Map Building Problems

[Canada Guy]

I have now started to build some maps and frankly am absolutely loving it. (I bought a program caller Fractal Terrain Pro just to build planetary maps but I digress).

I have noticed some problems in my map making though and have some questions and suggestions.

1. Water

I have a very difficult time placing water. I built one map with a small stream coming down from a hill (height 21 going to 19) on one side. On the other side of the map, I had a swamp mostly marsh but with some 1 square or 2 square water points. No matter what I try, the map will place the water for all locations at the lowest level that I have. My stream becomes a chasm. I tried locking down all water locations but that does not seem to help. Can you have water at various levels on a map or once you have water, the map maker will choose to place all water locations at the lowest level?

2. Building strength

Intuitively, I think different buildings must give greater protection but is this true? Does a 1/2 square barn give less protection than a 3 story modular building? Being able to set a parameter of heavy or light for each building would help.

3. Trees after the 1.01 patch

In strong wind now, my trees do not move their branches except up extremely close. The grain and grass still move but the trees look static. Can we have moving trees back (or at least make it a parameter based upon yur computer)?

4. Flavour Objects

Look great and work as they should but it is difficultnto pick which one you need when you cannot see what you have placed unless you go to the 3D map. Even a small static picture of what you are placing would be helpful instead of the numbers.

5. Independent Buildings

I love the concept and I understand that creating more is more work but it would be nice to have some more veriaty. Currently my towns are under the thumb of the Cafe Garmont conglomerate. Having some 2-3 story skinny shop buildings would be helpful. perhaps even some more building types?

6. Vineyards

I have tried to build some vineyards and have had moderate success. I use wire fences and shrubs but it never looks quite right. Close but no cigar. At least in the Bulge or late war modules as I remember walking through the St Goar area and seeing them on slopes for miles.

7. Meta-tiles

What became of this? I know that this will not be in CMBN but perhaps on the horizon? The reason I ask is that I can make a pretty good railway station but my villages are sh*te. Just musing but it would be nice (and perhaps easier) to have a separate screen, like unit purchase, or like map building that would just be meta-tile configuration. Make them standard sizes (8x8, 16x16 or 32x32) and join any of your meta tiles together with the ability to move and rotate. Finish, save and then import into the map screen for further manipulation. In the map screen, you could create a map in meta-tile format and save to the meta folder.

[MikeyD]

Currently my towns are under the thumb of the Cafe Garmont conglomerate.

Shift-clicking indi buildings in the editor will cycle facades just like modular buildings. Indi buildings currently have two each. There's no need for 'Cafe Grammont' to show up at all if you don't want it to.

[Canada Guy]

I actually do want business' to show up as I need some bistro's and cafes. I know about the shift-click but with only 2 choices your towns begins to look a little too uniform. I used the Cafe Grammont example to be facetious. some 2-3 story skinny shop buildings would be most useful and look appropriate, perhaps with canopy.

[sburke]

I have now started to build some maps and frankly am absolutely loving it. (I bought a program caller Fractal Terrain Pro just to build planetary maps but I digress).

I have noticed some problems in my map making though and have some questions and suggestions.

1. Water

I have a very difficult time placing water. I built one map with a small stream coming down from a hill (height 21 going to 19) on one side. On the other side of the map, I had a swamp mostly marsh but with some 1 square or 2 square water points. No matter what I try, the map will place the water for all locations at the lowest level that I have. My stream becomes a chasm. I tried locking down all water locations but that does not seem to help. Can you have water at various levels on a map or once you have water, the map maker will choose to place all water locations at the lowest level?

I have run into this as well. I have a map I am working on that has a small lake that overflows downhill to a river. I was using marsh tiles for the small "brook" flowing downhill, but when I put in water tiles for the lake it created a sinkhole instead. Is this expected? Does the mapping editor assume all water should be at the same level? The manual implies it is not and all water must be at least at elevation level 5. I had tried setting the level just to make sure it was a flat surface and once I found the sinkhole removed the direct settings. No change.

edit - this also applies to shallow and deep fords as well

[Sgt Schultz]

1. That's what we have. Water is all at one level, at least for now.

2. IDK. I suppose I should start testing this out right away, especially strength of damaged versus undamaged buildings.

3. It is a performance improvement. Peeps were getting smacked hard in windy conditions and lower-end systems.

4. +1 to dat.

5. Shift/Click on each building. You get two choices per building. Other than that, it is about spacing and spreading building types.

6. Low Bocage and slope. Wall of your choice. I use Rural Stone. Bocage lines every other tile seems too far apart, but every tile and it looks like they won't get enough sun on the vines.

7. I am not entirely sure what you are describing, but it seems like you want to pre-make "village" blocks, and then be able to drop various combinations onto a fresh clean map. You can make "seed" metas, that can be used to grow maps around, but you cannot put more than one on a map at a time.

Oh, and by the way ... there is a Map forum right above us bro. We are in general discussion. I do it sometimes too.

[sburke]

1. That's what we have. Water is all at one level, at least for now.

Oh, and by the way ... there is a Map forum right above us bro. We are in general discussion. I do it sometimes too.

