Creating a custom map

[Grell74]

Ah thanks

Grell, how did u get such nice terrain textures? did you paint the map manually (with a program?) and then saved it as the colormap.dds as a base leaving the atlas0.dds empty so it wouldn't show terrain textures but rather ur colormap instead?

and...ur mountains, I don't suppose those are actually real with heightmaps, are they painted on the map?

Yes exactly, its a hand drawn map upon which I cranked the contrast up and used as colormap.dds. The terrain file is only water and plains and I cleared the atlas0.dds and normal map because I didnt like the standard textures CK2 is using and my trails with other textures werent very successful. I got the mountains to appear like that by Posturising 3 colours the hand-drawn map, then adjusting the gamma until the lightest point was just above seal levl 95,95,95, then applying a gaussian blur in the topology.bmp file. I think it looks much nicer and blends better than the vanilla map where the mountain textures contrast too much.

 

[The_Blind_One]

Yes exactly, its a hand drawn map upon which I cranked the contrast up and used as colormap.dds. The terrain file is only water and plains and I cleared the atlas0.dds and normal map because I didnt like the standard textures CK2 is using and my trails with other textures werent very successful. I got the mountains to appear like that by Posturising 3 colours the hand-drawn map, then adjusting the gamma until the lightest point was just above seal levl 95,95,95, then applying a gaussian blur in the topology.bmp file. I think it looks much nicer and blends better than the vanilla map where the mountain textures contrast too much.

Did you crank up the contrast because you lost alot of brightness from cleaning out your atlas0.dds file? (as I am experiencing my brightness dropping significantly)

I wonder if I can cure that somehow :/ I guess I'd have to make the file transparent or something? If anyone knows I'd be really cool to know...

btw, what kind of tool did you use to create that map. It looks really spiffy man! Can't wait to play on ur map one day if u intend to release it that is.

 

[RedRooster81]

Thanks for the tips, guys. Now Corsica, Sardinia, and the Balearic Islands are slightly less ridiculous looking as petty kingdoms:

Spoiler

A four-island Kingdom of Mallorca anyone?

Corsica is divided into its traditional two halves, and Sardinia has split two for one. A six-province Kingdom of Sardinia et Corsica looks better than one with 3 provinces.

BTW, I can't recommend MichaelM's Positions Editor for EU3 enough. It works great with CK2.

 

[Grell74]

I have finalised the map for the mod I am working on... damn its sexy

I made a new farmland texture which I think came out rather well.

Now to overhaul the portrait graphics, then populate the duchy/kingdoms, then make new events... one day it will all be done

 

[Baneslave]

You are making me feel really lazy...

I was complaining to no end with 100 provinces...

 

[The_Blind_One]

wow nice going beneslav! Looks beautiful

You got some nice cartography skills man

 

[Vessol]

I have finalised the map for the mod I am working on... damn its sexy

I made a new farmland texture which I think came out rather well.

Now to overhaul the portrait graphics, then populate the duchy/kingdoms, then make new events... one day it will all be done

View attachment 51956View attachment 51950View attachment 51951View attachment 51955

Sexy indeed. I'm looking forward to whatever mod you are working on that includes that map..

 

[zkajo]

Hello there. I'm new to modding Paradox games, although from what I've looked in the files so far it's not too bad. There's just a lot of it...

However, I'm not sure how I should go about creating a whole new map from scratch. Can someone please advise me on this?

I've been thinking of modifying the map with similar number of provinces by drawing new provinces using already existing values. However, if someone has a better way of going about it, I'd love to hear from them!