Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Phoenix9491]

I am new to the site and to mapping for Il-2 and I have a map all layed out in my mind (probably complicated to boot as well as it seems most of my imagined maps tend to be) and not a clue where to begin (I have already downloaded almost all of the tools, and will be soon getting to work on implementing them). The complications arise (probable complications really....I've been reading through these forums for hours and while I've seen most of the elements hit upon, my elements seem to add pieces that aren't talked about) in some of the elements I'd like to incorporate: The map being made up of 2 larger islands with several smaller, steep landscape with a large canyon for tight flying and several very high peaks with pleateus on the sides for tricky ground attack missions, multi runway airfields with the runways being at different angles from each other (3-4 runways....maybe more), atleast one largish town/city divided by a river, one of the airfields accompanied by a naval base with fence surrounding both, a significant ocean around the islands, enough for some good carrier strike missions or convoy assault, possibility of cliffs, or atleast hills that end in the water?......for now that covers the rough basics.....and I apologize as well if this post is in the wrong location


**************************************************

Well most of those features have been done, I am attaching the current progress of the map, see page 3 for ingame screens

[vpmedia]

The best way to start is to modify an existing map (you got couple stock online maps which have the same features as your project):

Step.1 get the sfs extractor
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,16581.0.html

Step.2 extract the map you want to modify

Step.3 place the extracted files into your #DBW folder
(example: #DBW\#_MAPMODS\maps\Balaton\)

Step.4 modify the tga files with Photoshop and the map_c tool:
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,33463.0.html

Step.5 unlock your fmb and do the map populating and texturing there
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,19764.msg213817.html#msg213817

[Phoenix9491]

Thanks, I hope to have my idea forming soon!

[SAS~Boomer]

and I apologize as well if this post is in the wrong location

not that big of deal,if it was in the wrong place being new and all
one thing though,try not to start two threads on the same subject 

https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,34498.msg372476.html#msg372476

[Phoenix9491]

The tutorial by Kevinp actually uses satellite data of an island off the coast of Australia, however, I have thought of a possible way to make at least the greyscale from scratch using the level editor of battlefield 1942....the height map of the map can be saved as a 24bit greyscale with black being lowest and white highest terrain...I hope to test it tomorrow unless someone else has already tried this?

[SAS~Boomer]

No,have yet to hear anyone try that
interesting though,let us know how you make out

[Phoenix9491]

Will do, luckily my schedule is completely clear tomorrow so I shall have lots of time to test....and I have a lot of started projects for bf1942 to test as well

Also, how much distance is too much? I have tossed around the idea of adding the extreme northern part of England into the map....atleast enough for Wick airbase (which I am not sure could hold heavies, but the regiment that was based there did fly several)...but have enough distance to the island that its not too close....the location I had selected before was approximately 700miles north east of the northern tip of England (I am also a bit of a writer and started a story based around a secret nazi special projects base on an island in the middle of the North Sea)....If I'm not mistaken, there is a large island NE of the tip of England still that I could put a bomber field on that was approx. 200 miles closer i think?....I dont have google earth in front of me so I can't look right this second, but still, how far is too far?

[agracier]

how far is too far?

The smaller the are of a first map, the easier it will be. Start by getting the dimensions of the smallest map necessary. This would be map_t  and map_h. Then set an approximate size and do the math h x l. For a map 200 pixels by 300 pixels - not very large - you'll end up with 60 000 pixels to set.

So first off, see if you can work in the editor you're talking about and set 60 000 odd pixels to the correct heights by hand. Even if it has larger brush sizes, it will still be a daunting task and moreover, certain terrain configurations cannot be made unless you set pixel by pixel correctly ...

That is usually why most maps are made by using satellite DEM data ... the rgb values of the pixels are generated by a program to approximate the layout of the land ... so much easier to start from there.

The first time I calculated the number of pixels in a map I was flabbergasted. Luckily, I never did it until a map or two ago when I started painting in terrain slot values by hand with a 1 pixel brush ...

[Phoenix9491]

You can edit the terrain by manipulating one point at a time, which I have done for small areas before, but never the entire map. I have a couple of maps I have made before with the editor and I'm going to give it a shot and try to make them into Il-2......however if a majority of the map of water, does that simplify things any?

