New MA terrain: CraterMA

[Easyscor]

I solve the snowy shore battery problem by lowering it, I use -149 for the altitude.

Reducing the number of colors in the CBM and textures, shouldn't change the size of the res file. As far as I know, htc doesn't use any compression when including them in the res file. The 256 color table is part of the format, but you have me wondering if it might help frame rates, I've never thought of that before.

[Greebo]

You mean you hide the hill below ground Easyscor? Interesting idea, anti tank bunker anyone? Isn't it difficult to judge range from the SB at sea level though? Also is this trick allowed for an MA terrain?

There are twelve 257kb bmp files making 3084kb plus the 1mb map bmp in my terrain's texrc folder so HTC must use some form of compression to let me get the res file down to 1284Kb.

I did some back to back tests a year or two back, putting different sets of terrain files in the texsrc folder and comparing the size of the resultant res files. I threw away the results ages ago but I remember that reducing the resolution of the terrain tiles to 256 by 256, then doubling them back up to 512 by 512 made a big difference to the res file size. The way compression works the file is going to smaller the less changes of colour you have, so making the tiles out of 2 by 2 pixel sized dots means half the number of colour changes. Another dodge I used was to make the unused part of the two ovly files all one colour.

The colour reductions made a lot less difference. I made a few modified bright batch files to reduce colours to various levels. There was a neglible reduction in res file size from 256 when dropping to 128 or 64 colours. Once you started going below 32 it got a fair bit smaller though. IIRC I settled on 24 colours as the quality got really crappy below that point.

An elevation style map would let me reduce the file size a bit more I suppose since there would be less colour changes. I quite like the map the way it is though.

[Easyscor]

That's a good question. I lower the SBs in my SEA/AvA terrains and don't build any for the MA, they must still be on flat terrain. Maybe NHawk would know but I don't see why not.

Take a look at Tunisia or Luzon for recent examples of nice CBMs built with Photoshop using the elevation and type files.

It took me a re-read to understand what you're doing to with the textures. I'd never see the difference, but I'm color blind.

 

[Yossarian]

I'm a 99% noob when it comes to content creation other than offline missions (the 1% is because I have actually opened the terrain editor  ), but I've noticed that you are able to drive GVs into structures such as barns etc (and of course hangars).  Wouldn't it be possible to create a bridge out of a barn/hangar with an edited 3D model, and thus allow PT boats and LVTs to drive underneath?

Looks excellent Greebo, I'll try and download it now 

<S>
Yossarian

[Greebo]

There's already some bridge objects in the editor Yoss. Unfortunately there is a bug which means PT boats and LVTs tend to have their engine go bang when passing beneath them. That's one of the reasons I deleted the bridges and rivers from this terrain.

I've uploaded a new version of the terrain to this address:
http://www.gfg06.dial.pipex.com/files/ahiiterr.zip

Changes include shortening the roads to 8 miles, fixing a few doubled waypoints on the roads and moving the ammo factories from the crater. I've also designed a new elevation map similar in style to the other MA maps. Here's a screenshot of the new map, the jpeg conversion has corrupted it a little but you can see the idea.

[NHawk]

CBM looks good! Except, the elevation scale should go from 0 to max. It shows -3000 which isn't possible in game.

SBs for the main arenas shouldn't be put below ground level.

8 Mile roads for the MA, while not standard are allowable.

And just one other question/comment...

You said you changed the ovly files? Do you mean the alpha overlays for tile transitions? You might want to check with Skuzzy on that one, because if you solid filled the overlay alphas you've basically put the texture seaming back to the way it use to be. And that was not allowed last time I asked.

On a side note, I had a good conversation with Nuttz over the Christmas holiday about textures and how to overcome some of the limitations that are in the game now. The topic of solid filling the overlay alphas did come up. I had to quickly steer away from that. In any case, I now know why Nuttz is so good with textures. Graphics are his business, it's what he does for a living.

[Easyscor]

I think he meant black and white alphas, as a single color results in no transitions at all, or 1/2 mile solid triangular transitions. It can be done as two colors, only you need to be very careful with the colors tile-to-tile, because you can get some ugly results.

