Guide to Total Conversion Map Modding / Clans of Ireland

[enoofu]

Most stuff that causes crashes when creating a map doesn't leave any errors in the log and no way to tell even from the screen what type of errors happen to cause the crash

Generally speaking we mod only small changes while also saving only a backup, to make sure everything working.

We also can't comment on what is causing your mod to not to work unless we see your up todate mod

Also did you make sure your maps are using colortables from last time?

 

[jursamaj]

topology.bmp is using 8 bit grayscale colors for its index colortable

Actually, no, it is true grayscale mode. It only has an 8-bit value for each pixel, and that value is the gray value. This is distinct from either an 8-bit indexed file with 24-bit colors that all happen to be gray, or a 24-bit color file. It may be that the game can handle those other formats for topology.bmp, but the vanilla pic is grayscale mode.

 

[enoofu]

Actually, no, it is true grayscale mode. It only has an 8-bit value for each pixel, and that value is the gray value. This is distinct from either an 8-bit indexed file with 24-bit colors that all happen to be gray, or a 24-bit color file. It may be that the game can handle those other formats for topology.bmp, but the vanilla pic is grayscale mode.

Vanilla is using a colortable called greyscale, and is index. Also all the game index colors for maps are 8 bit indexed with upto 256
palette.

You can open it with photoshop and see for yourself

 

[ngppgn]

Vanilla is using a colortable called greyscale, and is index. Also all the game index colors for maps are 8 bit indexed with upto 256
palette.

You can open it with photoshop and see for yourself

Well, in some image editors (v.g GIMP you can set the "image mode" to either cover the full rgb spectrum, use an index (colortable) or use a "greyscale mode". That separation between greyscale mode and indexed mode is probably what jursamaj is refering to. Most probably, as you suggest, the greyscale mode is a particular case of an indexed mode.

Speaking of topology, I think I've found quite an intuitive way of drawing the topology. A program called worldpainter allow you to paint heights and incorporates a 3d simulation of the results (something that I highly miss in the otherway more potent Wilbur). Also, I think the process of converting the result of Worldpainter in a working CK2 topology is easier than that of Wilbur - but again I'm totally useless trying to figure Wilbur at all, so perhaps this would be of no use. Anyway, if someone is interested, let me know and I'll post the few tips I've learned.

 

[enoofu]

Yes i believe i posted a few pages backs on how to use world painter, which is probably the best program for creating topography for CK2 for new Map modders, and is free.

I Also use L3DT and Photoshop which is very nice for detail work, also, but they cost money.


Here is a couple of landscapes form by those 3 programs


http://oi59.tinypic.com/k1432x.jpg
http://oi62.tinypic.com/16kqn2c.jpg

Reason the Mountains look so smooth is because the smooth tool was used by worldpainter on topography of the mountains, and I use blur tool in photoshop on the world normal

 

[jursamaj]

Vanilla is using a colortable called greyscale, and is index. Also all the game index colors for maps are 8 bit indexed with upto 256
palette.

You can open it with photoshop and see for yourself

Interesting. Photoshop CS4, GIMP 2.8.14, and GraphicConverter 7.6.2 all list indexed color and grayscale as 2 distinct modes (which they are). GIMP & GC both report topology.bmp as grayscale, while PS reports an indexed file whose colors happen to be grays. [In GIMP, the colormap palette (the indexed colors) simply says 'Only indexed images have a colormap.' GC, oddly, has no issue with calling an image grayscale, then letting you put non-grey colors in the palette. Indeed, it declines to switch directly from grayscale mode to indexed mode.]

I've seen PS do similar weirdness, so 'open it with program X and see' is no guarantee. I had done exactly that with the other 2.

Doing some research, and delving into the file data directly, it appears that a) topology.bmp is indeed indexed, and b) BMP technically supports true grayscale, but it's extremely rare and many BMP readers/writers don't implement it. [Apparently GIMP & GC detect that it is functionally grayscale, and treat it so.]

I'm not sure what you meant by 'Also all the game index colors for maps are 8 bit indexed with upto 256
palette', as the game also uses non-indexed files (provinces.bmp and world_normal_height.bmp, for example)…

 

[enoofu]

non-indexed files provinces.bmp and world_normal_height.bmp is correct since they aren't using color tables, and aren't index

 

[ngppgn]

Yes i believe i posted a few pages backs on how to use world painter, which is probably the best program for creating topography for CK2 for new Map modders, and is free.

I Also use L3DT and Photoshop which is very nice for detail work, also, but they cost money.


Here is a couple of landscapes form by those 3 programs


http://oi59.tinypic.com/k1432x.jpg
http://oi62.tinypic.com/16kqn2c.jpg

Reason the Mountains look so smooth is because the smooth tool was used by worldpainter on topography of the mountains, and I use blur tool in photoshop on the world normal

Well, to what you posted there (post #148) I shall add this:

-worldpainter has also an option to view your map is a 3D proyection, but if you want it to be somewhat representative of how will the orography look ingame, you'll need to do some work:

1) if you have followed eoionofu's tip of having at least one point at 0 and another at 255 you only need that, in the window that pops up when you click on file/import/heightmap the image/water level appears as 94, by changing the minecraft/water level value.

2) going further, if you want the 3d view function to be representative of your ingame results, you need to change, in that window, the "height" from 256 to 128 blocks. This means that when you export the map again, all colors will be half their value and you need to scale them back (I do that by using the feature that in the Spanish version of GIMP is in under the "colores" menu, labelled "niveles"; I'd assume in englush appears as colours>levels, but might be different.

