Early (and failed) attempt at making a new map

[Cabezaestufa]

Well, thing is, I've had a slow weekend, so I have begun to experiment with map modding. My first try (which may be too ambitious) is to start a new map from scratch, with only one continent and very few (but huge) provinces. At the moment, just 9 land provinces and 7 more sea zones. The size of the continent is about as big as Africa.

After much trial and error I think I have found every file related to the map (including these pesky colormap.dds and colormap_water.dds). I believe I have done everything correctly, the rgb values match, every reference to provinces which doesn't exist anymore is eliminated, etc. But I still can't get it to work.

I can load the game, I can even start a new game, but the map is composed entirely of TI. The map where you can choose your country displays only the contents of colormap_water.dds, the PTI I have defined and, strangely, the PTI for the default world map (even if I think there are no more references to it in my files). Looking at the logs, I found this (in setup.log):

Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 0 => (177,0) - (512,720)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 1 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 2 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 3 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 4 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 5 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 6 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 7 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 8 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 9 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 10 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 11 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 12 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 13 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 14 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 15 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1052]: Bounding Box of 16 => (0,0) - (0,0)
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 0 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 1 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 2 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 3 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 4 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 5 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 6 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 7 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 8 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 9 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 10 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 11 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 12 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 13 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 14 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 15 ==> NONE
Setup[map.cpp:1152]: Adjacencies for 16 ==> NONE

I understand this happens because the engine can't find the boundaries of the provinces, so every province has 0 pixels and is located at (0,0). Could anybody who has had any experience with this tell me what I'm doing wrong? Here is a snip of provinces.bmp, the rest is just black PTI (compressed in jpg to decrease size, I'm not trying to actually use this very image )

 

[rybka]

WOW
Ice and fire Do you plan to create bigger mod or only map?

 

[unmerged(20048)]

Hmm I guess there was no reason for me to spend this morning making a river map for the same game... I hate duplication

(looks great btw)

 

[unmerged(20048)]

Cabezaestufa, What about combining our efforts for this mod? Should we make a thread for this mod where we can divide the tasks so we don't duplicate?

 

[Krantz]

Cabezaestufa your map is dirty!

You must use one color for every province and type down these colors in definition.csv and much more stuff

I have made 64 new provinces on my own map and are still looking for places where I most change for it to work.

*Changed my map up and down for you all to see what it is I have made, don't know why EU3 need it up and down.



hmm It helps alot if you have been working on maps for EU2 as I have

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Sweet, sweet Westeros..

Good luck, you would be the coolest guy on the forums if you could work on a map for a full ASOIAF mod.

 

[Rotten Venetic]

Cabezaestufa your map is dirty!

You must use one color for every province and type down these colors in definition.csv and much more stuff

I have made 64 new provinces on my own map and are still looking for places where I most change for it to work.

*Changed my map up and down for you all to see what it is I have made, don't know why EU3 need it up and down.



hmm It helps alot if you have been working on maps for EU2 as I have

How much RAM do you have? :rofl:

BTW his map LOOKS dirty because he is showing us a jpg version of it. The real map is a large bmp file more than 2MB in size, which is too big for the Internet...

 

[Krantz]

Sweet, sweet Westeros..

Good luck, you would be the coolest guy on the forums if you could work on a map for a full ASOIAF mod.

what is a ASOIAF mod?

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

The map he is using is of Westeros, a continent in the A Song of Ice and Fire book series by George RR Martin. The setting would fit very well in EU3 (more so in CK but much easier for EU3 )

 

[Krantz]

The map he is using is of Westeros, a continent in the A Song of Ice and Fire book series by George RR Martin. The setting would fit very well in EU3 (more so in CK but much easier for EU3 )

awesome!

 

[unmerged(59737)]

I demand that you nerf the Lannisters and Geryjoys NOW!

 

[Cabezaestufa]

Cabezaestufa your map is dirty!

You must use one color for every province and type down these colors in definition.csv and much more stuff

I have made 64 new provinces on my own map and are still looking for places where I most change for it to work.

*Changed my map up and down for you all to see what it is I have made, don't know why EU3 need it up and down.

hmm It helps alot if you have been working on maps for EU2 as I have

I know it's dirty, that's why I said I'm not using that very same file
I posted that to give an idea of what I'm trying to do. The real file I use is, of course, completely clean. When I count the number of colors, it gives me just 17 (the number of provinces + black for PTI). To further assure you I more or less know what I'm doing, I have managed to successfully mod the world map, adding and changing some provinces and getting it to work perfectly.

