Scenario design request for help - water feature problem

[Badger73]

Posting in both CMBN & CMFI

I'm trying to design a map in a rural farmland area that has a large pond; 24 x 32 m (3x4 action squares) surrounded by grass and stands of trees.  This pond is in a low spot on rising terrain.  The surrounding elevating is 50m.  No matter what I do, the result is a multi-story water pit; a steep-sided sinkhole tens of meters deep.  This is not the desired result!  I've tried both the "clear" and "direct adjust" elevation buttons to make the water terrain both match adjacent elevation or be a trifle lower.  Nothing seems to work for water tiles.  When I change the terrain tile from "water" to other ground, the terrain adjusts correctly and the quarry pit disappears.  

1.     What am I doing wrong?
2.     How do I fix it?
3.     Any map making suggestions for water features in general?

Thanks for all help.

[H1nd]

Do you have any other water tiles elsewhere in the map and do they have a lower elevation? Water tiles in general can only have one elevation level.

[MikeyD]

Do you have a water tile on any other part of the map, like a stream in the corner? Water plane will seek its lowest elevation point.  If a spot of water at the low left corner of the map is at level '3'  the water in the opposite corner will be at level '3' too

[sburke]

Yeah as both previous posts noted, somewhere you have a water tile at a different elevation.  A bit frustrating, but you should be able to find it easy enough in the 2d map view.  Hint - you can press "E" in the map mode while looking at tiles and it will display elevations.  It can be helpful sometimes looking for stuff like this.

[Badger73]

You guys are the best!  Problems solved with suggestions you noted. 

See thread http://community.battlefront.com/topic/120557-scenario-design-request-for-help-water-feature-problem/

[IronCat60]

Wow you can teach a old cat new tricks! I just got me edumocated by reading this here post!

[LiveNoMore]

I found the trick of looking for the lowest water tile, but I have a different problem. How do you create a stream running downhill? Without it looking like a deep gully.

[A Canadian Cat]

I found the trick of looking for the lowest water tile, but I have a different problem. How do you create a stream running downhill? Without it looking like a deep gully.

You cannot do that, at least not with water.  People have used mud and marsh tiles as a workaround.

[RockinHarry]

You cannot do that, at least not with water.  People have used mud and marsh tiles as a workaround.

Yup. If one restricts oneselves to small water courses like creeks and such, the mud tile can be modded to look like a water texture and then be placed on slopes to look like water running downhills. I´ve tweaked the games stock water texture and renamed it to ground mud.bmp This is the result:

 

Here´s dropbox link for if anybody likes, make further experiments with the faked water tiles ( --> data/z)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wyoal7z2z53y6ad/Mud to water.zip?dl=0

Note: This is a CMBN screenshot, but the files should also work in CMFI I think.

 

Edited September 22, 2015 by RockinHarry
Note added

[LiveNoMore]

Thanks RokinHarry! This looks great. I haven't tried modding yet. This might get me to try!

 

[RockinHarry]

I´ve now tried with marsh tiles, as well as adding some (preliminary) marsh doodads looking like rocks. Making the doodads disappear by use of the alpha channel is also no problem (when wind is set to anything but none in editor). Marsh has the benefit that it´s also bad going for infantry and no go for vehicles. Looks depend upon marsh drawing direction and with current texture, east-west look best. Also it shouldn´t be no wider than 1 action spot. Personally I have some use for this, as the small creeks in the Ardennes and hurtgen forest are quite similar in size and nature.

 

[LiveNoMore]

I used the Mud to Water mod to create a stream on a small map. After i put units on the map the mud returned! Don't know what happened, but nothing seems to return the mod. Any ideas?

 

When it did work it looked great. I made the stream one tile wide with marsh on both sides. I also put stones from the Flavor Objects menu in the stream to give it depth.

 

[RockinHarry]

I used the Mud to Water mod to create a stream on a small map. After i put units on the map the mud returned! Don't know what happened, but nothing seems to return the mod. Any ideas?

 

When it did work it looked great. I made the stream one tile wide with marsh on both sides. I also put stones from the Flavor Objects menu in the stream to give it depth.

 

Thats sounds odd. File names is the same for CMFI, as is for CMBN, so that can´t be the problem, the more if you already got it working, without any units on map. I assume you put the 2 files into data/z folder, but maybe you have yet some other mud mod in there? 

[RockinHarry]

Here´s the mud to water file again. I deleted the alpha layer that remained in there from original water. Actually that is non used for any other ground tile in the game, but who knows....

Unzip folder into data/z https://www.dropbox.com/s/1cwnvqg8mjlyb2t/RHZ Mud to water.zip?dl=0

And the water to marsh files. The doodads file isn´t finished yet, but gives the idea. Do not set wind strength up, or you´ll see the rocks moving with the wind (the game still treats them as plants)!  Unzip folder into data/z ... https://www.dropbox.com/s/v3g9z8iebkc88jo/RHZ marsh to water.zip?dl=0

You can us one at a time, or both (mud and marsh). Mud is little of an obstacle, while marsh only allows infantry to cross over.

Note: The files are WIP and still experimental.

[Bootie]

That looks great.... would be good if BF added a tile for shallow stream water like that, that could be rotated and used.