Map Mod Testing

[arbiterspartan]

Color codes in terrain.txt are irrelevant for the actual map. Use the index. All I was saying is that you likely have a stray pixel or two in some kind of gray color somewhere on the map. If you pasted into the terrain.bmp, the remaining 54 colors that are not used might have popped up in one or two of the pixels. Feel free to send me the .bmp and I can look for you, since it will take me all of five minutes to find it.

I'd appreciate that man! I did do a pass myself and did in fact find some stray pixels, so those were taken out. However, it seems to still be crashing on "Calculating Paths", so I suppose having a second person who is more experienced do a pass can't hurt

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yth57la3h53d0fa/terrain.bmp

Edit: In advance, forgive the very blatant presence of phallic-shaped land mass. My friends and I have very base senses of humor

Edit 2: I don't know if this matters, but someone else mentioned I should have all bmp's saved at 24 bit and indexed. However, when I switch to the indexed color mode, Photoshop will only let me export as high as 8-bit, so to get around that I've been indexing them, switching the color table, and then going back to RGB mode so I can export at 24 bit. Would that be what is causing this?

 

[CrystalM]

Okay, this is a bit confusing but, it seems like the colors in the vanilla terrain.bmp don't match up with the color codes in terrain.txt? I've been using the indexed colors based on the bmp, but perhaps I should be basing them on the colors listen in the txt file instead? Or should I make a new txt file that matches with the colors from the vanilla bmp?

I posted about this before, because I had the same problem

I figured it out and I am missing something. I'll put it here in case it helps anyone else, though they might know already. The colour section within each terrain block, is not the colour on terrain.bmp, I assume it's the colour actually in game (though I thought that's what the colormap file was for, maybe I'm wrong).

To find the actual colour, at the bottom there's text_0 = { type = plains color = { 0 } priority = 0 } and a bunch of others. The colour part here is important, since it's an index. Load up GIMP/Photoship/Anything else that handles colourmaps, look at the colourmap, and you'll see that number refers to the index of the colourmap and that's the colour that represents it on terrain.bmp.

Probably doesn't make sense, but yeah.

I would follow the advice above though about not touching it. Terrain is a bigger headache that it first seems...

Oh damn, didn't see you posted already on a new page. Oh well.

 

[CrackdToothGrin]

I'd appreciate that man! I did do a pass myself and did in fact find some stray pixels, so those were taken out. However, it seems to still be crashing on "Calculating Paths", so I suppose having a second person who is more experienced do a pass can't hurt

I didn't notice any stray pixels. I did notice, however, that your exact index contains a straight black, which is not one of the original colors.

Edit: In advance, forgive the very blatant presence of phallic-shaped land mass. My friends and I have very base senses of humor

I really don't mind.

Edit 2: I don't know if this matters, but someone else mentioned I should have all bmp's saved at 24 bit and indexed. However, when I switch to the indexed color mode, Photoshop will only let me export as high as 8-bit, so to get around that I've been indexing them, switching the color table, and then going back to RGB mode so I can export at 24 bit. Would that be what is causing this?

Possibly. The best thing to do is to paste directly into a resize terrain.bmp. That way, the index is not messed up, and all you have to do is save it as-is. The default is 8-bit depth. Regardless of 24-bit depth on others, the terrain is 8-bit.

My advice would be to make absolutely sure that your base works directly with only as many colors as you're using. So, count the colors your map has. Assuming you're using the default 14 (out of the 16 in the original index with colors other than black), you should have exactly 14 colors. Go to image>mode>indexed, and choose "Exact" and see if the number of colors matches how many you're using. Then, open and resize a copy of the default terrain.bmp, and paste your new one into it, and save it.

All that mumbo-jumbo about the wand and all that is just to make sure highlighting the pixels is easier. I work professionally with Adobe products about 30 hours a week, so I might get too technical when I describe it. Apologies. However, your file contained no strays that I could find. Try it at 8-bit, and if there are no strays, and the validator thing says the provinces.bmp is good, it's not likely either of those two things.

 

[arbiterspartan]

Thanks man, finally got it working!

Now onto the next issue: the map appears to show a shadow of the original map



It seems like it's not showing any non-navigable rivers, so that rules out rivers.bmp I presume. But I'm not sure what else could cause this?

 

[CrackdToothGrin]

Thanks man, finally got it working!

Now onto the next issue: the map appears to show a shadow of the original map

View attachment 110406

It seems like it's not showing any non-navigable rivers, so that rules out rivers.bmp I presume. But I'm not sure what else could cause this?

Colormap.dds and colormap_water.dds are overlays inside map/terrain. Either make a new one, or fill them with a color and then fill the alpha channel with pure black so they are invisible.