I have double and triple-checked everything, and found no errors. I have even got the game to start (it's quite touchy with errors, most of the time it won't even start if you have done something wrong), but it can't calculate the boundaries for the provinces. Right now, I'm guessing that the provinces are too big, since I don't know its maximum size, but could be anything we don't know...

 

[Cabezaestufa]

Cabezaestufa, What about combining our efforts for this mod? Should we make a thread for this mod where we can divide the tasks so we don't duplicate?

Ok, right now I'm just playing around to see if I can get the map right. I haven't seriously thought to completely build the map, but I might get around to it if I get bored enough

But if my question gets answered and can actually build a map that works, I'll contact you in order to try to get something done

 

[Krantz]

I know it's dirty, that's why I said I'm not using that very same file
I posted that to give an idea of what I'm trying to do. The real file I use is, of course, completely clean. When I count the number of colors, it gives me just 17 (the number of provinces + black for PTI). To further assure you I more or less know what I'm doing, I have managed to successfully mod the world map, adding and changing some provinces and getting it to work perfectly.

I have double and triple-checked everything, and found no errors. I have even got the game to start (it's quite touchy with errors, most of the time it won't even start if you have done something wrong), but it can't calculate the boundaries for the provinces. Right now, I'm guessing that the provinces are too big, since I don't know its maximum size, but could be anything we don't know...

Hmm will take a longer time for me to come so far that you have.

64 Provinces takes time to mod.

It was much easier to mod EU2 but Eu3 gives much more when modding.

I have one question!
Do you experiense any trouble when making a mod?
perhaps that you must think on the standard files before adding new tag or that the names in the language file will not work together with other mods?

 

[Cabezaestufa]

How much RAM do you have? :rofl:

BTW his map LOOKS dirty because he is showing us a jpg version of it. The real map is a large bmp file more than 2MB in size, which is too big for the Internet...

Exactly! And it wasn't worth to post all of it (it's almost 2000 pixels wide) because the rest is just black permanent terra incognita.

I tried to switch the PTI for two really freaking huge sea zones, just in case the engine doesn't like that much PTI, but the result is the same. Here is what I get in the country selection screen:

That weirdness is basically a piece of colormap_water.dds. I don't know why it doesn't get around to process the rest of the files, I guess it's because it can't find the provinces. You can't see it in this screen, but the PTI for the real world map is still there (in this case, if you scroll north you can find the PTI in North America). I haven't the faintest idea why.

If I start the game, everything is white terra incognita. The provinces don't exist, they all are at (0,0) and have no area. But the game works, I can send diplomats, bribe cardinals...

One weird thing I noticed is that when the game has to recalculate adjacencies (basically, when I change the map OR delete the files in map\cache) it loads alright, but if I try to load again when it doesn't have to generate these files, it usually crashes. I hope somebody who knows something about it can shed some light about what might I be doing wrong

 

[unmerged(514)]

Westeroos!!!!

Fantastic!

 

[Cabezaestufa]

Hmm will take a longer time for me to come so far that you have.

64 Provinces takes time to mod.

It was much easier to mod EU2 but Eu3 gives much more when modding.

I have one question!
Do you experiense any trouble when making a mod?
perhaps that you must think on the standard files before adding new tag or that the names in the language file will not work together with other mods?

Sorry, I missed your post. To tell the truth, I experienced all kinds of trouble. Editing the map is trickier than it seemed at first. If I can help you with anything, just ask. I haven't touched the tags yet, I'm just concentrating on the map at the moment.

 

[Jodien]

How can you read the dds files. They are not text coded.

 

[Havard]

dds files are raster files. There are utilities availabel to convert them, or photoshop plugins to edit directly.

 

[Cabezaestufa]

dds files are raster files. There are utilities availabel to convert them, or photoshop plugins to edit directly.

Yes, I think you can download the plugin from the nVidia page (not sure if it'll work with ATI cards, though). I managed to edit them without much problem.

Havard, do you have any idea why my map isn't working? I'll try it with the full version tonight but I'm afraid the result is going to be the same.