HandDrawn Map by Strannik v2.x

[Strannik]

28 Jan 2010

This is it. As most of you know Magna Mundi has leveled up and it's becoming a stand alone game to be released on 2011. As part of the developing team much of my time is going to be devoted to it. Because of this I will not be able to provide much in terms of support. Nevetheless I will be checking the thread from time to time.

Thanks a lot to everyone for their feedback and their love. I never thought I would end up being a developer myself.

The MM map is coming out really very well. Having access to the engine and working with a superb design studio makes a whole world of difference. Soon you will se screenshots so stay tuned.


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HandDrawn Map by Strannik v2.3
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I made this map based on hand drawn fantasy maps. The main features are the integration of the terrain textures with the political map and easy customization.

NOTES FOR MODDERS:
This mod compatible with maps of any size. Version 2.3 has the addition of ornamental lakes, perpetual snow and low-res oceanic features. Check the section 'Adapting to Other Mods'.



NOTE FOR PLAYERS:
- If the map makes you game crash and you already tried erasing the 'cache' folders (see 'Installation' section) please repeat the crash and right after it post the contents of the 'system_error.log' file located inside the 'EUIII\logs' folder.
- If the map appears white it when using the version 2.21 it may be a problem with the pixelshader 2.0b. You may have to use version 2.12 instead.
- If you want to merge this mod with other mods see the section 'Merging with other mods'.


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Features
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2.0

- Integration of terrain textures into the political map.
- Customizable country border color.
- Customizable ocean region color.
- Customizable land and water map brightness.
- Customizable terrain color palette.
- New ocean texture.
- Terrain palette and brightness tweaking.

2.01

- Fixed coast misprint (thanks to Pishtaco for his help).

2.02

- Fixed missing font character.
- Added no borders option to the land.

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2.1

- Changed the desert texture.
- Changed the farmland texture.
- Resized the steppes texture.

2.11

- Removed green space between Hills and Desert.
- Added the marsh terrain texture again.

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2.2

- Added two more terrain textures to the political map: jungles and desert. I order to do it I switched a pixel shader to 2.0b. I will still support version 2.11 in case that change causes trouble for some people.


2.21 and 2.12

- Made the mod compatible with maps of any size (thanks to Cabezaestufa for his help).
- Improved the behavior of the canvas texture with zoom (thanks to Pishtaco for his help).
- Added the option of having no province borders while having country borders.
- Fixed the interaction of the sea borders with the Fog of War.
- Fixed some issues with the no sea borders option.
- Reduced the density of the desert texture.
- Made the jungle texture a little stronger in the political map
- Reworked the canvas texture to make it seamless and added some minor features(from TOT) to make it more interesting.
- Reduced the sizes of most textures and colormaps (hopefully it will improve performance).
- Fixed a problem between with the marsh texture and winter.
- Removed terrain and topology .bmp to increase compatibility with other mods and solve multiplayer issues.

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2.3 (for HttT)

- Clean coastlines
- Posibility to introduce ornamental lakes
- Posibility to introduce perpetual snow
- Posibility to introduce low-res oceanic imprints

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Installation
-------------

- Copy .Rar file to the Mod directory and unpack.
- Run River_fix.bat inside the 'Extras\' folder. This makes a backup of the vanilla 'river.fx' and copies the moded file into the vanilla folder. Without this the rivers will not be as nice. Don't run the bat file more than once or you will overwrite the first backup with the modded file effectively loosing the original file.
- Setup optional features (see the Optional Features section below)
- Erase the 'cache' folder in both the vanilla and mod's \map\ folder. If you are using windows vista and installed your game in the 'c:\program files' folder you may have to go to the 'C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Paradox Interactive' folder, look for the map subfolder and delete the 'cache' folder.
- From the game launching menu choose the HandDrawn Map mod.
- Inside the game turn off trees and advanced water.


