Map making - Terrain and building catalogues?

[PEB14]

Hi,

IMHO one of the most boring thing in map making is the need to constantly switch from the map editor to the 3D preview to see what things look like, especially for buildings and foliage. And then to look for the precise tile you just want to see the look on the 3D map, which can be a pain… So I was wondering wether there was a kind of catalogue showing a preview of each terrain feature? This would be a time saviour and a useful reference… Did anybody ever worked on that? (The game manual definitvely SHALL provide such data, but unfortunately it only provides the flavour objects' previews).

By the way, if I'm not mistaken, the scenario "location" (France vs. Holland in CMBN, Italy vs. Northern Italy in CMFI, etc.) does change the look of buildings. Does it change the look of other terrain features?

 

[chuckdyke]

They have been asking to be able to do editing straight in the 3D area. We can play the game why can't we do editing there? Edit from View 5to9 and preview from View 1 to 4.

[kohlenklau]

3 hours ago, PEB14 said:

"location" (France vs. Holland in CMBN, Italy vs. Northern Italy in CMFI, etc.) does change the look of buildings. Does it change the look of other terrain features?

(The official term is "Region" or if you play in French - Région).

Yes, many building textures are modtagged for a region.

Some flavor objects have region modtags. gravestones show names in German or Russians or Poles.

Some uniforms change with region, US Airborne for example.

Horizons change for CMFI with region (but maybe it is also game coded to the scenario date). 

[PEB14]

1 hour ago, kohlenklau said:

(The official term is "Region" or if you play in French - Région).

Yes, many building textures are modtagged for a region.

Some flavor objects have region modtags. gravestones show names in German or Russians or Poles.

Some uniforms change with region, US Airborne for example.

Horizons change for CMFI with region (but maybe it is also game coded to the scenario date). 

Thanks Phil. But terrain tiles themselves are not modtagged for a region? Roads, grass, marshes, trees are always the same, whatever the region?

[kohlenklau]

5 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

But terrain tiles themselves are not modtagged for a region? Roads, grass, marshes, trees are always the same, whatever the region?

oh, maybe I missed your main question.

I am pretty sure there IS a case where a set of roads has a region modtag. And it can be modtagged by modders. Fences and walls can have modtags too. Definitely there is now a bunch of season modtags for foliage. changing the leaves color or removing leaves and adding some frost. [spring] etc.

grass and marsh and mud etc. I think there is a [snow] modtag or [cold] modtag that has a slightly altered texture.

Have you started your Bacciano(sp?) map? 

 

[PEB14]

49 minutes ago, kohlenklau said:

Have you started your Bacciano(sp?) map?

Bracciano. Yes I did. Nighmarish. Drawing roads on the editor is a pain, railroad are even worse, the terrain icons are absolutely not self explanatory. In particular, creating cities is very difficult, you have basically no idea what the buildings look like when you chose them, so it's terribly time consuming as you have to constantly switch between the editor and the 3D preview. And my map is too big for what I plan to do so I have to downsize it somewhat. Moreover I'm disappointed by the look of the buildings, and what's available for Italy. It definitively lacks low building and white facades.

In the meantime I relax myself  by drawing a smaller Normandy map for a small 3-scenarios campaign. A most excellent exercise, I'm enhancing my map-making skills, and and I've learnt the use of AI triggers.

I'll come back to the Bracciano map a little later. No way that I give up, especially because the subject is uncommon!

[Butschi]

8 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

Bracciano. Yes I did. Nighmarish. Drawing roads on the editor is a pain, railroad are even worse, the terrain icons are absolutely not self explanatory. In particular, creating cities is very difficult, you have basically no idea what the buildings look like when you chose them, so it's terribly time consuming as you have to constantly switch between the editor and the 3D preview. And my map is too big for what I plan to do so I have to downsize it somewhat. Moreover I'm disappointed by the look of the buildings, and what's available for Italy. It definitively lacks low building and white facades.

In the meantime I relax myself  by drawing a smaller Normandy map for a small 3-scenarios campaign. A most excellent exercise, I'm enhancing my map-making skills, and and I've learnt the use of AI triggers.

I'll come back to the Bracciano map a little later. No way that I give up, especially because the subject is uncommon!

*cough* CMAutoEditor *cough*

Just draw a line and it draws that road or railroad or whatever for you.

[WimO]

Terrain tiles and vegetation are the same for France and Holland (the Netherlands).

Building skins differ for France and Holland. The default, France, is not mod-tagged, Netherlands building skins are mod-tagged [holland]

Falaise has made some Juin/Juillet/Auot, Normandie specific terrain doodads mods, as have others.