The only hard and fast rule I know about for SBs, is the "must be on flat terrain". As Greebo points out, they look terrible if you change the "snow" terrain texture to look like snow. The other way around it is to use snow for rock and rock for snow but Greebo is way too far down the road to change it. Do you know of word from htc on a prohibition for lowering them?

Greebo, PM sent momentarily.

[NHawk]

I think he meant black and white alphas, as a single color results in no transitions at all, or 1/2 mile solid triangular transitions. It can be done as two colors, only you need to be very careful with the colors tile-to-tile, because you can get some ugly results.

The only hard and fast rule I know about for SBs, is the "must be on flat terrain". As Greebo points out, they look terrible if you change the "snow" terrain texture to look like snow. The other way around it is to use snow for rock and rock for snow but Greebo is way too far down the road to change it. Do you know of word from htc on a prohibition for lowering them?

Greebo, PM sent momentarily.

I fully understand how the alphas work, and it's the "No transitions at all" part is that I'm concerned about.

IMO, placing the SB below ground may be an un-needed risk in the MA as it is not "standard". But I will leave the final call to Skuzzy.

Edit: I would strongly suggest that people who are making MA terrains, and planning on removing transitions, placing SB hills below ground level or anything else that is radically different than what is seen in the MA contact Skuzzy first to discuss the matter in depth before doing so. What is commonly done in the other arenas is not normally allowed in the MA.

[Greebo]

Thanks for the help guys, much better if I can sort these things out now before submitting it.

I decided not to use the lowered SB idea, figured I had already given HTC enough reasons to reject this terrain. Apart from the hill texture, the SBs I have are conventional and are all on flat terrain. To make the snow texture of the hill blend with my rock terrain I carefully edited that part of the texture used for the hill to be free of snow.

The minus numbers in the CBM scale was just me trying to be clever. The Atlas I used for reference had ocean floor depths as part of the scale in various shades of blue and I was trying to ape that. The lighter shaded sea areas are roughly the areas of sea where the fleet course cannot be set in the game. Thought it would assist any player plotting a fleet course through the island channels in the game. I'll get rid of the minus numbers and put S/L or 0 or something on the scale.

Just to be clear on the matter, I have not changed the ovly alpha files at all. All I did was alter the ovlyxxxx.bmp files to match the terrxxxx.bmp files so the transitions blend seamlessly. Below is my ovly for the snow texture. I worked out that the centre part of the tile was not used by the game and that making it monotone reduced the size of the res file a bit, since monotone areas compress much better.

[NHawk]

Now I understand.

The way it sounded was that you made the entire overlay one color which would have eliminated transitions. And, since I didn't look at the transitions closely when I flew around the terrain it raised a level of concern.

And so far as the CBM scale, trust me...someone would try to go below sea level and complain about the map saying they could.

[Easyscor]

Take a look at your TGs.

Make sure that each FxxSHP000 is assigned to the proper port/field, (Object Data)
and the corresponding zone number,
then, make sure each has a map room owned by the TG with the same zone as the port/field.

I think you'll have a popular MA terrain if htc allows the textures.

I like the light blue shallows, is that one of your programs NHawk, or one of MachNix?

[NHawk]

...

I like the light blue shallows, is that one of your programs NHawk, or one of MachNix?

I think he did that on his own with Photoshop or some other editor. So far as I know, neither MN's or my map makers will do that.

[Easyscor]

It's a nice touch.

[Greebo]

For the CBM I used the export function in the TE to get an elevation map which I then opened in Paint Shop Pro. A tool in PSP called magic wand let me select an area of black with a settable tolerance level. The area shown by the magic wand tool was flood filled to create an altitude layer on the map. I just kept upping the tolerance level of the tool to get successive altitude levels on the map.

The shallow area of sea was created in PSP too. I made a second sea layer and carefully went round the coastlines with an eraser tool to reveal the original layer underneath.

I'll recheck the TGs. It has been a year or more since I did them but IIRC I used the method suggested in Denholm's tutorial to create them. I recall that the TGs all have map rooms though.

Currently I'm adding a few more SPs which has involved a little bit of coastline reshaping in a few places. So I'll have to edit the map a bit to show that.

[Easyscor]

Thanks Greebo.

When you kill any of the Knight TGs, they become Bish when they respawn, check Bish as well as Rook too. They should respawn as the same country as the Port.

But maybe you're Bish and intended it that way.