Thanks, so the pond is gonna have to be a marsh, not the end of the world and on my map, probably more appropriate.

Map Grognards. I am defintely gonna have to visit that. The whole point of the map I am working on is simply to develop my perception of map making and "realistic" terrain.

I owe you some Apple Strudel Schultzy

[Canada Guy]

Sgt Schultz,

The concept of Meta-tiles has been around for a while and I think was first suggested by Steve Et. Al.

The concept allows me to concentrate on something I think I can create a decent copy of, such as a railway station and use that along with the output from the experts that can make a great village. A simple way to use the best of all worlds. It can be clunky but would save me a lot of time and I think that the eventual output would be better.

Of course, like all things it would depend upon the effort you put into this. If I just cobble together 10 meta-tiles and do not fix anything, then everything begins to look uniform.

A great concept though but one I believe is on the back burner.

I would love to send people my maps for some critiquing or at least post some pics of my map if I could just figure out how you posted your pics.

[Humbug]

4. Flavour Objects

Look great and work as they should but it is difficultnto pick which one you need when you cannot see what you have placed unless you go to the 3D map. Even a small static picture of what you are placing would be helpful instead of the numbers.

Agreed, it should be an easy enough fix. It's especially annoying since some things are in the wrong flavour object category. Like the big gravestone in the fountain category instead of in the actual gravestone category, as an example.

[sburke]

Agreed, it should be an easy enough fix. It's especially annoying since some things are in the wrong flavour object category. Like the big gravestone in the fountain category instead of in the actual gravestone category, as an example.

LOL yeah I was finally motivated enough to open the manual and look. Imagine that, expecting me to actually READ? Sheesh

I was happily surprised to see there were a few additional items I was unaware of not necessarily where I would expect them, however I now have that manual info handy as I work on maps and am enjoying map making quite a bit more.

[Sgt Schultz]

Canada Guy... I will be happy to offer my meager opinions on any maps. PM me.

As far as screenies go, this is my method ...

1. PRNTSCRN in game

2. ALT/TAB out

3. Open M$ Paint

4. CNTRL/V(that puts the screenie in Paint)

5. Crop the UI out and save as JPEG(NOT BMP the bandwidth killer)

6. Save to Photobucket(or similar site)

7. Link to here.

8. Accept praise from the public for your artistic mastery(hopefully).

[Canada Guy]

I hope this works

[Canada Guy]

I used MS Word to save a crop as well as XnView but the pics turned out a little small.

How the heck did you get your pics so big?

[Sgt Schultz]

My desktop is set to 1680 X 1050. So whatever that translates into in CM-land, and then I crop the UI out.

If you have less pixels to start with, you have less after the crop.

[Canada Guy]

Sgt Schultz,

If you want to check out my 2 maps that I have been working on, I would be happy to send them to you.

Suggestions etc would be appreciated. If you like them, use them and if they seem like they would be useful, I will post them to the Repository for everyone.

I did not see any rules against it so you may email me at

cmbb.cmak@gmail.com

if you are interested.

[c3k]

Regarding Low Bocage as vineyards: they look good, and points for original thinking, but one of the characteristics of low bocage is their impassable nature. Perhaps hedges would act more like rows of vines?

[Canada Guy]

Perhaps low bocage with breaks. At least men could move through them. I will have to try the low hedges with breaks and see what it looks like.

[Sgt Schultz]

Hedges look sad as vinyards, unless you are making freshly planted ones I suppose.

Troops can move through the naturally occuring breaks in the low bocage.

By using low bocage, I can create a plethora of tactical problems for vehicles. Placement and angle of vinyards can shape the battlefield nicely.

[Holien]

Please don't use Low Bocage... It looks like Hedge (until you learn that you need to know the difference) and players will think tanks can drive through it.

Tanks should easily be able to drive through Vineyards IMO.

Vineyards should not offer that level of protection that bocage offers IMO

Just a players 2p.

[Holien]

2. Building strength

Intuitively, I think different buildings must give greater protection but is this true? Does a 1/2 square barn give less protection than a 3 story modular building? Being able to set a parameter of heavy or light for each building would help.

I would like to know the answer on that as well..... Other threads say buildings no good but some do seem to offer good levels of protection from small arms at least.

[Georgie]

I would like to know the answer on that as well..... Other threads say buildings no good but some do seem to offer good levels of protection from small arms at least.

Hello Holien, I have done a lot of testing of independent building strength against small arms fire and have found out that the strength of the buildings vary from a minus protection to a fairly good plus protection. The problem is how do you tell the difference before you put it on your map and when playing the scenario how do you tell unless you commit troops to either attack it or occupy it. Maybe it would be gamey to be able to tell before hand but it sure would be a lot more fun. Maybe if BF hears enough requests from us they will implement some sort of method to supply this information on screen when playing the scenario and in the editor when building the scenario or map.

[Holien]

Hi,

I feel sure the soldiers in Normandy soon learnt to spot good buildings from bad and there has to be some way of showing that in the game?

Lets hope they are listening...