lookinins Mapp Squad maps

[xePh3roK 0]

Hi MallowTheCloud!
Thanks for your support, it works great now

[flamesrock 6]

Mallow,

Try changin the map to an indexed RGB. Believe it or not, simcity doesn't care if its grayscale or otherwise, as long as its indexed.

[lookinin 2]

Thanks for that bit of info flamesrock, that's really nice to know! Do either of you think there's something wrong with my upload? I used that actual jpg for the preview, so I'm surprised that it needed to be reindexed... should I replace the version on the STEX?

In the mean-time, a couple of people have requested St. Maarten, so here is a pic of what I have so far:



I need to touch up around Coconut Grove (center East), but I think it came out quite nice so far - thoughts, comments, suggestions?

[Kanis 0]

It is nice the request are both from me because my mom thought it would be cool to add saba in there. Ok lets start on the tiny fixes. At Little Bay the pond does not go to the ocean the beach makes a moon shape so close off the pond. Around Simpson Lagoon the land where the airport is and Nettle Bay are a little thicker. I am going ot get my mom to look at it when she gets home. I am going to get you a better map W/O the names so you can have better view of the island. I am going to get you the maps of Saba and Angilla if you don't mine doing them they are what my mom would like to see. The map is very good the only reason I gave you the fixes is because I live there for about a month in our timeshere at Little Bay and I know the Island. 

[Kanis 0]

This link will help you with Saba, Anguilla and St. Maarten http://www.skypic.com/carib.htm

This link will show you where Anguilla, Saba and St. Maarten are to each other http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=17.968140,-63.051910&spn=0.789299,1.161118&t=k&hl=en

Also it sould help with the maps you can zoom in but there are clouds.

This photo sould help you with the elevations on St. Maarten and Saba.

 

width=981 vspace=7 border=1> width=359 vspace=7 border=1>

[lookinin 2]

Kanis: Thanks for all the extra info. No problem to add Saba in there, I didn't realize at first that they were two parts of one request. Where do you want Saba in the region tho? There's too much space between them to have all that water in between. Is it okay to have it be in the lower left city tile? Another option is to have it have it's own city tile off on the bottom... not sure how to explain that, but if I use black in the config.bmp, it wouldn't render the rest of the cities in that row... something like this:

####
####
####
####
#

Let me know how you'd prefer it, or if you had something else in mind.

I will be touching the map up and adding Saba and should have an update for you to check out within a day or so. Let me know if you think of anything else in the mean-time. Thanks again!

[Kanis 0]

Can you add saba to the south may add another row or two of tiles. Later on I may want to put Anguilla in the north. I bet those aerial photos will help you alot. These maps are so good after this request I might have you my home town and some more islands.

Thanks

[Kanis 0]

How do you do your maps because I can't get Mellow's Way to work you said you did it from the image I gave you. If you can help I would be thankful

[lookinin 2]

Date: 7/1/2005 10:21:45 PM
Author: Kanis
How do you do your maps because I can't get Mellow's Way to work you said you did it from the image I gave you. If you can help I would be thankful

quote>

Are you talking about this?

I used that actual jpg for the preview

quote>

If so, I was referring to a different topic when I said that... I use Mallow's method for the basic map, but then I deviate some so that you don't need a plugin, and I have a somewhat different way of doing water... I used the images you provided and some additional ones that I found to fill in some detail. What are you having trouble with?

[Kanis 0]

It gets to hard after filling in the blank spots on the map. I try the St. Maarten map and it did not work. Is there an easier to do this?

[lookinin 2]

Not really, that's pretty much it It's not too bad after you do it a couple times. What specifically seems hard and I'll try to clear it up for you?

[Kanis 0]

The water is the really hard thing you can't find water to the scale that I am useing it just to big or to small

[lookinin 2]

Well, the initial size doesn't matter too much - tho the bigger the better so that it doesn't look blocky. Once you have it the way you want it, you can stretch or shrink it as needed. I don't worry much about scaling the water - most times you can eyeball it to get it right. It is a little harder with St. Maarten though, since it's mostly water. In the case of St. Maarten, using GIMP (similar to photoshop) I actually worked with a satellite image of the island, then I white out the island itself, use the magic wand to select the white part that was the island, then invert the selection, and fill it with what value I used for water. So what I'm left with looks something like this (Some detail was added after the fact in my version, but feel free to take this and use it):



Then you should be able to continue with Mallows tutorial and overlay this over the height map, then scale as needed.

Does that help?

Edit: You'll probably need to convert that to BMP to overlay it, I'm not sure - never tried with a jpeg.

[Kanis 0]

Ifs that is what the island looks like on the map that great. What step do I overlay the image

[lookinin 2]

Thanks, like I said, that's not exactly what my final version looks like - I added some water and touched up some land by hand, but that's what I started with...

If you have your greyscale ready for the water, in Mallow's tutorial, the section just above the final image explains how to use MSpaint to overlay & merge the images.

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 7/2/2005 12:07:38 AM
Author: lookinin
Edit: You'll probably need to convert that to BMP to overlay it, I'm not sure - never tried with a jpeg.

quote>

Well, it does work with a jpeg, but I had Win98 before, and MSPaint doesn't load jpegs in Win98. But, if you are using WindowsXP you can always use a jpeg.


By the way, you are doing a great job explaining this, lookinin. I don't think I could have explained it as well as you. And your maps continue to look great!

Keep up the nice work!

[Kanis 0]

Do you have some way I can show you what I have the image is to big for the forum of what I have of St. Maarten. Do you have a preview yet of the map or do you need more time. I just want to make comments so you don't go to far so you don't have to spend a lot of time editing your copy.

