How to Create and Import Heighmaps into Map Editor

[Evie HJ]

The stadium is actually 16 x 8 in the game, and yes, I agree, the stadium is undersized (it's about 67.5 x 135 meters). 16 x 16, or even 32 x 32, would be better sizes for it. Much like the airport, though, CO seems to have been against including very large buildings into the game. Shame, really. But using the buildings at the extreme end of the scale as an example...not the best plan.

Imprints are a dicey thing, mostly because (in my experience) the map types that have the imprints (on terrain.party) just don't have very good resolution (USGS has the best maps, and USGS doesn't have the imprints). When you translate that iffy resolution into a 1081 x 1081 map (where each pixel translate into a 2 tile by 2 tile area in game...you're just not going to get a very precise map, and the scale of some things will be exaggerated. It's gotten to the point where I spend a lot of time editing terrain.party files in photoshop to get the coastlines and streams right (what I do is get a screenshot of the exact area I want in google map, switch it to the same scale as the heightmap, create a new layer, draw rivers following the rivers on the google map screenshot, then overlay that over the terrain.party map, fiddle with transparency so it darken my rivers area, and use THAT instead.

Lately I've taken to also mapping out the highways in very pale colors the same way on a separate height map...load THAT height map first with the map editor, then use the tree brush set to a very large width (and very strong brush) on the ridgeline. The ridgeline won't have anyt tree on it (slope too steep), but the ground on either side will be covered in trees. Then when I load the REAL height map, I'm going to be left with strips of trees surrounding an empty area where the road needs to go.

You're right about 18 x 18 being too small, though.

 

[Shiggs]

I agree, I really wasn't even basing it around the ploppable buildings though, it was just easiest to point out those buildings, because they stand out. I really was planning everything around the zonable buildings for the most part, and just looking at how everything lined up as a whole. Even being wrong about the stadium size I still think 4 of them could fit in there without much trouble.

The imprints I think are coming from one of the other data types, I forget, but I use the merged one almost always, that combines them. Even if the width isn't exactly right, it was just icing on the cake really, the path they lay is correct I'm sure, both confirmation from my 32 years experience living here and google earth.

I have yet to really put 40x40 to a similar test, but I am very close to doing so. Its a major pain in the ass because of all the canals around here, and there are 2 dam's and reservoirs just outside of the playable grid in real life even at 40x40. It looks really close in the map editor view. If it seems impossible to fit these building in there, then I'll know I'm wrong, but then at least I'll have a smaller range of numbers to look at next time. I already tried 36x36 and it seemed like it was gonna have too much space, same problem as the 18x18 at a glance, but I haven't really tested it as much as the 18x18.

 

[Evie HJ]

Calculating quicky, if you get a 8x8 area between the roads at 18km, then at 36 x 36 you would get a 3x3 area instead (not 4 x 4: the road eats up the extra tile since it's still two tiles wide). I can't imagine how that could possibly be too large. Lots of zonable buildings just aren't going to fit at all at that scale.

 

[Shiggs]

you might be right, I haven't tested it enough to say for sure.

 

[Evie HJ]

And regarding the imprint, I'm not disputing the path they take - that much would be correct. It's their scale that I'm thinking is probably off.

 

[Shiggs]

Ok, I just threw this thing together enough to really test it, and it seems neither of us were initially correct. I have said all along 40x40 is only my best guess so far, but I know now, it cannot be correct either. Trying to keep correct space for buildings and put all roads in there it is cramped, too cramped (5 tiles between the main avenues right next to the station and under it). Its not horribly off, but I would suggest it is probably smaller than 36x36 now after looking at this.

I might try 32x32 or somewhere close to that and see how it looks next.


Edit;

also those roads I laid out in the picture wouldn't be how they would be in the game. The one closest to the rails would only have a 4tile gap (max, maybe even just 2 or 3 looking at the size of those buildings) instead of 8. I would guess even the largest of gaps between roads there would only be 8, excluding the stadium area, but many would be less, some as little as 4. That was just to display the sheer amount of space in there.

more edits:

Actually some quick math reveals that 24.8 would be correct to be using 4 tile wide avenues and have 8 spaces in between those main avenues in my downtown area, which is exactly what I want. I included a little wiggle room in there, I might be being a little too generous. If needed it could actually be packed in there even tighter probably, I just threw my 40x40 test together so its not exactly a perfect estimation. Not every building is going to be a 4x4 skyscraper anyways, there is literally like 10 skyscrapers at the most in this city, mostly medium/low density. So new best guess I'm saying 24x24, with maybe a little extra room for randomness, I don't know if the .8 would get wasted anyways.

