Region Bitmap size incorrect

[kita 0]

So I have downloaded a new region tho it doesn't let me load it ingame. I have priviously done this a few years ago and everything went flawless. Don't know if I m doing it right so I will note the steps I took

1) downloaded from

The jpg and bmp files.

2) put the bmp file in folder simcity4/regions/paris

3) entered simcity 4 shift +alt+crtl +r and opened the greyscale JPG

got error:

Region Bitmap size incorrect

1025x1025 schould be 961x961

so I guess I schoudl rescale something, but what and how?

  Edited April 9, 2012 by kita  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Look at the properties of your gray-scale. The rule is that for each pixel in the config.bmp, there are 64 for the map. This relation is such that (config.bmp-side) X 64 + 1 = (corresponding side of map.jpg). Since you have the gray-scale map, you should simply generate a new config.bmp. You can use the Landscape Designer to do this by reading in the gray-scale map then going to the config.bmp generator and manually laying out your new set up.

You can also just make a new config.bmp in MS-Paint, but that's another story.

  Edited April 10, 2012 by A Nonny Moose  

[qda 1]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I've been having the same problem with the The grayscale is 3073 x 2305, so that means config.bmp should be 48 x 36, which it is. The folder is in 'Documents\SimCity 4\Regions', but it's telling me the jpg should be 961 x 961. This makes me think there's a 15 x 15 config.bmp that it's looking at somewhere instead of the one in the folder itself, or there's some other, unrelated error that's throwing up this message. Can anyone help?

 

Edit: What's even odder is that when I load the terrain into Landscape Designer, it's reading the size of the grayscale as 2458.4 x 1844 [sic!] and giving me a 38 x 29 config.bmp.

[drunkapple 1,743]

G'Day Qda,

 

I just opened the Hong Kong region in mapper with the supplied config of 48 x 36  without a problem. I don't know about landscape designer and I have no intention of loading it onto my machine.

 

 

I made a folder called Honkers in the region directory and dropped in the supplied config then started SC4, selected the Honkers region then ctrl + alt + shft + r and navigated to the jpg. It's loading fine as we speak.

 

Just ensure to select your Hong Kong region before using ctrl + alt + shft + r to import the map. It will open as a large flat green region.

 

Cheers

drunk(still)

[qda 1]

G'Day Qda,

 

I just opened the Hong Kong region in mapper with the supplied config of 48 x 36  without a problem. I don't know about landscape designer and I have no intention of loading it onto my machine.

 

 

I made a folder called Honkers in the region directory and dropped in the supplied config then started SC4, selected the Honkers region then ctrl + alt + shft + r and navigated to the jpg. It's loading fine as we speak.

 

Just ensure to select your Hong Kong region before using ctrl + alt + shft + r to import the map. It will open as a large flat green region.

 

Cheers

drunk(still)

 

Oh, that did it! Thank you!

[Missecho 99]

Hi I am new to this, downloaded Altana Region map and installed in my regions folder. 

went to load it up (using Shift-Alt-Cntrl-R) and get this error

:

 

The Altana.config.bmp file measures 40 x 40 px

The Greyscale Altana.jpg file measures 2561 x 2561 px

 

I have no idea how to fix it so it will generate.  From my reading the dimensions are correct but I have zero clue Any help would be appreciated.

 

 

[CaptCity 4,688]

Hi @Missecho

The greyscale-to-config ratio is correct for the map to render. As mentioned in @drunkapple's related post above, be sure you have the Altana region correctly installed in the game's region folder and that you are actually in the Altana region before attempting to render. And that you are selecting the greyscale image in the Altana region folder. When I tried rendering the region in such a manner, it proceeded as expected. The error message you saw may be due to being in a different region or selecting a different greyscale image.

Also, if the Altana region is the one by @Golhbul, it contains an SC4M file which means it can be rendered with SC4 Mapper/Terraformer if you are familiar with either of those.

  Edited August 15, 2020 by CaptCity  

[Missecho 99]

@CaptCity

Thanks for your reply.  I seriously have no idea here.  I am one of these technical dunderheads so always have major problems with this stuff sorry.   I will show you in pictures what I am doing as I find it easier to explain. 

Firstly I have put the extracted filed here:

I then load up my SimCity game via steam and select the region:

It takes me to a flat green region called 'Altana' with nothing on it.

I then press Shift-Alt-Cntrl-R which brings up the blue box

 

I think this is where I am having the problem.  If I click on  'documents and settings' I get nothing happening and cannot browse further. So I scroll down to users, then to hjs_e (which is me), if I go into 'documents' here I get three files, music, pictures and video's and NO SimCity folder, so then I try with going into 'downloads' and here I can navigate to the file I extracted, select the Atlanta folder, select the Atlanta.jpg file which puts it in the File Name box above, click ok and get that original error saying the region bitmap size is incorrect. 