As for catalogues, when I was map-making  I made sample maps on which I placed all buidings with all skin options and took my own screen shots. The same for flavor objects, doodads and terrain tiles. I found this especially valuable to compare the various terrrain tile mods and foliage mods.

 

[PEB14]

18 minutes ago, Butschi said:

*cough* CMAutoEditor *cough*

Just draw a line and it draws that road or railroad or whatever for you.

Yeah Butschi I know. Unfortunately I don't have the skill to make it run on my Mac…

[PEB14]

11 minutes ago, WimO said:

As for catalogues, when I was map-making  I made sample maps on which I placed all buidings with all skin options and took my own screen shots. The same for flavor objects, doodads and terrain tiles. I found this especially valuable to compare the various terrrain tile mods and foliage mods.

The next thing I planned to do was exactly that: do screenshots for all tiles and build my own reference file. By chance, did you keep this precious file? THAT's something to share…

Edited May 13, 2023 by PEB14

[WimO]

Unfortunately I did not. Perhaps I should - to show my compilation of Normandie building skins by TAL, Pat, Umlaut, Kieme, Falaise and Kandu (a.k.a. WimO).

[PEB14]

58 minutes ago, WimO said:

Unfortunately I did not. Perhaps I should - to show my compilation of Normandie building skins by TAL, Pat, Umlaut, Kieme, Falaise and Kandu (a.k.a. WimO).

Thanks anyway. I'll do my own!

[Zveroboy1]

7 hours ago, WimO said:

As for catalogues, when I was map-making  I made sample maps on which I placed all buildings with all skin options and took my own screen shots. The same for flavor objects, doodads and terrain tiles. I found this especially valuable to compare the various terrain tile mods and foliage mods.

Yeah I do that too for independent buildings. It takes 5 minutes really. Just plop down all the buildings on a small test map, close together and laid out in a similar manner as the buttons are arranged in the editor so it is easier to see at a glance which is which. Then take a screenshot and keep the picture open while you map and quickly alt tab to it when needed. Terrain tiles and trees, after a while you tend to remember fairly easy and it becomes second nature but you could use the same technique.

This is mine for CMBS:

I think Juju also made a small map with all the terrain tiles laid out neatly with an added landmark that tells you what each terrain tile is, but I don't have a link for it and forgot what title it is for. And there is one pdf with flavour objects that someone made which also includes trees.

Edited May 14, 2023 by Zveroboy1

[WimO]

CM Normandy 2023-05-13 20-21-28-60.bmp CM Normandy 2023-05-13 20-21-49-18.bmp CM Normandy 2023-05-13 20-22-07-09.bmp CM Normandy 2023-05-13 20-22-19-38.bmp

Edited May 14, 2023 by WimO
trying to delete

[PEB14]

7 hours ago, Zveroboy1 said:

Yeah I do that too for independent buildings. It takes 5 minutes really. Just plop down all the buildings on a small test map, close together and laid out in a similar manner as the buttons are arranged in the editor so it is easier to see at a glance which is which. Then take a screenshot and keep the picture open while you map and quickly alt tab to it when needed. Terrain tiles and trees, after a while you tend to remember fairly easy and it becomes second nature but you could use the same technique.

This is mine for CMBS:

I think Juju also made a small map with all the terrain tiles laid out neatly with an added landmark that tells you what each terrain tile is, but I don't have a link for it and forgot what title it is for. And there is one pdf with flavour objects that someone made which also includes trees.

I'm working on, it for CMBN. It's a little more than 5 minutes if you want to cover most configurations (various textures, various types of windows, doors & windows layout)…

But I think it's worth the investment if you plan to create more than a handful of scenarios anyway.

As for flavour objects, there is a dedicated page in the CMBN-MG manual IIRC.

[Zveroboy1]

Right and there are also commercial buildings, barns and all. But you don't really need to do what you're describing though. If we're talking about independent buildings, the windows/door layout doesn't change. It is purely cosmetic. And for modular buildings you can't pick the texture in the editor without going into map preview mode anyway. I mean if it helps you sure go ahead but I don't see how that's necessary at all. The truth is that you simply can't do it all in the 2D mode. You will have to preview the map and make adjustments to your built up areas in any case after plopping all the houses down in order to get the windows and doors where you want them, the skin for the facades and damage when needed.

Edited May 14, 2023 by Zveroboy1

[benpark]

I generally switch from 2D to 3D when I finish with a "zone" that I have completed in the 2D view. There's no demarcation of this, it's based on what I can remember doing - complex areas get lots of 2D/3D switching.