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Adapting to other mods
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- Re-Generate the files '/map/terrain/colormap.dds' and '/map/terrain/colormap_water.dds' (see below)
- If your map has a different size than the vanilla one you will need to change it's aspect ratio in the file 'river.fx'. Just edit it and change the value at the very top. I was not able to do it automatically, like with all the other files, so you may have to fiddle around with it. Just make sure you copy the file into the vanilla 'gfx\FX' folder (after making backups) or it will not work.

IMPORTANT:
- All coastline pixels on your "topology.bmp" must have the RGB value of (13,13,13). This will ensure a nice, clean and uniform coastline.

Making the Colormap.dds:

- Open your "terrain.bmp" and change the index table to the following:

- http://dl.dropbox.com/u/408446/Color...20to%20HDM.act

Paint the alpha channel with 50% gray RGB (128,128,128).

- If you want to place perpetual snow on the terrain map, on the alpha channel paint the corresponding area black RGB (0,0,0).

- If you want to add ornamental lakes, on the alpha channel paint the corresponding area white RGB(255,255,255) and the surrounding pixels light gray RGB(200,200,200). Make sure that the in the same place on "terrain.bmp" you have plains.

- Save as colormap.dds

Making the Colormap_water.dds:

- Open "terrain.bmp" and paint all land black and all water white.

- Copy the ornamental lakes you placed on "colormap.dds" (both the white RGB(255,255,255) and the surrounding pixels light in gray RGB(200,200,200))

- Paint the red channel with a solid black RGB (0,0,0)

- If you want to engrave an image on the ocean draw it on the red channel with white RGB (255,255,255) for the light blue and gray RGB (105,105,105) for dark blue.

- Save as colormap_water.dds

Take a look at the colormaps on MMP2 and you will clearly see what I mean.



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Vanilla fonts and rivers restoration
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If you installed the rivers and/or the font and want to go back to the original do the following steps:

- Download this file:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/408446/Vanilla_Restore.rar

- Unrar into the vanilla folder overwriting everything.


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Optional Features
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New Font:

- If you want to install the font, run AM_Map_Font_Install.bat inside the 'Extras\' folder. This will backup the vanilla font files "tahoma_60.dds" and "tahoma_60.fnt" and copy the modded files into the vanilla folders. Don't run the bat file more than once or you will overwrite the first backup with the modded file effectively loosing the original files.

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Other customization instructions:

Besides the font all other customization is done by editing three files inside the 'gfx/FX' mod folder, they are: 'terrain_2_0.fx', 'borders_2_0.fx' and 'water.fx'. Just open them with any text editor.

There are two things you need to do to customize:

- Commenting and uncommenting lines. To comment add two slashes '//' at the beginning of the lines. To uncomment remove the two slashes '//' at the beginning of the lines.

- Playing with RGB triplets. Directx defines color using triplets of the form (R,G,B) where each value goes between 0.0 and 1.0. The correspondence with regular picture editor is 0.0 -> 0 and 1.0 -> 255. Just divide picture editor values over 255 and you will have the numbers you need to input in the directx files (.fx)

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Terrain color palettes:

- There are two other palettes available if you want. Just edit the file "terrain_2_0.fx" inside the "\gfx\FX" folder of the mod. You can find them inside the function "float4 PixelShader_Map2_0( VS_OUTPUT v ) : COLOR". The one called "OLD PALETTE" has darker colors specially green. And there is also the "TOT PALETTE". To switch between them comment the one currently uncommented and uncomment the one you want to use. You can also set up your own one by defining the first three values for each terrain. They are the RGB triplets. The forth one leave with the value '1.0'.


Additional Palettes:

I will post here links to palettes that other people have done:

- Palettes by Cortes_R


Country Borders:

- You can change the country borders to any color you want by editing the file "terrain_2_0.fx" inside the "gfx\FX" folder of the mod. Look for the function "float4 PixelShader_Map2_0_Border( VS_OUTPUT v ) : COLOR" and inside it you will find two predefined colors, red and blue, and the, country borders only option and the no borders option. Uncomment the one you want to use and comment the rest. If you want to set your own color just play with the RGB triplet.

