Official Mapp Squad Discussion

[Big_Baazzoo 0]

I love it!  Thanks!

[cdnice55 0]

Any chance of getting some more Canadian cities added such as Ottawa, Toronto, Halifax, Calgary, Hamilton, London, Kingston, Edmonton, Quebec?

[comdude21 6]

Date: 4/6/2005 3:52:02 PM
Author: cdnice55
Any chance of getting some more Canadian cities added such as Ottawa, Toronto, Halifax, Calgary, Hamilton, London, Kingston, Edmonton, Quebec?

quote>

Possibly, but this belongs in the Mapp Squad Request thread (It's a sticky in this forum).

To All: I've been working on my Washington, D.C. region but I don't think it's going to be possible for me to do. For some reason, the DEM data seems incomplete, and I couldn't get the water level right for some reason. I've decided to take up a different request, Fort Myers, FL. That one will come out on Saturday, complete with a very detailed custom config.bmp file.

[Big_Baazzoo 0]

Okay, members, I believe everybody got their custom logos...If by chance you do not have yours yet, (assuming you want one in the first place) PM me and it will be on it's way pronto.

I want to thank the powers that be for the thread and for the custom labels.  Whoever that was and for whatever the reason they decided it should be so, thank you.  I feel a certain...validation...thanks.

 

[MallowTheCloud 41]

WOW!!! I wasn't paying much attention, and didn't see the member labels... CUMULUS Map Maker!?!?!?! That's soooooooo awesome!!!!!!

When I first saw that, I stood up out of my seat with a giant smile on my face! That smile is still there!

Thank you to whoever is responsible.... thank you VERY much! Either somebody did some research, or somebody knows more about clouds than I thought.

[comdude21 6]

Date: 4/7/2005 1:45:05 PM
Author: MallowTheCloud
WOW!!! I wasn't paying much attention, and didn't see the member labels... CUMULUS Map Maker!?!?!?! That's soooooooo awesome!!!!!!


When I first saw that, I stood up out of my seat with a giant smile on my face! That smile is still there!


Thank you to whoever is responsible.... thank you VERY much! Either somebody did some research, or somebody knows more about clouds than I thought.

quote>

I had a similar reaction. My new custom member label is awesome!

As an announcement, I have released my Fort Myers, FL map. It is a very accurate map. The rendered screenshot doesn't look too good, so I hope that doesn't hurt the map's reputation, but I can say that it's a very accurate map.

comdude

[Granthos 0]

Thanks for making it guys i really like your work on the region, could you guys point me to a place that tells you how to install the map?? im at school and dont want to look around to much or they will become sepisious.

 

Again thatnks for the map

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Instructions:
Replace { } with actual region information.

1. Create a new folder called {City Name} in your ..My Documents\SimCity 4\Regions directory.
2. Download the config.bmp file and place it in the new folder
3. Download the {greyscale.jpg} file and remember where you downloaded it to.
4. Run your SimCity 4 game
5. Open the {City Name} Region
6. On your keyboard, press and hold down 'ctrl' + 'alt' + 'shift' + 'r'--this should bring up a dialogue box
7. Browse to the folder that you downloaded {greyscale.jpg} to, find {greyscale.jpg}, and open this file.
8. This should start the rendering. BE PATIENT. This can take anywhere between 5 minutes and 5 hours, depending on the region size and your computer's memory.
9. Have fun!


Hope this helps!

And, congratulations on Fort Meyers, comdude!

[comdude21 6]

Date: 4/8/2005 11:38:58 AM
Author: Granthos

Thanks for making it guys i really like your work on the region, could you guys point me to a place that tells you how to install the map?? im at school and dont want to look around to much or they will become sepisious.

Again thatnks for the map

quote>

Thanks for the compliments on the region. Mallow's instructions for installing it are great. Thanks for explaining that Mallow.

I have an announcement to make. I'm back doing Washington, D.C., and it's ready to upload. I've already uploaded three maps this week, but if TNS lets me I'll upload the DC map tomorrow. It's really good: Almost to exact scale, accurate and it includes more than just the area inside the beltway. From the picture of it the map looks fairly flat, but it's not. The elevations are accurate, they just don't look as good from a far.

comdude

[your_adress_here 11]

I think there should be a seperate thread with map instalation. More poeple would look there than here. Maybe even in the new member Information, cause alot poeple ask.

[the_new_simman 5]

Hey guys! I got a PM from an admin of SC4 Brazil and they would like to know if they could use our maps in their downloads section. Please tell me if you think this is a good idea? I personally think it is a great one. Below is the PM he/she sent me:

Hey Simman,

Congratulations for your work here with the map squad. We love all the new maps the mapsquad are producing and your fame is going overseas .
We have here at Brazil many felows who never comes to simtropolis because they don t know english well enough and they miss your maps. I would like to ask if you can arrange for us the autorizations of the members of the map squadd in a way that we could distribute your work over here too. We did the same with bats and we have the autorizations of almost all the BIG batters as PEG, VLAKhAAS, DUSKTROOPER, JTPORTLAND, SWI21 and many others... All the mappers need to do is to authorize us , we would ship ourselves the maps to our central and give the credits to the originals creators.