Ive been looking around at other maps and some of the satellite data and I've found some areas that look close to some of the features I'd like to incorporate, only trick would be to get them together in one map and seamlessly together.....more I've thought about it, I may end up doing something along the lines of the Solomon Island chain, just not quite as large....not sure yet....my imagination seems to always do this, start adding on so many details that the hard task becomes a hundred times harder >.>

[agracier]

You can edit the terrain by manipulating one point at a time, which I have done for small areas before, but never the entire map. I have a couple of maps I have made before with the editor and I'm going to give it a shot and try to make them into Il-2......however if a majority of the map of water, does that simplify things any?

Ive been looking around at other maps and some of the satellite data and I've found some areas that look close to some of the features I'd like to incorporate, only trick would be to get them together in one map and seamlessly together.....more I've thought about it, I may end up doing something along the lines of the Solomon Island chain, just not quite as large....not sure yet....my imagination seems to always do this, start adding on so many details that the hard task becomes a hundred times harder >.>

Having lots of water simplifies things vastly. Nothing as easy to make as islands in a vast surrounding ocean ... you can probably cut down the percentage of pixels that need to be edited to very low numbers, 10-15% of the area ... it all depends on the size of the islands you wish to make.

And of course you can combine islands from anywhere on the globe and create a new map with them, you just paste them onto an rgb 0 background which later becomes water ... you can also splice land areas together, but that needs to be done a bit more carefully in the lines where the spliced areas meet ... if you proceed that way, then either clone or soften/blur or rgb to target brushes become very handy ...

And even better is that a map essentially only needs a 256 rgb b/w/grey image to create from. Once you have that one basic image set up, then you can make map_h / map_t / map_f / map_c ... only the ed_m01 maps needs some fancying up with an overlay of some kind that gives a nice graphical look ... and it's here that splicing land areas becomes somewhat problematic since joining up map overlays may need color adjustments and very careful editing.

Pasting island overlays together on one map on the other hand is a piece of cake ...

I know that Kevin's map tutorial suggests that you make several maps with several elevation types that can later be combined together, but actually you only need to use the Sturmovik grayscale elevation and you're set to go with your basic map.

Also a very handy site to make ed_m01 maps from. This site features several types of overlays that you can use:
http://www.maps-for-free.com/

Zoom in on an area and then compare the different overlay types: relief/OSM/map/satellite/terrain ...lots of choice of styles and info ...

[Phoenix9491]

Yea, the coloring would get tricky there......is there a way to add color to the map from the greyscale? like an auto fill or something?

current snags though are that i need to get java for my main computer which unfortunately has no web access (grrrr)
and the maps already made for BF1942, the seafloor is 0 with the actual map starting a bit higher up, so I need to start something from scratch probably there

island sizes that I wish to make are atleast 3-4 fair sized ones, one fairly large one.....largest able to hold a medium sized town/city, air base (a BIG one good for heavies and such....see runway part below), naval base (with a couple simulated drydocks perhaps and enough dock space for several ships) with enough room between that its not crowded and some nice scenery to go with, the 3-4 slightly smaller ones, atleast a couple large enough for airfields and another medium sized town at a bit of a distance (to have possible missions where 2 sides occupy the chain, but arent being too close to each other) and the other largish islands being mostly for scenery and good approach points for low level convoy assaults, a few smaller islands that are pretty much just scenery.
as far as the BIG airbase is concerned.....is it possible to have longer than normal runways? I've noticed that pretty much all of the run ways in the game are approximately the same length, but was wondering if it was possible to put one in about twice as long.....I've noticed that heavily laden Ju-88s can take their sweet time in getting airborne

[Phoenix9491]

OK, so I have downloaded and installed Java on that computer and have now successfully completed the Manan tutorial (YAY!!!), so one speed bump out of the way just for another to arise. My plan to use the heightmaps from the editor of Bf1942 has hit a small snag in that they are saved in .raw format....well, gimp doesnt do that....I am 95% sure I have seen the heightmap as a picture before.....perhaps with photoshop? Going to have to dig that out from where ever its hiding and install that too (woohoo....)