Though that is a bit disappointing, that is a pretty tiny area where I'm from... I'll have to do the city in 4 quadrants. This thing is such a pita, but I think we have figured it out now without a doubt. I really don't care who is right or wrong, I just want to get this right.

 

[Evie HJ]

That seems a likely guess - not far from my own 21/22 ball park (though I'm working at 18 because I found for some of the details I want to have geography-wise, even 21/22 is a little too cramped for parts of Ottawa).

Honestly I think anything between around 16 (hyper detailed) to 27 (smaller areas) can be made to fit and is largely a matter of personal preference and of the exact layout of the city you're working with.

 

[Shiggs]

That seems a likely guess - not far from my own 21/22 ball park (though I'm working at 18 because I found for some of the details I want to have geography-wise, even 21/22 is a little too cramped for parts of Ottawa).

Honestly I think anything between around 16 (hyper detailed) to 27 (smaller areas) can be made to fit and is largely a matter of personal preference and of the exact layout of the city you're working with.

I agree. You want to add tons of detail, pedestrian paths, maybe little extra trees or something, 18x18 will probably work just fine. You want to really pack it in there dense urban jungle, 27x27 would probably work too.

Edit: Actually that makes perfect sense now that 24x24 is almost without a doubt the true correct size. 18 is 75% of 24, the buildings are about 60% too small, gives about 15% wiggle room for the road scale and environment, and just being able to mesh everything together properly. Of course that is just for cross referencing though, the real proof in the pudding is laying down the roads and having everything work out, but I'm sure the math is solid.

edit: my math was just a hair off, sorry I'm about delirious from not sleeping and working too much.
Anyways, I'm glad you brought this up now, so hopefully it can help everyone, and we have discovered what it really is.

 

[oakshios]

Since you guys have hashed out the proper size for us , is there an easy way to get the same size (24x24 for example) of the exact area with streets/rivers? I would like to use an overlay mod and place as much as possible without going back and forth between game mode and edit mode.

 

[Shiggs]

I don't think that is possible yet.

Another thing I was thinking about it, I think larger than 27x27 is actually plausible, particularly if you use predominately 2 lane roads, or do not plan on having predominately 4x4 zoning areas. Like in my example I could have used 2 lane roads without any issues really (at very close inspection some of them are actually 3 lane one ways so it is reasonable), and the spacing would have been 7 tiles instead of 5 between the roads, in the acceptable range, though still maybe just a hair too tight. So I think really based on personal preference you could go anywhere from 18-36 pretty comfortably, as long as you know what kind of issues you would be dealing with on either end of the scale. 24 or technically 25 would be the most accurate and have the least issues most likely though.


I've imported Indianapolis again, did it at 25x, at that scale some things are still just terribly wrong, like the international airport is about the size of 2 big tiles, eh it'll never be perfect.

Edit:
Planned out a ton of roads, spent the last maybe 5-6 hours just lining things up in a good chunk of downtown to see how it would work out. Haven't finished the map, just enough to test the scale. Right now its looking like 25x is plenty big. What I thought was going to be 8x8 spaces ended up having to be 12x12 spaces, meaning 25x25 is actually going to be on the hyper detailed side... I can add trees, extra parks, or walking paths in plenty of areas.

I even remade Georgia Street exactly how it is; 2, 2 lane one way streets separated by a big nice pedestrian path (its 5 tiles wide). I am able to use the huge 4 tile wide roads any and everywhere I want/need to. There was even plenty of room to place a (slightly elevated) railroad station and connect both ends and have both of the avenues line up evenly and pretty closely on both sides.

I didn't take screen shots and I'm exhausted and have to work, but I'll post em soon. Pretty confident this will work great, would probably even be fine anywhere up to 28 or 30km and still have some detail.

 

[Shiggs]

I hope this is clear enough.

