Request here any RL map!

[Heblem 600]

ac94: thanks! i'll be working in your map, expect it by tomorrow...

Lora;

Use the rectangular marquee tool to select the entire map (located at the left tool bar), the hit copy (it should now be enabled), then at your 4097x4097 paste it...

Hope that helps

[ldvger 19]

Eblem-

I hate to bother you or take up space in your thread with my issues, but I did as you suggested and it didn't work.  I took some screen shots to show you what is going on.

First, this is the 16bit PNG file Terraformer created of the NW region, as "seen" by Photoshop:

Is this what the Terraformer image is supposed to look like?  I follower the instructions in your tutorial on SC4D for creating PNG images from existing regions and used Terraformer to create this image.  First, load region.  Second, go to Global Tool, then Export.  I chose "16bit png files" from the drop down menu, clicked "open" and this is what I got. 

I also tried saving an image of the "Overview" window that opens when I load a region into Terraformer, but those files save as 8bit, not 16 bit, and you have been very clear that the images need to be 16bit. 

Moving on, to continue to show you what happens to me with Photoshop when I try to copy/paste, this shows that the above image is indeed a 16 bit greyscale image:

I didn't set those values.  Those are the values that came with the PNG image Terraformer created and Photoshop opened them as such. 

Lastly, here's a screen shot of why I can't copy/paste this image...all the options are greyed out, as you can see, even after using the marquee tool, which you will also see in bold:

So, I'm kinda lost and don't know what to do. 

Somehow I don't think the Terraformer png I am getting is correct, as your tutorial instructs us to CHANGE it into a 16 bit greyscale, which leads me to believe it should be a color picture to begin with.  But none of the colort pics I am able to save as png's from either TF or Mapper are 16 bit, they are all 8 bit and Photoshop won;t let me change them to 16 bit.

Any help would be appreciated.  I am going to try to import my large map into the game at 8 bit and see what happens, as I have been able to create a greyscale that looks like it might work.  I'll let you know (and maybe show you) what happens.

In the meantime, you asked me to post pics of my fully rendered regions, so here they are:

This is the NW corner region.  All 4 regions are 64 large city tiles, 8x8 square. 

This is the NE corner and shows the upper reaches of the Copper River Valley.  Look at thos glaciers!  Aren't they gorgeous?

This is the SE corner and shows the lower reaches of the Copper River.  The blue water is sea level water, I will have to plop the rest of the river, which I am looking forward to.

And this is the SW corner. 

I really want to marry these fours maps into a single large region, if anyone can help, don't hesitate to chime in with advice.

And, BTW, the reviews on my CJ are extremely favorable (concerning the new maps and regions).

Lora/LD

[ac94 5]

Originally posted by: ldvger

I really want to marry these fours maps into a single large region, if anyone can help, don't hesitate to chime in with advice.

And, BTW, the reviews on my CJ are extremely favorable (concerning the new maps and regions).

Lora/LDquote>

I can solve this. If you want all maps in one region, first get the total size in large tiles, create the config., and import all the tiles into the new super-region.

If anyone has a shorter process, just post it here.

Andrew

[ldvger 19]

Andrew-

I appreciate your advice, but somehow I don't think it's that simple.  I have of course created a config.bmp for the large region.  The config.bmp is 64x64 pixels, all blue for large city tiles, which what it is supposed to be for a region of 4097x4097 pixels in size, which is the size my large region will be once all the maps are combined.  I have created a new region subfolder in my game Regions folder, named it Copper River16 and saved the config.bmp there.  So far so good. 

The problem is marrying the four discreet SC4M files Eblem made me to each other.  First, they need to be translated from SC4M files to 16 bit PNG files.  To the best of my current knowledge, and from reading the various tutorials about how this is done, it can only be done using Terraformer.  Also, I believe Terraformer will only open region files.  So I have to create all 4 of the smaller regions first, which I have done, as you can see from the pics posted above.  Then I need to open each of the 4 regions in Terraformer, then using the Global Tools drop down menu and chose Export.  I have the choice of exporting the files as SC4M files or as 16 bit PNG files or as a RGB bitmap.  The tutorial and Eblem instruct me to export the files as 16 bit PNG, which I did for all 4 regions.  The greyscale image at the upper end of my last post is what one of those newly created 16 bit PNG files looks like when opened in Photoshop. 

