the texture tiles to the new map - a lot of work!!!
When painting within the 3-D map, it's not at all easy to see the height contours - and so I came up
with this:
a) Find any image of parallel black & white lines [or draw your own if you like] then convert it to a
standard TGA texture tile for Il2 [eg 512x512]. Let's say we call this "stripesH.tga" ["h" is for
horizontal, in my case]. Load this file in your /Tex/&&&&&/summer [or winter] folder, of Il2 map
maker.
b) Say you are painting a section of a new map, which is generally flattish, but with scattered hills
or mountains here & there. You will already have at least one texture covering the whole map - eg the
texture in slot "LowLand1" for example, where you may have an image file called "plains1.tga", as
indicated in your load.ini file.
c) Say you want to paint a new texture - lets call it "hill.tga", which might be in your load.ini as
"Mount1". You will want to put this wherever there is any topographical prominence, above the
flattish remainder of the map. But you dont want to put it anywhere else!
Here's how I do this:
d) have the new map available in both your game version of Il2, and your "Il2 map builder" version.
Make a back up copy of the load.ini file in "Il2 Map builder"only.
e) In Il2 Map builder: replace the load.ini with a new version of it, where the Lowland1 slot says
"stripesH.tga", instead of "plains1.tga".
f) Open "Il2 map builder" and load your map. Zoom in to the area of interest, until you can see the
actual texture tiles. Everything should look like black & white parallel lines
g) By varying the zoom slghtly, you should notice that, at certain zoom settings, the parallel lines
start to distort, but mostly where the map is not flat.
h) If you pick the right zoom level [and there is usually more than one], you can maximise this
effect.
This all happens because the spaces between the lines of "stripesH" [at some zoom settings] are "in
phase" with the lines of data whereby your computer composes the screen image. Critically, though,
this effect varies not only with the zoom, but with the altitude variation across your map! So,
through a sort of stroboscopic effect, you can effectively draw contour lines across the map.
i) you are now ready to paint some texture. Choose the hill.tga tile in Mount1, and just paint over
the distorted bits of your parallel lines image. [Be careful though - this wont work consistently
across the whole screen at once. I generally set it up correctly for the top right hand corner of the
screen, and do all my tile painting in that section. Dont try to paint the whole screen in any one
sitting]
j) When you've painted all the hills, save the files for new version, and exit map maker.
Load the new files into your current game version of Il2, and try flying over the new re-paint.
[Note: Do NOT load the altered load.ini from map-builder into your acitve Il2 game. In your Il2 game
version, you will have a different load.ini for this map, which has "plains1" for Lowland1, and
"hill.tga" for Mount1. It wont include any mention of "stripesH"].
k) you should see the hills texture nicely placed wherever there's a bump in the landscape, and the
rest of the map will be covered with the plains1 texture. Repeat the process for other geographical
features, eg flat uplands, cliffs etc. In map builder, your temporary load.ini file can have, as a
default, every texture slot filled with stripesH if you like - then just replace one two with real
texture file names, as you need to paint them.
problems:
1 this process works best for maps that have large flat bits interpersed with contrasting steep bits.
it does not work well for maps composed of endless rolling hills - because you cant work out what is
up & what is down!
2 while painting, you will often need to readjust the zoom level, as you move across the map. This is
because even the "flat" areas will change altitude occasionally.
3 the stripes used can be horizontal or vertical, I suspect. but I use horizontal.
4 not sure if the new version of Il2 map maker will accommodate this - sorry.
let me know if you have any other problems.
with thanks to all you wonderful modders, & Oleg.
Viva Il2 !!!
happy mapping, FF
[Ed: if this is old hat, please delete]
Author
Topic: MapWorx layout. (Read 12568 times)
