Hacking the TBL files

[Hive]

Well, when you're all done your changes, you would save, hide the "IDs" "Borders" "Shades" and "MapInfo" layers, and Merge Visible "SHIFT-CTRL-E", and then unhide the aforementioned layers, and finally save it to __ANOTHER__ file that has a different name as your old one.

Then it will be all ready for importing into the game.

Ok, thanks.

 

[Vricklund]

Here I'll do a quick tutorial now:

1) Use the ID layer to decide what shape your provinces will be in (each colour will represent one province). When you are done, magic wand select that province (make sure Tolerance is at 0 and anti-aliasing is off!)

2) Make a new layer "Province".

3) Select your primary color to R,G,B (187,187,187) or Hex value #BBBBBB.

3) Double click on the layer to activate layer effects. Click on the attachments to see what settings to set for each one.

(Inner Shadow Color is white)
(Inner Glow is a simple black-to-white gradient)
(Bevel Emboss colors are white and black)

Black: #000000
White: #FFFFFF

Yeah, that's exactly how I've been working, making a small action to auto-shade provinces after I selected them with the magic wand.

You still have to fine tune the provinces though if they're bigger or smaller than average, since the glow/shade effects can't be set in percentages.

 

[Birger]

Text:

Font: Felix Titling, All Caps
Size: 18px
Horizontal Spacing: as much as you need for it to look good (usually in 200-800 range)
Text width: 90%
Everything else is default.

Looks great, but the font isn't quite right is it? To me it looks more like Bernhard Modern, Felix has those tilted O's but you can see that the W looks different than the font used on the EU map.

 

[unmerged(5110)]

Indeed it's a rough match, I don't have Bernhard Modern, is it a free font?

If not, I think we'll have to make due with Felix because AFAIK that one's pretty readily available and it looks close enough.

 

[unmerged(16460)]

I was told that it wasn't bernhard Modern, when I suggested in this thread: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3791590#post3791590

Oh and by the way it is free!

 

[Birger]

Nice font-site there Kong.

Here's a link to Bernhard Modern.
http://www.webpagepublicity.com/free-fonts/b/Bernhard Modern BT.ttf

 

[Hive]

I was told that it wasn't bernhard Modern, when I suggested in this thread: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3791590#post3791590

Oh and by the way it is free!

Birger knows what he's talking about. If he says it's Bernhard Modern, then it is.

Here's a link to Bernhard Modern.
http://www.webpagepublicity.com/free-fonts/b/Bernhard Modern BT.ttf

I thought this font had to be paid for, like Trajan Pro...

But thanks.

 

[Birger]

Here are some examples of the fonts suggested:

Here's Bernhard Modern in action.

Edit:
Bernhard Modern BT is free and Bernhard Modern Std cost about £29.00

 

[Hive]

Ah... so one is free, the other costs... gotcha.

Birger, how do you make an arch in Photoshop without the text being distorted? I struggled with that yesterday...

 

[Birger]

Ah... so one is free, the other costs... gotcha.

Birger, how do you make an arch in Photoshop without the text being distorted? I struggled with that yesterday...

You use the Warp text tool, you have to lower the arch percentage and change the character settings; tracking, horizontal scale to make it look right.

 

[Hive]

You use the Warp text tool, you have to lower the arch percentage and change the character settings; tracking, horizontal scale to make it look right.

Ok thanks, will try that.

Btw, have you had a look at my action request yet?

 

[Birger]

Ok thanks, will try that.

Btw, have you had a look at my action request yet?

Forgot to mention, you need to make the "text-box" a bit bigger than the text so you got space to work with.

Oh what action was that, to make a new province? o

 

[Hive]

Oh what action was that, to make a new province? o

No... an action to turn the ID map into a shading map, if it's possible to do such an action...

 

[Inferis]

No... an action to turn the ID map into a shading map, if it's possible to do such an action...

I could take a look at adding a layer to the exported file for each province?

 

[WiSK]

I could take a look at adding a layer to the exported file for each province?

That's gonna be a lot of layers, but it's a great idea

 

[Hive]

I could take a look at adding a layer to the exported file for each province?

A layer for each province? Oh no, please don't. That's really not necessary. But if you do, at least make it an option...

And it's not at all what I'm looking for. What I'm looking for is an action that allows me to just select the entire ID map (and if that's not possible, province by province) and then press a button to apply all the shading and stuff needed. In short: a fast way to make a good-looking shading map.

Besides... you should rather spend your energy with those weird PTI chunks and a coordinate viewer...

 

[Inferis]

Besides... you should rather spend your energy with those weird PTI chunks and a coordinate viewer...

Have you tried extracting the map with the /G option?
It forces the internal version of id.tbl to be generated from the lightmaps. Normally, the program decides for itself if this is necessary, but the check is not very good (yet), so that might have gone wrong in your case.

 

[Hive]

Have you tried extracting the map with the /G option?
It forces the internal version of id.tbl to be generated from the lightmaps. Normally, the program decides for itself if this is necessary, but the check is not very good (yet), so that might have gone wrong in your case.

No, I forgot to try that... o

Will do, though.

But still... a coordinate viewer, you know I want one baby!

Or maybe WiSK could change his map viewer to show the exact x and y coordinates? How about that, WiSK?

(What I crave a coordinate viewer for is working with province.csv: city placement, army placement, manufactory placement, etc)

EDIT: I just looked, and it turns out that I actually *do* use the /G option - so that doesn't fix it...

 

[WiSK]

Or maybe WiSK could change his map viewer to show the exact x and y coordinates? How about that, WiSK?

Yes, sorry, at the moment you have to multiply the coordinates in my viewer by 32. That's because they are block coordinates rather than pixel coordinates.

What I'll do is make a status bar underneath which shows the position and size of the selected area.

(What I crave a coordinate viewer for is working with province.csv: city placement, army placement, manufactory placement, etc)

Eventually I will add this to my editor, or help Lord Ederon add it to Pegasus. Summoner was gonna help me on this but I think he's asleep

 

[unmerged(16460)]

I have revised my timeconsuming method of creating the provinces in PSP, so that they are both easier to make and look better:

Step 1: Create a Vector layer. Draw the borders you would like on the map using a line 2 pixels wide in a dakr shade of grey (RGB value: 64). You can use the “point to point line” as a vector, which makes it easier to edit your borders later on.

Step 2: Then proceded to colour the backgroundlayer in the darkest shade of grey in the shading of the provinces (RGB value: 130).

Step 3: Selected each new province on the map with the "magic wand" (the thing that selects an area of the same colour) so that the borders are not selected. Then contract the selection 15 pixels.

Step 4: Floodfill each selection with the lightest shade of grey used in the shading of the map (RGB value: 190)

Step 5: Select all new provinces and use gaussian blur set to roughly 15 to smothen the shading.

J: Select all of the vectorselections on the map and copy them, and place them so they are excactly 2 pixels to the south and 1 pixel to the east of the old vector selections. Rigthclick and select properties: Change the colour to a light shade of grey (RGB value: 200). Rightclick again and select “arange” – “send to bottom”.

You should now have something that is pretty close to the paradox map.

This is an example of my old method. Notice that the shading does not resemble the paradox provinces (the ones with names).

This is an example of the new method.

This looks almost exactly like paradox provinces, and they are easier to make.

Don't know why I didn't think of just using Gausian blur befor