Per instructions, I need to create a new 16 bit greayscale PNG file in Photoshop, then one by one cut and paste the 4 smaller files into the large one.  This is what I have so far been unable to do. 

What I HAVE been able to do is create an 8 bit color PNG of the large region using the overview image in Terraformer, saving the overview image, then marrying all for bit PNG files thus created into a new large 8 bit color PNG file using the cut/paste features in Photoshop.  I then turned that image into a greyscale and saved it to my Copper River 16 file in my game.  Using Terraformer again, I opened the Copper River 16 region in my game, imported the greyscale and what finally rendered in both the overview window and the 3D window bore no relationshop whatsoever to the beautifu regions Eblem created for me. 

In reading your suggestion, it sounds like your saying all I need is a config.bmp file in my region folder, but that is not the case.  I need a 16 bit greyscale JPG or PNG file, too, or else the game will just give me a default large flat region.  And I can't just copy all the 256 individual city tiles from the other 4 smaller regions into the large region game folder, because the game doesn't have any way of knowing where in the region any one of the city tiles need to be located.

So...unless I am very much confused about what you are suggesting, I don't think your method would work. 

But I appreciate your trying!

Lora/LD

[Heblem 600]

Lora: As you supposed, the PNG that terraformer is making for you is incorrect... should be something like this...

It should by default set as 16-bit and greyscale you dont need to change it, i just mentioned to verify if it correct, if not then the image is not correct, if you wish here is the big png image wih the 4 maps "married"

(locked by author request)

If youre going to use this png, you have to do first a new config and region folder, then adjust the image, it might not be correct, so you'll have to do some special changes at SC4Terraformer as like compressing the terrain and modify the shorelines. It's better you try to mix with your 4 maps that are already done. Hope that helps now and don'rt worry its ok you can post anything you want here.

Take care

ac94: sorry for the delay now im looking for your data map, as for your idea, its a good option too but I think thats too tedius changing every city tile to a region, you need to have some patience and control of what youre working on.

[ldvger 19]

Eblem-

The link you posted doesn't work, so sorry.  I just get a blank page.  Try again? 

As for correcting and adjusting the greyscale image in Photoshop, I would have no idea what I was doing and would be terrified I would be messing up your gorgeous maps.  If you send the greyscale, I'll import it directly into Terraformer and go from there, with fingers crossed.  Or...should I use Mapper?  I used Mapper for the SC4M files you sent.  But wait...they were already in SC4M file format.  So, I need to put the greyscale image in my region folder, import it into Terraformer, export it as a SC4M file, open it in Mapper, then create the new region, correct? 

I hope you're still online and get this soon, as ST is coming down for a while today and I sure would like to have that greyscale file before that happens!  But, I will be patient.

Lora/LD

[Heblem 600]

Lora, sure i'll try to do that for you don't worry, the only option you would have to do it import the png by sc4mapper if you wish, then you can save it directly, just easy like that... later i'll post a better link for download...

[Heblem 600]

Ok, hope it helps you now... heres the complete png image

(locked by author request)

[Bamafan 0]

I would like a 1:1 Model of Washington D.C.

Since I still can't figure out how to upload pictures. I'll hand you the area to the exact spot, I would like to have modeled.

1: Go to Google Maps

2: Type in Washington D.C.

3: Click on the TERRAIN tab

4:Zoom out till the scale reaches 10 KM.

5:I would like a 10 X 10 with all small maps.

Thank you ahead of time for your help! I will attempt to figure out how to upload pictures in a CJ in a little while.

Again thank you,

Bamafan

[ldvger 19]

Eblem-

Got the file, the download worked like a charm, thank you so very much!  You are a very patient man.