Ocean Borders:

- You can change the ocean borders to any color you want by editing the file "borders_2_0.fx" inside the "gfx\FX" folder of the mod. Look for the function "float4 PixelShader_ProvinceBorder( VS_OUTPUT v ) : COLOR" and inside it you will find three predefined options, light blue, black and no borders. Uncomment the one you want to use and comment the rest. If you want to set your own color just play with the RGB triplet.

Land and Water brightness:

- You can change how dark or bright the land and the ocean are going to be by editing the files 'terrain_2_0.fx' and 'water.fx' respectively. Look at the very beginning of the files and you will see the definition '#define LIGHTFACTOR'. By changing the value you will change the brightness. The highest the value the brighter the land or ocean. The values in the files are independent so you can set land and ocean brightness independently.


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Remarks
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- There is a different version for Magna Mundi Platinum here:

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...d.php?t=385077
ll not make the game crash.

- For the previous major release including a changelog look here:

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...d.php?t=384100


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Acknowledgments
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- Thanks to all people that has given me feedback.
- Thanks to Pishtaco for helping me fix the sea misprint on the coasts and the moire patterns.
- Thanks to Cabezaestufa for helping me make the map compatible with maps of any size.
- Thanks to Cortes_R for sharing his palettes.
- Thanks for Ancestral for adapting it to Mac!
- Thanks to Aldriq for helping everyone in my absence and doing an initial port to HttT


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Download
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- HDM 2.3 for HttT
- HDM 2.21 for IN
- HDM 2.21 for IN Mac Version
- HDM 2.12 for 1.3 and NA

In case you have trouble running version 2.21 (for example a white map) you can download this other version:

- HDM 2.12 for IN

However, version 2.12 will NOT have neither desert nor jungle textures in the political map.

The reason is that the pixelshader 2.0 only allows for 64 logical operations and in order for me to incorporate this two additional textures I had to switch to pixelshader 2.0b

If all else fails you may want to use version 2.11:

- HDM 2.11 for IN

If you want to upgrade it to 2.21 or if you have 2.21 and want to downgrade to 2.12 here are the corresponding files (both are only for IN):

- Upgrade HDM v2.12 to v2.21.

- Downgrade HDM v2.21 to v2.12.


Instructions

- Unrar into the main MMP mod folder and overwrite all.

WARNING: Be careful not to unpack into the main EUIII folder or you will overwrite the original files.


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Screenshots
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Terrain Map




Political Map




Winter




Coniferous and Deciduous Forests




Plains, Steppes, Farmland and Hills




Jungles, Mountains, Hills and Plails




Desert, Hills and Plains




Customizable Country Borders
(red/black/blue)



(only country borders/no borders)




Customizable Ocean Borders
(no borders/ black/ light blue)

[Haftetavenscrap]

Fantastic! Who knew you could improve on perfection?

[Capibara]

It's just magnificient! Too bad I can't try it right now

[Pishtaco]

I'm glad that other people are finally working on these things.

I can't help but notice, though, that you have zig-zaggy coastlines.

If you're feeling generous, you might have a look at this thread: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...d.php?t=327504

[Strannik]

I'm glad that other people are finally working on these things.

Pishtaco! what an honor!! You are an inspiration to us all!


EDIT: I'm not sure I get the point. What do you mean by feeling generous? Also, about the borders. Do you have any suggestion as to how to make them better?

[Tunch Khan]

This is just getting better and better. Thanks for the great work. [crossfingers] I know the amount it takes for you to work pixel by pixel, but I keep my hopes up for a readjusted Aegean and Anatolian coastline in the near future.[/crossfingers]

[Strannik]

This is just getting better and better. Thanks for the great work. [crossfingers] I know the amount it takes for you to work pixel by pixel, but I keep my hopes up for a readjusted Aegean and Anatolian coastline in the near future.[/crossfingers]

Actually Autonomous told me he is working on a topological map based on real data. If it works well I will use it and modify the terrain map so that mountains and hills will match better reality. Hang on and pray Autonomous delivers

[Pishtaco]

Also, about the borders. Do you have any suggestion as to how to make them better?

