Tutorial:CreateMaps(Fnordia et al)

Original by aGorm

The Idea

First of all you need an idea. There is no point (OK, there is some point for test purposes) in making a map just like another one that already exists. You need to think of certain things before you make your map.

1. Is this map idea different, not just a copy of someone else's?
2. Does my map idea give each player a fair share of the cover and high ground?
3. Is my map idea possible to make?
4. Is it possible with the amount of time I'm willing to spend?

If you answered yes to the above, then you are 25% of the way towards making your map!

You should probably doodle it on a piece of paper to act as a guide later.

The Tools

With your idea hopefully sketched out, it's time to get the tools to make the map! (You can skip this if you already have them.)

I'm going to suggest (nay, insist!) you use the Buggi SHARP MAP program, because it does everything the command-line version does and more. And it's easy for people to understand. Please note that you must put SHARP MAP in a folder with no spaces... so not in "...program files/mapcon" as it wont work.

You will also need some image editing software. Favorites are Photoshop, the GIMP, And Paintshop Pro. The GIMP, however, is the only one that's free! (I'm going to have to assume you know how to use the program you choose. If you can't there are loads of tutorials on the net.)

You may also want to check out Terragen for rendering terrain. But as you have to pay to render anything of a good size, I won't mention it other than here.

Another tool for rendering terrain is the freeware tool TerrTexGen. "It generates a terraintexture on the base of a grayscale heightmap und uses five surfacetextures that are distributed over the heightmap."

Prepering your map

This is the fun part! And also, often, the longest part.

For a Map you will need several different things:

1. a texture map
2. a height map
3. a metal map

They all have certain needs! Read this bit carfully!

All maps are based on a texture image. This image's width and height must be an exact multiple of 1024 pixels. So, for instance, you can have a "4096 by 8192" image, but not a "4096 by 4608" image, as 4608 does not divide by 1024. It, like all three maps, must be saved as a 24 bit BMP.

It may look like whatever you want! Find a texture (preferably one that you can tile seamlessly) and fill your texture map with it. You could, for instance, fill the whole image with a sand texture. This would make your whole world look like sand. You could then deside to add a few patches of grass to it by finding a suitable grass texture and adding it on in patches. So you'd have a map that was mostly sand with a few patches of green.

Next is the height map. This must be exactly one eighth (1/8) of the size of the texture map + 1 pixel! For instance, if the dimensions of your texture map are "4096 by 8192", divide 4096 and 8192 each by 8 and add one to the result of each. The result for this example would be "513 by 1025". The height map is a black and white BMP. Only use black and white, no colour!

White ares are the tops of mountains; black areas are the sea floor or the bottom of valleys. The shades of grey between are the different heights between! When you draw your heightmap, make sure the white blends into the black with greys. I suggest you use the blur tool. If you have a white splodge in a patch of black you will have a very tall pillar that won't look natural at all!

Finally, you need a metal map. This is the same size as the height map, one eighth (1/8) of the size of the texture map + 1 pixel. On this one you paint down red (in verying degrees) to represent metal. So a red spot that is RGB(50,0,0) will provide about a 5th of the metal patch of red RGB(255,0,0) will give.

On this map you can also place green pixels. Each green pixel will create 1 geothermal vent. If you put down a green splodge you will get a cluster of geo vents! Only place 1 pixel.

Ensure you have all three saved as 24 bit BMPs and you're ready to convert it all to a map!

Sharp Map

Here's a easy run down of what to do. First, (you guessed it) open Sharp Map. This brings you a window with several fields that need filling, a few option boxes and two sliders. Fill in the top fields as required. (Click browse, locate the texture map, and click OK. Repeat for the height map and metal map.)

Type in a figure for MAX HEIGHT and MIN HEIGHT. The MAX HEIGHT should not exceed 500. Higher numbers can cause errors. If your minimum height is a negative number then you will have water on your map. Sea level is, naturally enough, at 0. To the right of these boxes is a grey level calculator. This will tell you aproximatly the level of grey on your height map that is under water and above water. The grey is described by it's RGB values.

Then adjust the tree and grass sliders. If you have a green map then I suggest you lower the tree slider, otherwise the map will be covered!

(EXAMPLE) the starting locations of the sliders are approx. 75% trees 80% grass... on a green portion of any map with any hue (>200 green <75 red <75 blue) it will end up completely FULL of trees on the default settings, reducing the sliders to around 20% make the green areas MUCH more playable, and still have a good quantity of trees in the deep green parts. However, you will lose almost all your trees in brown/green areas, and any area without any green. It would seem the most suitable, for a green map, to be green everywhere, except for cliffsides, rocky patches, water, sand, and mud, if you want the trees to look pretty. Another idea would be to have the dirt brown, and have very thick green splotches of grass (30x30 pixels) where you want a few trees to be. (edit by: LathanStanley)

Finally, you need to decide if you need to tick the inverse height map box or not. If you drew the height map by hand so that if you overlayed your height map over the texture the hills would line up with the hills, etc. then you will need to tick the box. This is because the image is read backwards, so its expecting the image to be upside-down. Ticking the check box makes it flip the image the way it wants it before conversion. If you exported your texture and height maps from Terragen, then you do not need to tick this box, as Terragen exports it upside-down already. If you were crazy and drew it upside-down, then you don't need to tick it either.

When you have completed all this click Create Map! This can take some time for a larger map, so start off with a small one.

If there is a Error massege, check if there is a space in any direktory of a file loded by sharp map. If that doesn't work, contakt buggi or post it in the forum, somebody will allways help.

Making your map work

This is the final push. Once Sharp map has finshed it will spit out a .sm2 file. This needs to be copyed to the MAPS folder in Spring. But you still need one more thing: an .smd file. Basically, this file tells the game things like the maximum metal, the light colours, the clouds, etc. (All the bits you were thinking that you hadn't done yet!)

I would suggest you copy the .smd of another map and fiddle with the settings until you get what you want. smd's can be opened in notepade or similar. Look at all the .smd's so you can get a jist of what each option does. Make sure both the .sm2 and .smd have the same file name then start up Spring (not the client!) in single-player mode and run the commanders script. Choose your map and away you go!

I can only hope this is helpful!

Yours... aGorm