I know when I tried to install the plantation bay map that robs hot spot is doing videos on I had to pick the file up again from my downloads folder exactly as I said above and it finally worked.  I just cannot navigate anywhere to a SimCity file using that blue box. I would of thought when I went to c: users/hjs_e/documents/ i would of had a SimCity file then I would of been able to select regions from that and then Altana/Altana.jpg.   But no, the only place i can find the file is in downloads.  I did try extracting it from the original zip directly to the region folder in my docs/SimCity 4 which it did, but still cannot use that blue box to navigate to it.    (I have also tried putting the region file in the maxis, programs x86, SimCity, region file and navigating with that blue box to there but still get the same error message).

 

And yes it is "  the Altana region is the one by @Golhbul, it contains an SC4M file which means it can be rendered with SC4 Mapper/Terraformer if you are familiar with either of those. " but I am not familiar with those programs either.  

Kinda ripping my hair out now so not sure what more to do.  By all accounts it should just WORK.  But it isn't :(.

[Cyclone Boom 16,851]

@Missecho

For the SC4M files, as CaptCity said, these do require Mapper or Terraformer to render them. Perhaps the .jpg file included wasn't the correct format for rendering, even though it visually appears like a grayscale image. That might've been the trouble there possibly with how it didn't work.

As for the navigating to the folders, I've also noticed how the "Documents and Settings" folder cannot be clicked. I believe this is because of the way Windows XP used to do it, and what the game expects to see. But because on newer editions of Windows it just has Documents instead, then it doesn't know what do do. It is odd why there was no main parent folder in there, and it should be viewable in the "Documents\SimCity 4\Regions" location.

Anyhow, good news...

It just so happens that another member asked about this the other day, and I rendered the Altana region and a couple others using the SC4 Mapper tool. That link I posted there won't be available for much longer, so I've uploaded it again separately to a new zip file.

Download link:
Altana.zip  (44 MB)

(Uploaded to the WeTransfer site which allows files to be temporarily uploaded for 7 days.)

The region colours will appear differently until saving each tile individually, and this is because of the way SC4 Mapper does it.

Just extract the zip file directly into your "Documents\SimCity 4\Regions" folder and it should then be listed in game near the top of the list.

[Missecho 99]

@Cyclone Boom Thanks for your reply, I did as suggested but I am not sure if this is  what it supposed to look like?  Looks a bit odd to me.

I can create a city in the green bits it but I am not sure about the big blue squares.  Looks like half of it is missing. 

[Missecho 99]

Ok.. I have loaded one of the blue squares and see that it gives me the coast, when I save and exit it appears good. I guess that was what you meant !  I will just load each square and all should be good.  Thanks a lot. 

Still need to figure out how to fix my original problem or will always be bugging people lol.  For now tho this is great. 

 

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

2 hours ago, Missecho said:

If I click on  'documents and settings' I get nothing happening and cannot browse further. So I scroll down to users, then to hjs_e (which is me), if I go into 'documents' here I get three files, music, pictures and video's and NO SimCity folder,

I'm going to take a wild guess and suggest maybe the game is installed for All Users and you could look in there. After you went into the Users folder it'll look something like this:

^ For mine I'm Owner as that's how this comp was set when I bought it. That would be your equivalent of hjs_e and is logically where you should've been able to get to the SimCity 4 folder under its Documents.

So, if you feel like testing some more, take a peek in All Users and if not there, try every other one too.

 

[Missecho 99]

@CorinaMarie, yeah I thought that too and had already checked the 'all users' 'default' 'default user' and public ones as well.  I can find it in the hjs_e (which is the owner file) in the ONE DRIVE documents folder (bloody one drive), but the same error happens when I try to load it from that, ie the bitmap is too big error.   As I said the last time I downloaded a region it would render from the downloads folder with no problem.  I may try doing another one see if I have the same problems with getting it to render.

I have fixed the map that @Cyclone Boom put up by logging into each city map.  Now I need to see if I can get rid of the all the tiny city squares and just have big ones on that map.  Most likely I cannot at this point, back to reading more stuff lol.

Thanks everyone for the help.

And yes I have used SC4 Mapper and got the cities the size I want now.   Least I managed to work that out lol.  !!!

 

[Missecho 99]

Just a bit more info, I downloaded a Melbourne map, that was a larger size map and I got the same message trying to install it as above being the bitmap was too big. I then downloaded one called rinas rivers and that one installed fine.  So not sure why I don't seem to be able to do those larger maps.