 

[enoofu]

Anyone have tips to generate a provinces.bmp with 800+ provinces quickly and looking so whatcrisp?

 

[ngppgn]

Anyone have tips to generate a provinces.bmp with 800+ provinces quickly and looking so whatcrisp?

I don't know what does whatcrisp means (not a native speaker), but I think that there is not a "quick" way. As for general tips, follow JonStryker tip of drawing empires first, then kindgoms, then duchies, then counties. When drawing provinces in a fantasy map, I usually pur the provinces layer semi transparent over a layer o set of layers where I can see abrupt terrain changes, rivers and mountains, to guide my borders. When drawing a layer (I draw first empires, then kingdoms and so on) first set on the number of subrealms each realm will have (e.g. for empires of four kingdoms each and one of five kingdoms) then open another tab or layer for sketches and draw lines that give me a sense of the general distribution of subrealms. Then I compare the sketch with the physical features of the map and paint them (I ussually do that by picking color, drawing border and using paint buchet,which might be not the fastest way, but I really find the lasso tool a bit less practical).

 

[Lyrecryer]

Hey there, are you going to continue with this or is it done.

 

[JonStryker]

Hey there, are you going to continue with this or is it done.

Logical next step would be topology and/or terrain. I could only give general tips for that

Or would you prefer a different topic?

 

[Lyrecryer]

Maybe you can explain what the colors of the terrain are? I know that white is mountain tops but what about the red and the blue green?

 

[enoofu]

Depends on your terrain.txt what the colors mean and what effects it has on game

I believe Red is usually Farmland, and bluegreen is usually Jungle

They also depend on for the visual look of those terrains found in /map/terrain folder
atlas0.dds
atlas_normal0.dds

ck2 terrain.txt
ocean = {
movement_cost = 1.0
is_water = yes
color = { 255 255 255 }
}

inland_ocean = {
movement_cost = 1.0
is_water = yes
color = { 0 0 200 }
inland_Sea = yes
}

arctic = {
movement_cost = 1.2
max_attrition = 0.1
color = { 235 235 235 }
supply_limit = 1
bottleneck_chance = 15
}

farmlands = {
movement_cost = 1.1
max_attrition = -0.01
color = { 137 104 165 }

supply_limit = 5
bottleneck_chance = 5
}

forest = {
movement_cost = 1.4
max_attrition = 0.025
color = { 91 123 45 }

supply_limit = 3
bottleneck_chance = 10
}

hills = {
movement_cost = 1.3
defence = 1
max_attrition = 0.025
color = { 135 70 0 }

supply_limit = 3
bottleneck_chance = 15
}

woods = {
movement_cost = 1.1
max_attrition = 0.025
color = { 165 205 108 }
supply_limit = 3
bottleneck_chance = 10
}

mountain = {
movement_cost = 1.5
defence = 2
max_attrition = 0.1
color = { 117 108 119 }
supply_limit = 2
bottleneck_chance = 35
}

impassable_mountains = {
color = { 128 128 128 }
movement_cost = 2.0
bottleneck_chance = 35
}

steppe = {
movement_cost = 1.0
max_attrition = 0.05
color = { 211 201 184 }
supply_limit = 4
bottleneck_chance = 5
}

plains = {
movement_cost = 1.1
color = { 241 221 184 }
supply_limit = 5
bottleneck_chance = 5
}

jungle = {
movement_cost = 1.4
defence = 1.5
max_attrition = 0.1
color = { 40 180 149 }
supply_limit = 2
bottleneck_chance = 25
}

marsh = {
movement_cost = 1.4
max_attrition = 0.05
color = { 76 112 105 }

supply_limit = 2
bottleneck_chance = 30
}

desert = {
movement_cost = 1.2
max_attrition = 0.1
color = { 220 210 0 }

supply_limit = 1
bottleneck_chance = 5
}

coastal_desert = {
movement_cost = 1.0
max_attrition = 0.05
color = { 200 128 0 }

}

 

[Lyrecryer]

Ok thank you very much. I forgot about that file.

 

[ngppgn]

Maybe you can explain what the colors of the terrain are? I know that white is mountain tops but what about the red and the blue green?

Colors are asigned to the tiles in map/terrain/0atlas.dds (the file with the textures). The first color in the palette/colortable in terrain.bmp is the uppermost, leftmost texture, the one right to it is the second color in the table/palette, and so on.

The color statements in terrain.txt are unrelated to terrain textures and seem to be unused

 

[enoofu]

Color statements in terrain.txt are used and they do have to be colors in the terrain.bmp color table

 

[ngppgn]

Color statements in terrain.txt are used and they do have to be colors in the terrain.bmp color table

How come? the values in terrain.txt do not correspond to the color values in terrain.bmp!

255 255 255 is the color code for the snow/high mountain texture in the vanilla map, not a "permanent terra incognita" texture, for example.

 

[enoofu]

Pretty sure they do correspond just that they aren't using the same number format

 

[ngppgn]

Pretty sure they do correspond just that they aren't using the same number format

Well, pretty sure they don't. There are two kinds of sea terrain defined in terrain.txt, with different colors, plus the terra incognita. There is only one color in terrain.bmp for seas, and none specific of pti. Besides, empirical observations of maps with custom indexes (AGOT, EK, NBRT+) back my statement, as well as explanations of EOQUE, who I personally hold as an authority in the matter.

Quick way to contrast, switch the place of two colors in terrain.bmp's palette. That should switch textures in the map.