I then created my new config.bmp, loaded the png into Mapper, with the config.bmp, then hit Save Region.  Took longer to save than the SC4M maps you made me, so fingers crossed I got it right this time.  I'm going to go open it in the game and see what happens.  I'll let you know.

Lora/LD

[ldvger 19]

Eblem-

It worked!  At first I was a little bit worried because when the region loaded into the game, it was greyscale, not colored up like your SC4M maps were.  I also noticed some weird "jaggies" along the north edge of the region and that the cities didn't seem to match up with each other.  There were very visible areas of what looked like "slippage" between the city tiles.  Before I started rendering the individual city tiles, I exited the game and opened the region in Region Census and took a picture, in case we needed to work more on getting this huge region accomplished.  Here is the pic I took:

You can see the jaggies at the top/north edge of the map, but the map is to small at 800x600 to allow us to see the slippage between city tiles. 

But...not to worry!  I started with the NW corner city tile, opened it, saved it, close it, returned to region, then did the next city tile east.  When I got back to region view, the jaggy between the two tiles was gone and I had a seamless match between the two tiles!  So I did a couple more east and they all started lining up like good little soldiers, making a perfectly straight row.  So then I picked a tile in the next row south, one that had the appearance of having slipped, did the same thing, and sure enough, it fell right into rank with the rest of the rendered tiles.

So, now I have the unenviable job of rendering all 256 of these babies.  It'll take a while, but now I have everything I wanted and am off to the races.

Will you miss me?  Not!

Thanks again Eblem, you're a gem of a man.  Stop by my CJ from time to time to watch how I develope this beautiful baby you made for me. 

Lora/LD

[Heblem 600]

Bamafan: i'll take your request soon, after I do the first request (Cap Cod) please be petient, maybe you'll get it by tomorrow.

Lora: Other problem I clearly see just than that "jaggies" is that the terrain is high, and the water is not showed up, I may suggest you open SC4Terraformer and low down all the terrain in general before you start rendering your city tiles, until you can match it up with the current coast (the clearly coastline you see)

That probably would be a mine mistake because I wasn't sure how the terrain would be, what I use to do first after getting the PNG is modify the terrain region until I get something similar to the RL terrain, but as I told im not able to open the big png into my SC4Terraformer due RAM issues, so that you have to modify by you self...

Im sorry if this comes late when you started rendering...

take care

[Heblem 600]

Request N° 4 Cape Cod map requested by ac94

Map size: 14x14 SC4 large tiles

Type of config tiles: Large

General Location: Cape Cod, Massachusetts, United States

Author notes:

This map is most possible accurate to the real one, canals, rivers, lakes are most possible previewed, the terrain 1:1 and I tried not to divide the map, as this time I could render it propely, hope you like!

Download it here:

http://www.fileden.com/getfile.php?file_path=http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/20/800718/CapeCod.zip

Working on the next request...

[ldvger 19]

Eblem-

I don't know enough about working with greyscales to make adjustments, so I think what I'll do is simply Lower Terrain in the God Mode, thereby raising sea level.  It's possible to do this in the God Mode tools (I think even in Mayor Mode, but maybe only by using the God Mode cheat).  It's possible to Lower Terrain across the entire city tile and so long as I count how many clicks I use, every thing should be fine.  I know this map well enough to know where the shorelines are and not having water, at least for now, may actually be a benefit, not a problem.  It will allow me to deepen many of the ocean water areas and soften down beaches.  Once I'm done with that, then I'l lower the terrain, which will raise the sea level, and we'll be back in biz.  No problem my friend, rest easy, I am very happy and very excited.

But now I have a larger question is ask.  Due to the size of this region, I have decided to create a collaborative team of volunteers to help me terraform and develope it.  This means I will have to share the large region map with them and I am restricted from doing that under the terms of your agreement, which I accepted and still accept.  If you take a quick run over to my CJ "Apocrypha", you will see that I have created a list of rules, among which is an absolute ban on sharing the map files outside of the team parameters.   