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

4 minutes ago, Missecho said:

rinas rivers

[Cyclone Boom 16,851]

2 hours ago, Missecho said:

Just a bit more info, I downloaded a Melbourne map, that was a larger size map and I got the same message trying to install it as above being the bitmap was too big. I then downloaded one called rinas rivers and that one installed fine.  So not sure why I don't seem to be able to do those larger maps.

I wonder whether those maps might be not made correctly sized for either the grayscale .jpg file, or the config.bmp itself. I made a post which explains about the size of the config in relation for the map image itself. How there's a small calculation to make sure this is correct, and otherwise the error you saw will be seen.

Here it is if useful:
Grayscale Maps as Related to Config.bmp Dimensions

 

By the way with this...

6 hours ago, Missecho said:

I can create a city in the green bits it but I am not sure about the big blue squares.  Looks like half of it is missing.

I was checking with @CorinaMarie and we found how this is a glitch with the Mapper rendered tiles when in Transportation Map view.

Here's how we saw it also:

 

And just to clarify where the option is:

 

On the initially rendered Mapper tiles, this causes the blank empty tiles. If toggling to the Satellite View and this doesn't happen. Although as you found, when saving each tile and this updates the way they appear, so it's just something which appears initially when having the Transportation Map enabled.

[CaptCity 4,688]

8 hours ago, Missecho said:

... Now I need to see if I can get rid of the all the tiny city squares and just have big ones on that map.  Most likely I cannot at this point, back to reading more stuff lol....

 

If you mean you want to change the region to all large cities, you can do that a couple ways. You can modify the original config file to all blue. I've always used Paint for that. Or you can use Mapper. It has an edit config feature that does it. Either way, you'll want to do it before developing any of the cities that will be modified.  

Just a thought.

 

7 hours ago, Missecho said:

Just a bit more info, I downloaded a Melbourne map, that was a larger size map and I got the same message trying to install it as above being the bitmap was too big...

If you are trying one of @stefan's large Melbourne maps, you'll want to rename the config file(s) to 'config' so that the game will recognize it. Otherwise, it loads some type of default config that may or may not match the greyscale.

 

Edit: Sorry for the double post. I thought they would merge when this happened. Must've been thinking of something else...
Merged them for you. ;-)  -CB

[Missecho 99]

Thanks guys,

just on this the files were OK as per the calculation as I checked that before my initial post, ie config file x 64 + 1 (so in the altana case the config file was 40px (40 x64+1) =2561 and the greyscale image was 2561 x 2561 px.  I opened both in paint to check the px size so by all accounts they should of loaded.  Did the same with the melb one too, I will have another go at that one.

@Cyclone Boom re transportation mode, the strange display, that is good to know as that was the mode I was in . Will keep that in mind in the future. 

I initially tried to edit the config file to get large city sizes in paint by changing all the pixels to blue (RBG 0,0,255) and resaving the config file and while it worked as far as changing them to all big city tiles it was kinda borked in that it destroyed all the terrain and left me large squares with no terrain.  I then downloaded Mapper and did it in that (edit mode) and it worked fine. 

I first played SimCity in 2003 and was never an expert at it and just played vanilla (not sure if the modding community was even that large or even existed back then) didn't play for yrs then windows 10 killed it completely.  Still decided to give it another go and joined steam and SimCity via that so I am technically starting from scratch.  I have found @rob_mtl Rob's Hot Spot videos very easy to follow and while I am not copying what he is doing I am finding lots more info than i ever did before such as all those ports and other mods, uses, getting maps etc.  I have liked the maps he is using hence why I am trying to get them into my region list.

By the time I work out how do do all this I hope gradually the questions will stop.  Still bugged on these maps tho and why they won't load.  I will keep cracking at it.  Thanks again.

[Missecho 99]

OK after mucking around a bit I got both the original zip of Altana and Melbourne to render. 

In both original downloads the config files were named altana_config.bmp and Melb1_conf.bmp respectively. 

I changed both of these files in their respective region folders to just plain old config.bmp and it seemed that was all that was needed. As @CaptCity mentioned above.  Seems changing the name on those files from what was downloaded did the trick.

I guess I will download a few more now and see if it is a naming issue that caused the whole problem.

[Cyclone Boom 16,851]

Glad you solved the problem!

