New Cities XL MAP-Editor

[kiwispanker 1]

The great folks over at CitiesXS have posted a new map editor that's worth trying out. I'm not sure what stages of development it's in though and I've yet to test it out myself.

You can find the original link here.

Or try the quick link to Google translate for a rough translation of the descriptions and comments.

Perhaps you may just want to dive into the download page.

Good luck...and don't forget to use your map editing skills you've learned with SC4. Nashville Nelson suggested that you can use MicroDems as well.

[kingBosko15 1]

the editor looks cool. the editor crashes to much and i don't know much how to use it right.

anyway thanx for the POST =)

[theonesim 0]

the editor crashes as soon as i click it's icon, shame this would be good for cxl, hope it gets fixed ....

edit :  my bad it works much better with net framework 3.5 installed lol

[pete1061 0]

Don't even bother folks.

[mentarman 14]

Originally posted by: pete1061

Don't even bother folks.quote>

Care to elaborate?

[theonesim 0]

i managed to export the Beispielkarte.mep after opening it and then saving it as LittleRiverFalls_01, located the paks dir and replaced the existing LittleRiverFalls_01 with the exported one, doesnt seem to show up in game though.

it doesnt look like the map was actually exported....

[kiwispanker 1]

i messed around with it a bit today and got it working - kind of

i made all files in photoshop. you'll also need a program to view and edit the DDS files. you can download for free either Gimp or Paint.net. Or, if you have and like photoshop, you can download the nvidia dds plugin.

to be able to work with the raw files, i first use photoshop to make the heightmap then import that file into GeoControl2. there's other programs that'll work as well (like world machine 2).

i obviously don't have a feel for it yet - maybe with some time. as you can see, my city is under water.

   

nashville nelson as uploaded a San Francisco map at citiesxs.net. one of the downsides to this program is it must overwrite an exisitng map. i think neidhard mentioned before that it may be possible to add a city to the world map without interferring with other cities.

@theonesim: did you export the new map as a .patch file?  also, some of the map names that neidhard wrote aren't exactly the same as the English game. for example, the archipelago map in the English game is written as MultiIsland in the MapEditor.

[theonesim 0]

lol no, if i do it crashes. think i'll leave this to those that know what theyre doing

[pete1061 0]

Originally posted by: mentarman

Originally posted by: pete1061

Don't even bother folks.quote>

Care to elaborate?

quote>

This software is obviously very early in development, for one. It lacks any form of documentation.

It's easy enough to get the .dds plugin for photoshop, but the format reccomended for the heightmap is a somewhat obscure image format ( 32 bit floating point greyscale *.r32 format) If anyone can find something that converts to that format, it would help the cause. I tried using greyscale .tif & .jpg but it threw errors and I got no results.

I wouldn't write it off completely, it shows promise. But it will take time for the creator to get the bugs out and for the community to make some tutorials, hopefully in more than just german. Until then, it will just be a frustrating stab in the dark for most of us.

[nashville nelson 51]

The image format for the heightmap is a raw file, the file extension doesn´ t matter.
A raw file is a file with no header, just plain data.

You can import / export greyscales in raw files with WorldMachine2. For the San Francisco Map i used ImageJ to convert the greyscale image to raw. The size of the raw image should be 512x512 or 1024x1024. The range of the greyscale floats must be between 0.00 and 1.00 otherwise you just have huge blocks on your maps. When you want to adjust the waterlevel you have to adjust the height of your map - shifting the whole map closer to 0.00 means the waterlevel raises and vice versa.

As kiwispanker mentioned i first used MicroDem to get a 16Bit Greyscale and then i used ImageJ to convert it into a 32Bit floating point raw file.

To build a map you need four textures:

1. The height map - a 32bit floating point greyscale raw data image
2. The Ground Texture - 4096x4096 .dds image compressed with dxt1
3. A Bump Map - 4096x4096 .dds image with an alpha channel compressed with dxt5
4. A Color Map - 512x512 .dds image compressed with dxt1

No. 3&4 are not fully understand right know. The Bump Map bumps the Ground Texture and adds some other textures to the ground texture, different rocks or something like this. The Color Map is a big unknown. I just used a flat bump map and color map.

At last, i hope you can interpret my english

[pete1061 0]

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

The heightmap was the problem for me. My google searches we're not getting me anywhere.

The size info is helpful too.

...and your english is very good.

[mentarman 14]

Originally posted by: pete1061

Originally posted by: mentarman

Originally posted by: pete1061

Don't even bother folks.quote>

Care to elaborate?

quote>

This software is obviously very early in development, for one. It lacks any form of documentation.

It's easy enough to get the .dds plugin for photoshop, but the format reccomended for the heightmap is a somewhat obscure image format ( 32 bit floating point greyscale *.r32 format) If anyone can find something that converts to that format, it would help the cause. I tried using greyscale .tif & .jpg but it threw errors and I got no results.

I wouldn't write it off completely, it shows promise. But it will take time for the creator to get the bugs out and for the community to make some tutorials, hopefully in more than just german. Until then, it will just be a frustrating stab in the dark for most of us.

quote>

Thanks, much better info.