I was gonna take the ss with the road overlay on... it was blocking too much of the view, but you can still see how big the space is in there. The convention center, ya, I am supposed to only have 1 building there and its like a 40 tile block. Stadium can have dozens of 4x4 parking lots. Victory field will be pretty tiny most likely compared to its real size. This is 25x25km. Pretty damn hyper detailed if you ask me.

4 big blocks south of monument circle to the tracks, and 8 big blocks north of monument circle to the highway, it is exactly like the real picture in those terms, though slightly cut off the top of the image somehow. It's not laid out perfectly, but close enough to tell I could be doing this at 27-30km without any issues, any smaller than this would without a doubt make things worse. The big squares, just above Georgia street, are 12x12's. The space between Pennsylvania Avenue and the railroad is 4 zonable tiles deep. I have no idea what the hell I'm gonna put in that 12x12 place to replicate the Hyatt.

If I do have any trouble with some of the tiny little roads that are basically extended driveways, I'll just make them pedestrian paths. Like those pedestrian paths near the circle, they are listed as roads in real life, but trust me, they are not real roads in real life... the public does not drive on them, back door deliveries only for businesses that are adjacent to it. So I think it'll work out great, could have been at a bigger scale, but I think I'll continue on at this one and have some nice detail.

Though I have to say after a very close inspection I think the terrain.party is still suffering from some stretching like what the creator mentioned fixing a while back. I read that somewhere in the comments for the site. I don't think its fixed, at least not perfect, its pretty clearly stretching the import, too much latitudinal and/or not enough longitudinal (or something like that, I don't know exactly how the program works). Basically roads running north/south are gonna be maybe too tight, and roads running east/west are maybe gonna be too loose, trying to make things perfect, which I realize is impossible and am not trying to do, just get it close really.



I'll just edit this again to not clutter up the front page...

Some careful measuring on google earth and counting cells in the game with things lined up pretty close I have found some numbers to compute the stretching that is occurring. From the top corner of the railroad station north to the bottom of i65 is roughly 2,192 meters in real life. In the game it is roughly 192 cells (@25km).

From the west side of the railroad tracks running north/south to the east bank of the White River is roughly 1,520 meters in real life, in the game it is roughly 125 cells. These are all measurements I could see clearly before even buildings anything, all with imported footprints.

192/125 = 1.536
2,192/1520 = 1.44

if there was no stretching these final products would be almost identical, which they are pretty close, but far enough away my eyes knew it before I even did the math.

so we can change either vertices to correct this.

Judging by how the SRTM data is indexed (it usually cuts the outside tops off in the northern hemisphere, if you are trying to get a square out of the raw data), I would say we should try to increase our longitudinal axis rather than shorten the latitudinal axis. Though it might be stretching it already longitudinally, and I could have this backwards, either way, I would have to test it a little more to be 100% sure.

a little math reveals that if we make the area that is 125 cells wide, 133 cells instead the number would be;

192/133 = 1.443 pretty much identical to the real measurements I took.

So if the map is 2133 cells wide (i'll trust you, I didn't count it), and we need an area that formerly represented 125 tiles now represent 133 tiles we need to stretch that vertices 6.8% (133/125).

We will do that in photoshop, then split the difference on the outside edges when we crop out a 1081x1081 pixel heightmap to import into the game.

I know this might be incredibly confusing for some people and maybe too tedious for other, but hey, I figured I might as well post it. 6.8% doesn't sound like a lot, but it is noticeable in practice. Its probably not even exactly correct because of the nature of the measuring process and the stretching is not even from top to bottom of the map (more so at the top in northern hemisphere, bottom in southern, probably none at the equator), but I think a 25km map with its longitudinal axis stretched 6.8%, then cropped back to a 1081 pixel square would give the most accurate and easily lined up maps. Though it gets worse or better how far you are away from the equator, so you have to take that into account on an individual basis.

 

[Krozjin]

I have made an update video to my map editor tutorial where I show how to import the roads from the cities you're recreating. Come check it out if you'd like

 

[Shiggs]

thanks for posting Krozjin, very useful, especially for most of the grunt work.

 

[Krozjin]

Thank you! Yeah, you can't use it right out of the bag, but it's a great starting point for sure!

 

[Enzo]

very instructive thread, thank you guys 24x24 or 27x27 is probably the right representation

 

[ItalianGuy]

If we wanted to base calculations on the road width instead of the building base, what would the terrain party map size be?