 

[Isinfier]

Having a few issues with the map mod that I'm working on; loading currently goes so far and then crashes (around the time loading graphics pops up). I've fixed a few other issues involving borders and naval ranges, but I can't work out what is causing it to go wrong this time around. Any ideas?

http://www.mediafire.com/download/ss5aas6f66tx2vq/Das_Nordia.rar

 

[PyroAce2]

I'm having trouble tinkering with the map. I've got my new island showing up and functioning, so long as I don't mess with the province map. When I introduce my new province map, the whole map becomes unplayable - it shows no provinces and there is a weird shadow outline of the landmasses that is slightly out of place with the actual terrain map.

Any idea what would cause that?

I've attached a download link to the mod, which is a submod of Elder Kings .. I want to add a large continent for my own purposes. Link Removed.

At this point, I've got it set to just have 3 provinces until I can confirm everything is loading as intended. I've tried using 3 large provinces to cover the continent (as is shown in the link) and I've also tried with 3 small provinces a large wasteland. Both give the same issue - a massive greyed out world. Removing provinces.bmp from the mod (and allowing the default EK one to load) reverses the problem and still shows my new continent as unselectable land, so the issue is definitely with what I've done to provinces.bmp. I've tried remaking it from scratch and got the same exact issue, so I am at a loss.

- Resolved!

 

[JonStryker]

Maybe it is because of the macbook I am currently using but it seems as if that provinces.bmp is a bit messed up. Looks as if the province borders have been heavily anti-aliased. Make sure to disable interpolating when resizing a map that's supposed to be working in CK2

 

[PyroAce2]

Maybe it is because of the macbook I am currently using but it seems as if that provinces.bmp is a bit messed up. Looks as if the province borders have been heavily anti-aliased. Make sure to disable interpolating when resizing a map that's supposed to be working in CK2

You are quite right. I had toggled off anti-aliasing for most of the tools, but GIMP snuck one in on me.

 

[northernwv]

Hey guys, dont crush me too hard, first time poster and first time modder so I'm about as greenhorn as they come (but picking up quick) and just wanted some advice and see if I should keep going or I'm in way too far over my head. I really wanted a United States mod, but found there isn't any (at least that I could find). I completed the provinces.bmp (Picture of the .png just to look)

and started on the definitions, naming each province and about halfway done of the ~300 provinces. I'm sure I can figure out and complete the map part (terrain,, river, topography,etc). But what I'm worried about is characters and events, etc. I don't care if they are random, I just want to play on the USA map, but if I have to create a dozen or more characters for each province I don't know if I could do that. Is it worth continuing on? I'm more than dedicated to spending a good amount of time to get it to work, as long as I'm not doing something that is insurmountable. Thanks for the input.

 

[richvh]

You only have to create a minimum of 1 character (the title holder) for each province you want playable at the start; the game will fill in the other title holders and their courts with random characters. You can save and reload and switch to any other character after the day 1 initialization is done.

 

[northernwv]

You only have to create a minimum of 1 character (the title holder) for each province you want playable at the start; the game will fill in the other title holders and their courts with random characters. You can save and reload and switch to any other character after the day 1 initialization is done.

Thanks for the reply. Good news. I'll keep pushin on.

 

[Keanon]

Your posted province map is anti-aliased, won't load like that.

 

[northernwv]

Your posted province map is anti-aliased, won't load like that.

What is the easiest solution? Going around the edges of each province with the pencil tool?

 

[Blood Royal]

So I'm working on the topology map for my mod, and so far things are simple enough.

However, it was mentioned before that the world_normal_height map could be "generated" from the topology map?

I'm kind of a photoshop n00b, and "select all", "copy in place" just leads to the world_normal_heightmap having a big grey-ish layer on top of the purple-ish layer.

How do I copy/generate a world_normal_height map successfully from the topology map?

 

[Keanon]

So I'm working on the topology map for my mod, and so far things are simple enough.

However, it was mentioned before that the world_normal_height map could be "generated" from the topology map?

I'm kind of a photoshop n00b, and "select all", "copy in place" just leads to the world_normal_heightmap having a big grey-ish layer on top of the purple-ish layer.

How do I copy/generate a world_normal_height map successfully from the topology map?

Get Wilbur, easier and more suited to working with maps and generating stuff like bumb maps, slope maps or normal maps.

http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/wilbur.html

What is the easiest solution? Going around the edges of each province with the pencil tool?

Easiest not to let it get anti-aliased to begin with, but now that it is, yes.

 

[Blood Royal]

Thanks!

That Wilbur programme does look promising...

 

[Sarenarass]

Question: I know for many maps you need to have the correct color table when editing it or it will crash on loading... does this apply for the province map too? I heard what you color on the province map can be arbitrary.

 

[Barón Rojo]

Question: I know for many maps you need to have the correct color table when editing it or it will crash on loading... does this apply for the province map too? I heard what you color on the province map can be arbitrary.

provinces.bmp is saved in RGB, so you can use any color.

 

[Sarenarass]

provinces.bmp is saved in RGB, so you can use any color.

Alright, thanks for the quick reply!