Sounds like it might be quite a nice tool at some point, right now it is a beta project in another language, so you have to accept a certain amount of instability and uncertainty with it.

[pete1061 0]

Originally posted by: theonesim

lol no, if i do it crashes. think i'll leave this to those that know what theyre doing

quote>

It crashes for me too when I try to export a '.patch'

Though I did get further thanks to the tips from nashville nelson.

[kiwispanker 1]

pete and theonesime, which operating system are you using? and are you running as administrator. some of neidhard's programs must be run with admin rights. i personally have windows 7 (32bit) running as admin....no problems; patch exports fine.

i have guests flying in tonight so i don't think i'll have anytime to test this out more any time soon.

thanks nashville nelson for the tips!! i'll try imageJ. for some reason, GeoControl2 always crashed if i messed with any of the secondary perimeters.

oh and on the german forum, neidhard perhaps mentioned that it may be possible to add cities without replacing existing ones - or at best, create additional cities on the world map. do you have any info on this?

[pete1061 0]

I'm using vista home premium (32 bit) with admin rights.

EDIT: It also crashes when I try to build a '.patch' with the included project: "Beispielkarte.mep"

[nashville nelson 51]

Originally posted by: kiwispanker

(...)

thanks nashville nelson for the tips!! i'll try imageJ. for some reason, GeoControl2 always crashed if i messed with any of the secondary perimeters.

oh and on the german forum, neidhard perhaps mentioned that it may be possible to add cities without replacing existing ones - or at best, create additional cities on the world map. do you have any info on this?quote>

When you use ImageJ be sure your number range is between 0.00... and 1.00... I had done different calculation with the map because the original DEM range was between 1200 and 60000.

I read somewhere that there is a function implemented in ImageJ which will do this for you. When i remember correctly it was called ´normalize´ but don´t count me on that. WorldMachine2 will do this automatically for you.

To add new slots to the already existing ones is not discoverd yet. Maybe because nobody had to until a few days ago ;-), but i´m sure someone will come up with a solution when more and better maps are available.

[mhosni 20]

Hay Nashville, will you please elaborate on creating the height map file from imageJ as I tried many many times, and I got only water, even with the sample included. no land at all. so how to get land ? anyone?

Please guys I need your help about that as it drives me nuts

Thanks,

[Neidhard 0]

New version available
www.file-upload.net/download-2359550/CitiesXL-MAP-Editor_Update-19.03.2010.rar.html
Please test it.

Import heightmap from jpg,png and tif is corrects
Run under Win 64bit

Edit heightmaps (raise,sink & range)
For individual min/max click padlock.

[pete1061 0]

Thanks, this one works a lot better.

I actually got something into the game

Though the color map isn't showing up in the game.

The shadow map worked.

highway, road & rail maps worked.

but the maps for resources don't work (oil, water, ag, environment, etc)

Also, I had to flip all the textures vertically in photoshop.

This editor is making good progress. Thanks for your hard work, much appreciated.

[Neidhard 0]

Hi pete,

extract the patch-file to your pak-folder

http://www.file-upload.net/download-2360525/mod_requied-for-new-maps.rar.html

I can not change the setting for a single card.

This file loads every map all resources.

[Chiverito 11]

Hello!

Great to see this project developing. I just tried to use the editor. Being a total newbie I tried to import some hight / color/ and shadow maps from a 3d terrain I had made in Vue 8 it obviously didn't work... Great to see the project coming along though...

[Neidhard 0]

What have you for a problem with your heightmap?

What format does it have?

How Large is the map?

Can you upload it somewhere?

[mhosni 20]

It worked now thanks

[pete1061 0]

Originally posted by: Neidhard

What have you for a problem with your heightmap?

What format does it have?

How Large is the map?

Can you upload it somewhere?quote>

here is a rar file with my editor project file, the textures I used, and some screenshots illustrating the difference between what i see in photoshop and the editor, as well as a screenshot of how it looks in the game...

www.filefactory.com/file/b0beg92/n/portland.rar

(look near the bottom for the download link, there is a 30 second wait to download from that site)

[Neidhard 0]

I have found your problem

Your problem is not the colormap but the shadowmap.

Your shadowmap has no alphachannel.

That is my experience so far:

[mhosni 20]

Hay guys, anyone can elaborate on the shadow map, and rgb map? I believe the color map is the texture, and the shadow seems to be the shadows of terrain , so is that right? and if so how to make the shadow map, and finally hope to hear more about the RGB map.

regards,

[Neidhard 0]

The purpose of the RGB map is still unknown.

The shadow map can you create with the Worldmachine2. View this example,  "Beispielkarte.tmd".

heightmap->Light-Map Maker->Colorize->Bitmap Output

In the Light-Map Maker you can adjust the light settings.

[pete1061 0]

Thanks Neidhard, that did the trick.

I figured i was doing something wrong in preparing the textures.

[Neidhard 0]

In this video you can see how generated a map for CitiesXL

http://uploaded.to/file/ulkpq6 (208MB)

[akeekul 0]

Thanks for the links. You know I need a map with oil, water, holiday, and farms all in one map ;D