When I get to the point where I'm going to forget if I placed a church or a building, I switch over. Or when I complete part of a town or any complex terrain area, where the textures need to be considered for any realism reason, but also for visual patterns that aren't looking correct, or are distracting to the viewer. It takes switching fairly often to get slight dips in terrain that may be present in period photographs, etc.

There's only so much anyone can stand clicking all of those windows, textures, and balconies in 3D view (cities, in particular), so that limits my time there. It's set by what the one's capacity is in memory between the two views of reality. I try to flip between the two fairly often to check the 3D, even with longer load times.

On 5/13/2023 at 5:49 AM, PEB14 said:

Does it change the look of other terrain features?

Yes, often times they do. An example is when we added "Germany" to RTFR -  that also covers things like Flavor Objects. This is done by a "Mod Tag", which may be used to swap in an alternate model or texture when that Mod Tag is active. That's done by the game (like adding Germany, which is a Mod Tag in itself, but coded in), or by a modder. These can be added using new or existing Mod Tags. Cracking the BRZ's open is the best way to see how this operates in the filenames.

[PEB14]

43 minutes ago, Zveroboy1 said:

Right and there are also commercial buildings, barns and all. But you don't really need to do what you're describing though. If we're talking about independent buildings, the windows/door layout doesn't change. It is purely cosmetic. And for modular buildings you can't pick the texture in the editor without going into map preview mode anyway. I mean if it helps you sure go ahead but I don't see how that's necessary at all. The truth is that you simply can't do it all in the 2D mode. You will have to preview the map and make adjustments to your built up areas in any case after plopping all the houses down in order to get the windows and doors where you want them, the skin for the facades and damage when needed.

You're absolutely right.

Anyway, I've finished the job for CMBN !

[BornGinger]

On 5/13/2023 at 10:49 AM, PEB14 said:

So I was wondering wether there was a kind of catalogue showing a preview of each terrain feature? This would be a time saviour and a useful reference… Did anybody ever worked on that?

I'm not sure anyone has done anything similar. But it's never too late for you to make one. Many map and scenario makers would be grateful to you.

[PEB14]

13 minutes ago, BornGinger said:

I'm not sure anyone has done anything similar. But it's never too late for you to make one. Many map and scenario makers would be grateful to you.

I've done one for CMBN/France. I will gladly share it. I need to open a dropbox (I've got none for now) as the pdf file is too big for email sharing.

[PEB14]

For those interested, here's a pdf catalogue of most terrains in CMBN (non-modded game):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4d2pu3ohvsdozg6/CMBN France Terrain features.pdf?dl=0

[JM Stuff]

20 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

For those interested, here's a pdf catalogue of most terrains in CMBN (non-modded game):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4d2pu3ohvsdozg6/CMBN France Terrain features.pdf?dl=0

Very nice idea, helpful, and detailled infos, thanks, to share it,... need only to do it now for others CM titles. (kidding) !

Just a question, this is yours own pictures terrains tiles ? or original CM ones ?

 

Edited May 20, 2023 by JM Stuff

[PEB14]

27 minutes ago, JM Stuff said:

Very nice idea, helpful, and detailled infos, thanks, to share it,... need only to do it now for others CM titles. (kidding) !

Just a question, this is yours own pictures terrains tiles ? or original CM ones ?

 

Hi,

You are most welcome.

And no kidding, I probably do it for CMFI as well when I combe back to my Bracciano scenario… Aprt from the buildings, everything is probably similar anyway.

And yes, I took the screencaps myself, except for the flavour objects. Nothing difficult, only time to be spent.

[JM Stuff]

7 hours ago, PEB14 said:

Hi,

You are most welcome.

And no kidding, I probably do it for CMFI as well when I combe back to my Bracciano scenario… Aprt from the buildings, everything is probably similar anyway.

And yes, I took the screencaps myself, except for the flavour objects. Nothing difficult, only time to be spent.

Good job, than, I hope to see more about this, we dont have to searching how will look terrains tiles in the game, only that we have perhaps to replace the "tiles pictures in the editors" to have the  correct view with a terrain and terrains mods installed, and not the original editor pictures from BFC !

But I think this could be a unhelpfull job !

Anyway the pdf is already helpfull, thanks again !

PS waiting to your scenario, but hey ! take your time to do it 

Edited May 20, 2023 by JM Stuff

[PEB14]

5 hours ago, JM Stuff said:

PS waiting to your scenario, but hey ! take your time to do it 

Thank you. I'm working on the second (out of three) scenarios of my muni campaign. But don't put your expectations too high, it's more intended as training for me as a designer. It should be very good for beginners, but not very challenging for the veterans.