I don't know if anyone will volunteer to help me work this region or not, but if they do, I will need to send them the region file.  And to do that I need your permission, which I am requesting here. 

Know too, that already I am getting requests for copies of these maps.  I have referred folks back to you...you made them, they are yours, so you can of course do what you want with them.  Just want you to know that I would prefer it if these maps remained exclusive to me (and of course you), for the two of us to control.  I plan to spend the next couple of YEARS working on this region you created for me and would, quite honestly, maybe lose enthusiasm for my project if I knew someone else was running a parallel project on the same set of maps.  But, it's your call, amigo.  I know you will do what is right.

Lora/LD

[Heblem 600]

Request N

[Heblem 600]

Lora: Scaling every city tile with god mode will cause unwanted glitches at region view, due its not accurate doing so, we got only 1 option that is by  using SC4Terraformer by wouanagaine, open up your region, then at the program look at the left tool bar, then look for Global tools, select it, you'll see another list of options, pick Lower Terrain, you should give an approximate amount to lower it, depding how high the terrain is, lower it until you can see the sea level and the correct shape of the coast line.

Im eager to join at your collaborative team, but some suggestions before you start do so... make a map plan where who will develop certain areas, and of course make some rules how you want that player to develop the area. Also its importat that you work in some basic subjects like giving an default transportation system to every city tile, power and water, then we can work on it. As you know everyone has different plugins folder so you couln't see the creation of the person in game, the only option is sharing pictures and datas with the forums, kinda hard if you only got 1 thread for that subject, so you need maybe to open a new free forum for doing so...

As for your question about the map, I made the map, yes... but this map is for you... you tell me if you want to share with people, or make it private (i can errase the link for download it) or whatever you want, if you want me to upload it at STEX I can do so by my account but I will be forced to do some more work for quality procedures, or either if you want it private... if these folks want this map, the only place where they can download its here by now...

Take care,

[ldvger 19]

Eblem-

Points well taken by a master map maker and I am paying very strict attention.

I have already rendered 64 city tiles of the new large region and found that yes, the region is high and the entire terrain needs to be lowered.  I don't know how far it needs to be lowered but will take your suggestion about using Terraformer to heart.

If you have zipped over to my CJ "Apocrypha" you will see that I have laid out some pretty strict ground rules.  Tonite I used Excel and created  a 16x16 cell map, one cell for each city tile, to keep track of the many tiles.  

It's late at night here in Seattle and I have been working on this for close to 16 hours non-stop.  I need a break...and sleep.

I will tune back in tomorrow in the early afternoon, USA west coast time. 

Falling asleep at my keyboard.

Oh and, don;t share this map...

Lora/LD

[ac94 5]

Thank you sooooo much for the Cape Cod map Heblem! You are a great mapper! I'll be back if I see anything else good to map.

Andrew

[ldvger 19]

Eblem-

Ok, I'm back after a good night's sleep and am ready to get started again, but have one major question for you.

Should I continue rending the city tiles and completely render the region BEFORE I lower the terrain in Terraformer or

Should use the greyscale map you made me and lower the terrain, than start over with rendering my city tiles? 

I only have 64 of the 256 city tiles rendered now,and while that's a lot and it's a shame to toss a couple hours work out the door, that's what I'll do if I have to.  However, if lowering the terrain usung Terraformer will still work if the entire region is already rendered, then I'd rather finish rendering the region, then lower the terrain. 

Ok, I lied, I have one more question.  When I lower the terrain, will my glaciers retreat to higher elevations?  Because right now my region is experiencing an Ice Age...the glaciers and snow is all the way down to sea level.  The snow and glaciers were perfect in the smaller regions I rendered, so this is a rather big concern for me. 

I'm not going to touch my maps again until I hear from you, so today I am FINALLY going to make the turkey pot pies I've been trying to get around to doing all week (but was playing here instead).