I hope you agree,

Your fan

Marcello Brand

[your_adress_here 11]

Wow! Fame overseas! That's amazing! Of course I will allow all my maps to be used at SimCityBrasil!

[comdude21 6]

I'll definately allow them to use my maps at SimCityBrasil, as long as my username is in the title of the map. Or something like that, we'll see. That's really good though, we're internationally recognized.

BTW, my Washington, DC map is ready to upload. I'll upload it tomorrow, since it's request day (TNS gave me the heads-up). I think it will be the premire Washington, DC map out there since the other DC maps that I saw didn't look nearly as good. That is my opinion, of course, but I think that many members will agree with me on this.

comdude

[the_new_simman 5]

I am having a major problem when using MICRODEM for my Southern California Region. Here's what happens when I enter in the elevation data from the tutorial like I always do: (just to let you know, I did double check what numbers a put in for the z scale and they were correct)

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//problem.jpg align=baseline>

 

Please help me! Why is it all white? Is this bad? Thanks for the help.

[MallowTheCloud 41]

That's a great plan! Why restrict our maps to just one language?

Any map that I make/have made is free to be translated and put on the SC4 Brazil website.

[Granthos 0]

thanks for the instructions i really love it, i will post some pics this weekand.

[timotheus4 39]

Date: 4/6/2005 8:42:33 PM
Author: comdude21

Date: 4/6/2005 3:52:02 PM

Author: cdnice55

Any chance of getting some more Canadian cities added such as Ottawa, Toronto, Halifax, Calgary, Hamilton, London, Kingston, Edmonton, Quebec?

quote>


Possibly, but this belongs in the Mapp Squad Request thread (It's a sticky in this forum).


To All: I've been working on my Washington, D.C. region but I don't think it's going to be possible for me to do. For some reason, the DEM data seems incomplete, and I couldn't get the water level right for some reason. I've decided to take up a different request, Fort Myers, FL. That one will come out on Saturday, complete with a very detailed custom config.bmp file.

quote>

Sea levels in DC are odd.

For people who want realistic fantasy terrains without much hard work, I would commend to you this thread at SCC.

[comdude21 6]

Date: 4/8/2005 9:23:29 PM
Author: timotheus4

Date: 4/6/2005 8:42:33 PM


Sea levels in DC are odd.


For people who want realistic fantasy terrains without much hard work, I would commend to you this thread at SCC.

quote>

That's probably the reason DC is so hard to make then! Thanks for pointing that out.

I was able to make my DC map (Will probably be released at midnight because I'm uploading it on Map Request day, which is Saturday) because I know what the region looks like in real life, and I was able to do some accurate editing of the greyscale by hand. I'm pretty confident it's the most accurate DC map out there; it's also very close to exact scale, so that one will be a big release.

As for making maps from pictures of clouds, I do know that some mapmakers, including MallowtheCloud, have made maps using pictures of clouds. They do work very well, but I'm not good at taking pictures. The Landscape Designer is good, even if it can't be completely controlled because it's more or less random in most cases.

Thanks for the input though, anything to help the Mapp Squad is very much appreciated.

comdude

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 4/8/2005 8:40:38 PM
Author: the_new_simman

I am having a major problem when using MICRODEM for my Southern California Region. Here's what happens when I enter in the elevation data from the tutorial like I always do: (just to let you know, I did double check what numbers a put in for the z scale and they were correct)

Please help me! Why is it all white? Is this bad? Thanks for the help.

quote>


Well, I had typed up a big long response to this, but just as I was almost finished my computer froze...

So... to make a long story short, that happened because you have white (highest elevation) set to 600 meters, which is only about 2000 feet. That will make a plateau in SimCity at that elevation, with no mountains above that elevation.

The way to fix it would be to change white in MicroDEM to a higher elevation.... say.... 2000 meters? I don't know how to do that, because I don't use MicroDEM... but I hope this helps at least a little.

[the_new_simman 5]

Thanks for the help. I don't know how to do this either, hopefully someone one the Mapp Squad does or someone in the community. I will try to figure this out. But until then, I am sorry but this request will have to be put on hold. If anyone else would like to do this request feel free to because i don't know how long it will take me to figure this out. The request would be this:

Southern California Region

[comdude21 6]

Sorry TNS, I can't help you with your problem. I though SimCity 4 could only handle an elevation difference of 1,693 feet on one map (Meaning that the lowest point is 1,693 feet lower than the highest point, and that's the largest difference possible). But since MICRODEM has nothing to do with the game at that point, I don't know why it's doing that. I think it is the elevation scale that you set. The elevation scale is set so the region will work in the game, so what you have there is the maximum elevation change that can occur in the game. That's what I think is the problem.