I mean the landward side of the coastlines. Wherever there's a concave bit, you have a sharp, blue-ish corner sticking into the land. It looks like a pixel of sea from the underlying grid is showing over the land. I think it could be three things:
1) There are two shaders for the land (in each mode), one for most of the land, and one called "beach" (or something like that) which colours precisely these bits in corners by the sea. Are you colouring both of these the same?
2) I put in code to simulate messy printing, so that in some places the dark blue strip of sea along the coastlines overlapped the land a little bit, to make the coastlines look more interesting. Maybe some change to the way the dds files are coloured and used has made these overlaps bigger and more regular?
3) Some strange change in the way you are sampling the dds files (- okay, it probably isn't this).

[Gigalocus]

Beautiful!

Will the game run with better performence, due to the (Spectacular) less 3d graphics?

[Strannik]

Beautiful!

Will the game run with better performence, due to the (Spectacular) less 3d graphics?

I'm not entirely sure since EUIII runs slow in my computer anyway, but some people have claimed it does (at least compared with vanilla for sure). Someone compared it's performance with TOT 1.2b. However I would expect it to be a little worse now that I put the textures in the political map.

[gigau]

Fantastic

and thanks for making the colormap dds file for MEIOU

[Duke of Wellington]

Wow, a beautiful mod. Thanks!

[Steezus]

Awesome work. I like the blue country borders a lot more than red or black. How did you and Pishtaco learn how to do all of this?

[Fijj]

This mod is just downright hott!

Those terrian maps look absoluty amazing!

[The Wookiee]

This is amazing, especially the terrain. Downloading right now!

[Strannik]

Awesome work. I like the blue country borders a lot more than red or black. How did you and Pishtaco learn how to do all of this?

Steezus, I can tell you about myself. I'm very good at programing and did a fair amount of code staring at the work of Pishtaco while comparing it with the vanilla version. Then it was a matter of playing around and doing a serious amount of thinking in order to incorporate terrain into the political map.


Everyone, I'm super happy you liked it. I'm very proud of it!


Now thanks to Pishtaco's advice I was able to fix the last thing that was bothering me which was the coast misprint.

On the top: Before.
On the Bottom: After




If you already downloaded version 2.0, the only file you need to download is THIS ONE (terrain_2_0.fx). Just overwrite the one in the 'gfx/FX' mod folder.

[Strannik]

A fine update, but I would mention that your choice of font (whilst pleasant) doesn't seem to include several characters.

For example, check out the Île-de-France - it has no hyphens!

Thanks for letting me know! I will revise that right now!

EDIT: Font Fixed. Thanks a lot!! You can download it HERE

I also added the no borders options that looks like this:

[juvefan]

When you say:
"- If used without its "terrain.bmp" will produce only small color inconsistencies but nothing major."

That means I can keep the default terrain.bmp and topology.bmp and have little to no problems at all, or must I use your topology.bmp?

Also, since I already installed 2.01, I can just overwrite the tahoma_60.* files with the new ones, right?

And one last thing: Great Map!

[Strannik]

When you say:
"- If used without its "terrain.bmp" will produce only small color inconsistencies but nothing major."

That means I can keep the default terrain.bmp and topology.bmp and have little to no problems at all, or must I use your topology.bmp?

Also, since I already installed 2.01, I can just overwrite the tahoma_60.* files with the new ones, right?

And one last thing: Great Map!

Hey juvefan, I'm glad you liked it! If you keep the IN vanilla terrain.bmp and topology.bmp it will work fine.

As for the font the answer is yes. Look the post above for the link to downloading it.

[Mohatma]

Ooohhhh... this mod is the best of graphic mods! Thank you!