Lora/LD, hoping you haven't taken off for the weekend

[Heblem 600]

Lora

With the grayscale image i sent to you days ago, use SC4mapper to open and generate the region, once you have done this step (as I suppose you did already) open SC4Terraformer v1.1, open the same region, then at global tools you can lower the entire region (as I explained before), then just save your current region at the up side toolbar. Once you done, open you region in game, and start rendering city tiles, but make sure that the coast line shape concurs with the sea level. Once you do it, obliviously your terrain will be lower and you'll be able to see some green area at down side and the snow at upper side, just like the 4 maps you rendered before.

All the snow youre getting it because the terrain is too high, so the game recognizes it as a high terrain so thats why its all covered by snow.

Ok, so DON'T continue anymore rendering, I feel bad about all the time you spent in rendering these region tiles, but once you are sure that everything works out you can go ahead and rendering, this time do that with the terraformer, once you finish send me a picture of your region (before rendering) so I can see if everything is fine. I'm sorry to tell but you'll have to render it over again.

Hope that helps

Take care

Eblem

[JakeMD 107]

Woah, first visit here.. Nice work heblem

[ldvger 19]

Eblem-

Well, it took a while but I think I finally got it.  Take a look and see for yourself:

And here's a region view:

Did I do good?  Can I start rendering my city tiles now???

I have to admit, this was a stretch for me.  When I opened the region in Terraformer and clicked on the Lower Terrain button, I had no idea what I was doing.  The default value was 10m and that seemed too much, so I lowered the value to 1m.  Waited for the changes, didn't see much, so did another 1m.  Some changes, but not what I expected, so I tried 10 m.  The map visably sank but still no water. 

I played around like this for about an hour before the little light bulb went off in my head.  By this time I had loaded the newly lowered region into my game a couple of times, still an Ice Age, dumped the region, went back to Mapper and started over.  I finally clued into the elevations the TF tool was giving me as I moved it across the landscape.  Sea level was about 1380 or so, and the closest land, the shorelines, were about 1425. 

Then I remembered reading how dedgren discovered that sea level in SC4 is set at 250m.  So I dumped my latest attempt and started over yet again.  When I finally (it's a big region, takes time to load) got the region to load in TF, I immediately checked what wanted to be sea level and found it to be 1380.6, in some places 1380.8.  So I subtracted 250 from 1380.6 and got 1130.6, so I then lowered the terrain 1130.6m. 

Voila!  I had oceans again, but they were still slightly "out to sea" (maybe it was low tide?)  from the land, so I Lowered Terrain again, this time by 1m, then once again by 1m and now I had the region exactly (I think) in the same conformation you sent it to me in the original 4 maps.

What a journey!  I am very happy with my results and anxious to begin moving forward, so Eblem if you see something wrong, don't tell me!  I am going to once again, for the nth time, start rendering my city tiles and this time I don't think I'll be looking back. 

On my way and thank you so very, very much!  You are a true sweetheart with the patience of a saint to have helped me through this long and painful process, but hey, we got it done! 

And, I will be posting to both ST and SC4D soon a general call for all terraformers, to help me start whipping this region into shape.  Watch the forums, especially General ones, for the call.  I have 256 large city tiles to terraform and can't, won't even try, to do it all by myself. 

Thank you Eblem, thank you very, very much!

Lora/LD

[Heblem 600]

Lora:

I'm glad to know that everything worked great now, I have no (negative) comments! its just perfect something what I was expecting to see. As for your long process thats the way how to learn, by practice.... you can start now to render your region!

If anything else needed, Im here for help don't doubt to ask me, also will be looking at your CJ for progress!

Take care

[ldvger 19]

Eblem-

Well, I have the entire large region rendered now and can see I could have lowered the terrain a teensy bit more, but that's OK, I'll deal with it in God Mode.  I am NOT going to re-render all 256 tiles for the sake a a few meters of elevation. 

