I made all of the rivers in the world dry up.

[Alorand]

Please help!
So I was getting annoyed by how the river Volga just stops in the middle of nowhere before getting to the Caspian sea, and I noticed that this was because there was a pixel missing in the Crusader Kings II/map/rivers.bmp
So in my excitement for having found a way to fix the problem myself I just edited the file in MS Paint and added the pixel, and then just hit save.
I guess I should have made a backup... because now ALL of the rivers on the map disappeared. :unsure:
How can I fix this without re-installing?

EDIT: Ok so I got the old file from a system restore point, and fixed my issue, but I would still like to know how it is possible to edit the file without breaking everything.
Does it have anything to do with how the file is saved? Some check-sum related issues? Would it work if I added my changed rivers.bmp as a mod?

 

[comsubpac]

your problem is that you used paint.

 

[Alorand]

Yeah I figured it might have been something like that.
What program (preferably free to download) should I be using? I had some problems with installing Gimp.
And is there a right way to save the file so that it is recognized by the game correctly.
Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[flame7926]

try Paint.net

 

[Splorghley]

I had the same problem - it occurred because rivers.bmp saved as a 16-bit BMP. For the engine to recognise it, it has to be 8-bit.

If you're going to be modding btw, I'd strongly recommend you make a copy of the entire original CK2 folder. Don't use it to play or anything, just make sure you have back-up copies of each file. If you have the game on Steam you can also verify game cache to restore all files (link).

 

[Keanon]

Maybe paint doesn't save it with the proper colormap/palette, not sure haven't used paint since win98

 

[Alorand]

Thank you for the advice.
Made a backup of the whole game, downloaded Paint.net and tried saving as an 8 bit .bmp with different levels of dithering (0, 7, and 8).
In all instances this causes a CTD when the game is loading in the rivers.bmp file...
I also noticed that when I open the file and re-save it without changing anything the resulting file is still a few bits smaller. Maybe some essential header information is missing.

So for those of you who have successfully edited the map files and had the game recognize it. What software and procedure did you use. I do have access to Photoshop at work if that is what is required.

 

[Keanon]

I use Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7.02, it's ooooold as hell, but works perfectly for me. Basically, paint.net is not the problem, do you know -anythin- about colormaps/palettes? I'm not sure how to explain this actually, I don't use Paint.Net or Photoshop, but files can have color indexes, and the Rivers map needs them.

 

[Alorand]

The Volga river flows again, thanks to you!

I ended up downloading Corel Paint Shop Pro X4 30-day free trial.
When I open the Image I see that it has a unique 256 color palate (with all but 16 of those colors being black).

This explains why just saving as a 256 color bitmap didn't work, since that would index the file to some default color palate and not the custom one.

I saved this as a custom palate so that I can load it again after editing the image.

The only question left is what else needs to be changed?

I notice that lake Ladoga is missing in Novgorod, also where River Don flows into the Sea of Azov is all messed up.

Anything that bothers anyone else? I will upload the modified file when I am done with it.

And once again, thank you for helping me figure this out.

 

[Gavinhawk]

Gimp is free and should work great for any graphic modding you plan to do.

 

[Wallain]

Gimp is free and should work great for any graphic modding you plan to do.

This indeed.

 

[DFerguson]

I have a similar problem, used Paint MS and Paint.net. I'm going to try Corel Paint Shop Pro X4 30-day free trial as the OP suggested.

 

[Arko]

one turnaround.

-make a copy of your file.
-open and modify it with any software. save. (use only the exact colors used in file if you ever have access to other colors)
-open your "original" files with a decent program. (just exlcude Paint for this IMO)
-copy-paste the content of the modified one on top.
-don't do any other action and save.
it should save it in the correct format.

I personnaly use ACDSEE editor for most graphic work. very simple but powerful. The main drwback is it doesn't work with *.dds.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Shouldn't GIMP do the trick?

edit: I opened a bug report with your finding.