I wonder why they named them that way, and it sure seems a bit counterproductive. I suppose they made it for the SC4M to be used, and this also contains the config.bmp bundled inside of it as per the file format. It certainly makes sense for the grayscale rendering for the game, how that requires the name to be config.bmp and nothing else with what it expects. Otherwise it'd be looking for a file of that name, and then tripping up when not managing to locate it in the same folder as the map image. Really it would've been logical for the game developers to have built in a fail-safe, so if the config isn't present in the correct format, it then defaults to an all large city tile layout.

These technical aspects can be tricky too, and it's great you've persevered and managed to get to the bottom of things with the rendering. Of course, do keep asking if unsure as we're all here to assist. The great positive about forum posting also is how others with similar issues can likewise be led to the same solutions.

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

@Missecho

I'm also happy to hear you've got the rendering figured out.

One thing to note is that maps rendered with Mapper from the .SC4M format can have much, much smoother height transitions in the game. Rendering via the Shift+Ctrl+Alt+R with the standard game settings limits the total height to 765 meters and the steps per elevation will be 3 meters. Ofc, the game then does wind and water erosion added, but Mapper can have 0.1 meters between elevation changes and a much greater total height. (I'd have to look up that latter number as I don't recall it offhand.)

So, using the .SC4M and rendering via Mapper is going to give you the best looking region. That'll be 30 times more precise than almost any 1-bit grayscale that the game itself understands. (This includes all of my old maps on the STEX as I hadn't yet learned this difference.)

You might see some map files providing the weird color RGB image like this:

^ Cropped portion of the Altana and not for using in rendering.

What they've done is re-purposed the color spectrum such that each variation in each of the Red, Green, and Blue channels corresponds to multiples of the 0.1 meter height differences. The same holds true for Mapper's 16 bit Grayscale .png that it can use.

I mention these two Mapper methods because if you go to tweak them in any image editing software, you'll find quite unexpected changes when producing a region map.

[rob_mtl 434]

Hey guys! Thrilled to see talk of my Plantation Bay and Altana (Honestville) videos here :). I've been thinking of doing a video on rendering maps. I even started one but realized I wasn't totally clear on some details and am doing experiments to make sure I give the best advice possible.

For Plantation Bay, for example, I used the CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+R method and rendered the map ingame.

For Altana, I used SC4Mapper to redo the config.bmp (I really prefer working with SC4Mapper rather than MS Paint), copied the new config.bmp into the region folder with the greyscale jpg, but rendered the .jpg ingame using CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+R.

I had previously rendered Altana in SC4Mapper but found that when opening it in the game each tile had to be "re-rendered" when first opening it, a very time consuming process for such a big map. @CorinaMarie that's really interesting regarding the precision in elevation using SC4M. I'll make a note of it for my eventual video.

One question: If you play on maps in regions rendered in SC4Mapper, is it necessary to load and render every tile in the game before starting play, or can you just render them as you use them?

@CorinaMarie, @Cyclone Boom and others with extensive map knowledge: I'd love to here your suggestions for a video about handling downloaded maps from the STEX. I'd like to give the viewer a few different methods, ranging from the simplest to execute to more precise and complex methods. I'm getting lots of questions on YouTube on this topic so I think a tutorial video is in order soon!

[Missecho 99]

Ha ha @CorinaMarie I think saying I have got the rendering figured out is a bit of a stretch, I need to work out what that SC4M can do so any in depth tutorial that uses plain English would be great if you have any links.  My problem is as soon as it gets technical my eyes glaze over and I lose it.  I am a kinda step 1 do this, step 2 do this sort of person, I find I can't handle the why of it all so once I start getting explanations in the tech detail as to why something works etc I stop comprehending. 

I almost lost it trying to install the BSC ports(Thanks  @rob_mtl for that bit of total brain drain!) as there was just too much information and I thought I can never figure this out.  As soon as I saw it and started reading all the technical stuff I thought naaaa not doing this.   At that point I didn't even know what a dependency was and still have absolutely zero idea on that cleanitol program, I googled that and gave it away in the first half a page of reading lol.  I did end up getting about 14 ports of the bunch installed and working by using that link you provided Rob to that webpage (seaports revealed post by whatevermind)   so gave it another crack after that and managed to get those ones in, just did them one by one but ended up making a spreadsheet just to follow the damn dependencies.    I have uploaded that excel sheet in case anyone else may find it useful.   I did learn a lot by going through that process so installing mods is a little easier now.  Check it out anyways. 

Haha I think if you ever develop anything and want it 'user tested' send it to me!  I can do all the dumb questions and break it down to the simplest level, once I understand something everyone will lol. I am too old for this ^&^%

BSC custom seaports dependencies installed.xls

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

14 hours ago, rob_mtl said:

If you play on maps in regions rendered in SC4Mapper, is it necessary to load and render every tile in the game before starting play, or can you just render them as you use them?