[lookinin 2]

Date: 7/2/2005 12:27:22 AM
Author: MallowTheCloud
Well, it does work with a jpeg, but I had Win98 before, and MSPaint doesn't load jpegs in Win98. But, if you are using WindowsXP you can always use a jpeg.

quote>

Well, I'm on 98, so it probably wouldn't have worked for me then I just never had occassion to try it since I always leave my water as bmp - I'm afraid of the quality loss with jpeg. I only converted it here for the forum's sake.

By the way, you are doing a great job explaining this, lookinin. I don't think I could have explained it as well as you. And your maps continue to look great!

quote>

Thanks, but no way! Your tutorial rocks! It explains it way better than I ever could, and I find I'm recommending it every time someone asks about maps now

Edit:

Do you have some way I can show you what I have the image is to big for the forum of what I have of St. Maarten. Do you have a preview yet of the map or do you need more time. I just want to make comments so you don't go to far so you don't have to spend a lot of time editing your copy.

quote>

It doesn't need to be to scale if you just want to show me something on it, no problem... just use irfanview and scale it so that it's no larger than 800x600, convert to jpeg, upload it to imgcity.net with a unique filename, and link to it here.

[Kanis 0]

Ok this is what I have at this time http://www.imgcity.net/server/primary/St. Maarten.jpeg.jpg  or this one http://www.imgcity.net/server/primary/St.Maarten Two.jpg

 

[lookinin 2]

Date: 7/2/2005 12:42:13 AM
Author: imgcity.net
Error-404


Ops! Buddy!
The file or image you requested was not found in our servers.

quote>

Hmm... copy and paste the actual html img= line that it gives you after uploading...

[Kanis 0]

  <img src=http://www.imgcity.net/server/primary/Picture of St.Maarten.jpg> http://www.imgcity.net/server/primary/Picture of St.Maarten.jpg

The right is st. maarten right now and the left screen is were I get lost.

[lookinin 2]

Date: 7/2/2005 12:51:13 AM
Author: Kanis

The right is st. maarten right now and the left screen is were I get lost.

quote>

Okay, I think I understand. Where things stand now, you could simply fill in those white spots as Mallow explains, and then continue from down at the bottom of his tutorial using the water I gave you above. However, if you really want to make your own water, I'd suggest using something other than Mapquest... The large image above that you gave me would work good. The point is to get solid water without all the text and map info over top of it, so using iDraw, you color in the spots that need it - making the water all one solid color (it doesn't really matter WHAT color - it could be purple, and you can flood fill it with dark grey water later), then white out everything else in the way that he explains - by setting a gradient from white to white in iDraw's pallette editor.

Does this make sense? I'm a bit tired, so I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't

Another hint when using this method: Turn up your monitor brightness so you can actually see the greyscale that you're working with... the greys are so dark that you can't tell high points from low points...

[Kanis 0]

I will talk to you when I see the preview of the islands I am a bit

See you later and thanks for you help

[lookinin 2]

Kanis: If you have additional questions about making maps, let's move that conversation to PM or to the tutorial thread .

In the mean time, here's revision three of St. Maarten - Saba doesn't quite fit into 1 large city tile like I hoped - I wanted to leave it to scale. I blacked out four tiles where there was only water to save some rendering time. Saba is not as high as it should be... it's at 515 meters, when it should be 873 (I think). If the extra height is necessary, we'll have to move to using the import plugin. It's your decision, but personally I prefer not to use the plugin.

As for the fixes you requested, I tried to make the land around Simpson Lagoon a little thicker and there is land visible now between the pond and Little Bay.

My own changes are that the mountains in the far Northeast are shifted slightly West now the way they should be... and I thickened the land between Coconut Grove and the lake there too.

What do you guys think so far?

[Kanis 0]

I am going to send you a PM. About the island I am making. I am not going to be on for much loger but i will be back to talk to about the map.

[Kanis 0]

Ok the map is great. Now if you don't mine can you make saba to scale I have that plugin. But you do not have to do it if you don't want to. I like these map so much do you mind doing Little Rock for me I will give you anything you need to do it.

Thanks

[lookinin 2]

Date: 7/2/2005 7:37:30 PM
Author: Kanis

Ok the map is great. Now if you don't mine can you make saba to scale I have that plugin. But you do not have to do it if you don't want to. I like these map so much do you mind doing Little Rock for me I will give you anything you need to do it.

quote>

Thanks Kanis, glad you are happy with it so far! Here is a pic of how it looks using the import plugin. As you can see, the height is not a huge difference, but since the job is done, I'll keep it this way.

Other changes include a little fixing up around Grand Case airport, the addition of the lake just West of Orient Beach, the addition of the lake East of Friars Bay (or is that actually Friars Bay?), and the island in Salt Pond is now larger and a little more to scale.

I hope these changes are to your liking - see what you think and let me know:



I'm not sure about doing Little Rock or not - let me see what requests are still waiting and get my bearings a bit after this one is released

[Kanis 0]

I like the map very much. There are still somethings to fix but I will most likly do them just some size issues. On the Little Rcok map just tell me if you can do it and what stuff you need when you are ready.

[lookinin 2]

Hi again Kanis - you think I should release it as is? If there's something still wrong, please let me know and I'll fix it up

[Kanis 0]

If you really don't mine can you make the beach at Little Bay a little thicker and the pennisla a little thick and bigger to get it to scale. I am trying to get my map to work so when it works I will show you.

Edit: You can put it out on the webstie when your done