MICRODEM gives me other problems as well, such as cutting off parts of DEMS. I download a DEM, then see that only a long, thin portion of the DEM will work in MICRODEM. This has happened to two or three DEMs that I have used.

Basically, MICRODEM has its fair share of problems, I guess we're going to have to work around them until somebody who knows more than we do can help us out.

_______________________________________________________________________

In other news, my Washington, D.C. map was just released! I'm pretty confident that it's the best DC map out there. It's close to scale, very realistic and accurate, and covers a much larger land area than the other DC maps that I have seen. Feel free to take a look at it.

comdude

[Granthos 0]

I hate to bother u guys again, but something is wrong, i tried to follow clouds insturctions, and i put the folder in the regions one, and downloaded and put it in the, and then i went and ran the game, (I installed the gray scale to desktop).  It wouldent recognize it?? what is up with that, most of my other citie have the same problem, they are listed on the load a region in game, but are no inside of the region folder. If you guys could maybe point me to where this has hppened before that would be great.

 

Will

 

[comdude21 6]

I think your problem is that you need the config.bmp file. You can download it from the same place as you downloaded the Fort Myers map separately. Save it as config.bmp into the new region folder that you created for this folder. It'll ask if you want to overwrite an existing file in there (The original config.bmp that the game makes), so answer OK or Yes or whatever it says there. Then go into the game, into the region and import the terrain.

It may take a little while to render. I think it took me 15-20 minutes or so, but I have a fast computer.

Hope this helps.

comdude

[RadioheadFan 1]

Great work guys! I want to congratulate all our excellent mapmakers whose work is now travelling to SimCityBrasil! We've gone international, baby! lol...

RHF

[Big_Baazzoo 0]

Hello, gang,  I've been working on Jaqulina's request for the map of a horse, and trying to play my region some to have some more to post about it.  Brazil...that's cool...I would be glad to share maps with them!

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 4/9/2005 9:46:50 AM
Author: Granthos

I hate to bother u guys again, but something is wrong, i tried to follow clouds insturctions, and i put the folder in the regions one, and downloaded and put it in the, and then i went and ran the game, (I installed the gray scale to desktop). It wouldent recognize it?? what is up with that, most of my other citie have the same problem, they are listed on the load a region in game, but are no inside of the region folder. If you guys could maybe point me to where this has hppened before that would be great.

Will

quote>

Hmmm... I think I understand the problem. So, you installed the greyscale to the desktop? So, now you have an image on your desktop that is a greyscale image, right?

If you right click on the greyscale image on your desktop, it should tell you that it's a .jpg (or jpeg) file. If it is, then go in to SimCity4. Open the region (which is blank at first), do the ctrl-alt-shift-r, and look for your desktop (it might be something like C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\). If you find your desktop, the image should be right there.


I hope I understood your problem right, and I hope that solved the issue.

[airmale007 3]

I'd love to have my maps made avaliable on that site!

[Granthos 0]

I will try both of your instructions and i will tell you the results in a few hours, (going to wally world)

[the_new_simman 5]

Date: 4/9/2005 6:02:52 PM Author: Granthos I will try both of your instructions and i will tell you the results in a few hours, (going to wally world)

quote>

Here's what I usually do:

 

1) Download the greyscale image and config.bmp image and save it to my documents.

 

2) Go into SC4 and create a new region. (Usually the name of the file you downloaded)

 

3) Press Crtl + Shift + Alt + R

 

4) Navigate to the greyscale image you want to upload.

 

5) Double click on the greyscale file and it will open. SC4 will begin to render, this may take 20-30 minutes depending on the speed of you PC.

 

6) Once the region is rendered close SC4 and navigate to the region folder and open it.

 

7) Once inside the region folder there will be a bunch of different region names. Navigate to the one you just opened.

 

Copy and paste the new config.bmp into the folder. It will ask you to overwrite the other file. Say, yes to all.

 

9) Once that it complete open SC4 back up and open the region you just uploaded and there you have it a whole new region! With the config.bmp.

 

Hope this helps you a bunch.

[Skippydam73 0]

Date: 4/5/2005 4:37:31 PM Author: MallowTheCloud Thanks to Andy80586's wonderful mod, which I didn't even find until now, I can now use greyscale bmp files to import much larger mountains!!! I think I am going to update ALL my maps to be more accurate heightwise... this is definately going to take a few days. And the other problem is that anybody who renders a map by me in the future will have to have the mod. If the mod is required for a map, I will post a link to it there. Anyway, I have attached the file to this post just in case others would like to see the possibilities of it.

quote>

 

Mallow,

You have to be careful using that mod with high mountains.  If you do not change the sea level to be lower you can max out the mountains to be flat on the top.  Its been a long time but I can not remember everything that i did messing around.  From what I can remember, I was able to get very accurate maps with ones at sea level.  Though once you get into the land ones, it changes everything.  The second thing I remember is when using Microdem, you have to change the scale everytime to get it to fit.  Goodluck though and I see it finally took off from when it was mentioned last year. 

 

Skippy