I do have a request of you, though, yet again.  Could you forward to me copies of the data maps you used to make the maps from?  I need/want them so I can orient myself in my region with the RL maps I already have, so I can display on my CJ where this region is.  I would also like to be able to use your makes as a "baseline" for tha maps I have that provide me with names of objects in the landscape like mounatin peaks, glaciers, rivers and streams.  I already have a rough idea of the area you used, but I have some fairly detailed maps that include place names and it would be very helpful to me to kinda overlay the area you used with the maps I have.  Don"t know if that makes sense to you or not.

I hope you haven't dumped that data sets you used...I know you have RAM issues and probably wouldn't keep them for very long.  If you have dumped them, can you tell me where I can find copies of the same set? 

I have copies of the full USGS maps for the area, just not 100% certain where to match your start/end locations in such a way to match my data.  Yoy don't even have to send me the maps...just tell me the coordinates of the NW and SE corners in RL and I can go from there.

You've been very parient with me so far, I hope you can hang tough just a teensy bit longer while I get all my background stuff together.

Lora/LD

[ldvger 19]

Eblem-

Just found your post over on my CJ, thank you so very much, this will help a lot.

Lora/LD

[Bamafan 0]

Thanks for the D.C. map it looks great! But how do you get it into the game?

Also I have another request.

Can you do Washington D.C. again. Same size just with Large mixed with small squares. The rendereing I bet will take to long for 12 X 12 small squares. So I want just the same region size just with differnet size city squares.

Thanks!

Directions:

Same directions as above

[CyprusTM 1]

hi i would like to ask if you can make a region of romania. if and whenever you have the time to do it.

for some reason the code dont work so i will paste a direct link  here http://img411.imageshack.us/my.php?image=romania.jpg

hopefuly this helps. if you can make it size 30x30 it would be great

on this map 15-20 regions wich ever is easier.

Thank you, and sorry for the big images.

[Malachite 0]

Hi Heblem,

Thank you for making your time available like this - extremely nice of you. I have to admit, I've lost track through the thread of which requests are completed, and which are still in process, so if this is in excess to the three-a-week, happily disregard it!

I'd like to request a map of the Newcastle/Sunderland area, UK (England, Tyne and Wear). Not to be confused with Newcastle, Australia, which is already on the STEX, despite being clearly inferior.

The full urban area is a little in excess of the 35km limit in the N-S direction, but smaller in the E-W. However, some of the northern/souther suburbs can be clipped, so an area like this would be ideal:

(I've never really got to grips with image hosting/bandwith, so if this doesn't show, or is in breach of forum rules, I'll edit it as soon as I can)

For tile layout, largest would be best, particularly across the riverbanks as there are some classic bridges there.

Many thanks,

Malachite

[ac94 5]

Hi Heblem,

It's me again. He's a request for my friend goldeneye14 of the Greek island that his family is from, Icaria.

Here's the shot of it in Google Earth:

Please make it to scale and once again, try your best to fit it on one map.

Andrew

[ldvger 19]

Eblem-

Hello!  I'm back, this time with a new map request.  If I have already used up my allowed requests, np problem, I think I may be able to do this one by myself but I know you would do a much better job and do it much faster as well. 

I grew up in Santa Barbara, California and, with the recent terrible fire, there have been looking at a lot of maps of the area.  I had kinda forgotten what an interesting landscape it was, so late last night I went over to the USGS web site and downloaded a fairly good sized DEM map in TIFF format of the area.  I've been working my way through the "Making Accurate Scale Regions Using USGS Data" tutorial and have gotten as far as step three, working in the graphics editor program (Photoshop 6.0 for me).  I admit I am a little lost/confused about what to do next, as I am just not understanding the instructions concerning how to establish accurate scale.  I'm also not 100% certain I created my grey scale correctly using the MICRODEM program, it looks very white/light to me and I'm afraid I may have set my elevations incorrectly. 

I can email you the zip of the USGS download I made last night, if you are willing to map me another large region.  Just like the last one, I'd like this one to be 16 x 16 large city tiles, appromimately 40 miles square.  Let me know if you are interested and I will find some more maps to show you the area I would like to create a region from.

Lora/LD