There's no need to enter each as far as any of the game mechanics are concerned. The only reason to enter each city tile and save it is to update the thumbnail images which are stored within each city tile's save data. In the Region View, it is these thumbnail images which are read from every city tile and pieced together to show a coherent picture.

The Region Census program uses the same method to produce its view of the entire region. Do note for large regions the RegionCensus.exe needs the 4 GB Patch applied.

About those goofy colors, there are alternatives: New SC4 Mapper colors

 

14 hours ago, rob_mtl said:

I'd love to here your suggestions for a video about handling downloaded maps from the STEX. I'd like to give the viewer a few different methods, ranging from the simplest to execute to more precise and complex methods.

For simple rendering of grayscale images in the game, I'd recommend my own  C.O.R.I.M.A.P.S. - A Tutorial for SimCity 4. Scroll down to Step 8 where it starts with First Render.

Then for SC4Mapper, the main source is the SC4Mapper 2013 User Guide.

Additionally, CB has written a few posts about mapping:

• Tutorial: How to edit the Config.bmp file using SC4Mapper
• Tutorial: Rendering a Grayscale Map using SC4 Mapper
• Grayscale Maps as Related to Config.bmp Dimensions

Note: SC4Mapper.exe should also be 4 GB Patched.

I hope this helps.

[rob_mtl 434]

10 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

There's no need to enter each as far as any of the game mechanics are concerned.

Ok I thought as much. Never tested it, but I had wondered whether neighbour connections were affected. I didn't know the region maps were thumbnails but that makes sense!

10 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I hope this helps.

Thanks for putting all those links together! I've read many of these in the past but this saves me the hassle of tracking them down again. Your CORIMAPS method is really cool! At some point I'd like to figure out how to make to scale maps from GIS raster images too and make a video on that.

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

1 minute ago, rob_mtl said:

At some point I'd like to figure out how to make to scale maps from GIS raster images too and make a video on that.

Oh! That reminds me of a PM convo I had with someone illustrating how to make SC4 maps from DEM data. They disappeared, so I then posted that in a thread and someone else worked with it and posted back tips and tricks to fine tune the method. I forget where that is, but if we ask nicely, I'll bet @Cyclone Boom would use his magic database searching skills and find it right away.

[Cyclone Boom 16,851]

37 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I forget where that is, but if we ask nicely, I'll bet @Cyclone Boom would use his magic database searching skills and find it right away.

Ah yes, I remember the one. I've looked it up and tracked down the post to here.

From the topic:

 

In there the OP posted a video tutorial series of their own, so maybe this could be of inspiration @rob_mtl if you fancy creating your own series in future. Oftentimes complementary explanations are really valuable too, because it's the art of explaining a concept in a multitude of different ways. Having watched a few of your SC4 tutorials, I know you'd do a mighty fine job at explaining about anything as well. Your videos are very clear and well presented.

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

@rob_mtl

One thing you prolly already know which would be good to mention is that maps rendered in the game (Shift+Ctrl+Alt+R) will have the thumbnail images that the region view uses already updated with whichever Terrain, Water, Beach, and Rock (Cliff) mods are in Plugins during said render. This is, ofc, different than Mapper assigning its own set of colors for all of those.

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

And @iannnavas kindly bumped this thread where there is useful information about required DLL files which are needed when installing Terraformer (and Mapper) as well as a comment I made about a bug in Mapper that only comes up if there is an embedded HTML file.

On 12/11/2016 at 8:14 AM, CorinaMarie said:

There was something about an embedded .html file viewer that overflows something or other. The workaround for that was to run Mapper in a window (which might be the default) and have the problem showing then right-click on your desktop and change the resolution to something smaller. Accept that. Then immediately right-click and change it back to your normal resolution.

^ This was confirmed by @LexusInfernus to be a viable workaround in the next post there.

[iannnavas 22]

Oh @CorinaMarie , I'm so sorry! Even though I've been a member of Simtropolis since 2010 (if I'm not mistaken), I'm still learning how to use the Simtropolis site and how to comment here, and I figured out now that it's possible to tag some Simtropolis users just using "@ + username". Anyway, I just want to thank all of you for creating this topic. It helped me a lot with the problems I was facing regarding SC4 Terraformer, and I decided to comment here to help other people as well . If I did something wrong, I would like to apologize, as I am still learning to speak and understand English (cause I'm not from USA), and also to learn to use this site! Thank you all guys! Simtropolis is an amazing site! Congratulations for all the people involved in keep this site online! You're amazing!