Questions to MakeAHMap users

[artik]

Hi I have some questions regarding MakeAHMap...

1. What existing AH3 maps were build using this tools - if any. Do they run at AvA and/or SEA?
2. What are the coordinates of the map/size
3. What kind of tweaks you need to do (if at all) to the terrain itself after it was generated
4. What settings have you changed from the default in config.ini if any (besides the obvious lat/long/map-size/name)

I need the inputs to continue to improve the maps.

Thanks,

[ghostdancer]

Hey Artik I used MakeAHMap on the following SEA maps:

• bob40 (converted old map - used to create new raw height, coastlines, and splat)
• luzon (converted old map - used to create new raw height, coastlines, and splat)
• maylasia (brand new map)
• tunisia (converted old map - used to create new raw height. coastlines, and splat)

Here are the coordinates and map sizes:

bob40
lat=50.7721
lon=-0.279
scale=1.0
map_size=512

luzon
lat=13.98
lon=123.2172
scale=1.5
map_size=512

malaysia
lat=4.0561
lon=102.2553
scale=1.0
map_size=512

tunisia
lat=36.5
lon=8
scale=1.5
map_size=512

As for tweaks I have to do minor shorelines stuff especially around small bays. There are times it does sort of like a dot of water with land around in and then the bay. Also some of the rivers have not fully connected with a section being land.

Other issues has been terrain texture blending. You probably can see that the most over in Malaysia and Bob ... sort of blocky square transitions. So I have cleaned up some of those to try to blend things a bit better.

I haven't changed any of the default settings outside of map size. Oh, and when it to comes CBM maps I make mine by hand instead of the ones generated by the program. Although I do use the CBM there to add texture to what I make.

Basically I have blanked out the grid lines in the 512 map graphic in your program. Then take the CBM which does not have gridlines and in photoshop change it to 2048x2048. I then use this and the mymap_elevations.bmp as the starting point for what I create in photoshop for CBMs.

[ghostdancer]

Btw, also want to say that the details of the coastlines your program creates is very good. It matches what I used to do by hand in AH2 and what I can no longer do in AH3 by hand. So big thumbs up there.

[Easyscor]

The community owes you a debt and a giant Thank You, artic.

 

[artik]

As for tweaks I have to do minor shorelines stuff especially around small bays. There are times it does sort of like a dot of water with land around in and then the bay.

Yeah, there are probably still some issues in some corner cases... Is it frequent and how high the burden of fixing them is? If you can show me a specific annoying case I can try to fix one.

Also some of the rivers have not fully connected with a section being land.

Ohhh... that one is old one but I can't really do anything about it - I notices that river and shore lines DB are not always consistent (they actually come from different sources in the data set I use) so this isn't something I can easily fix :-( I've tried to contact the maintainer of the DB but it didn't bring any results.

Other issues has been terrain texture blending. You probably can see that the most over in Malaysia and Bob ... sort of blocky square transitions. So I have cleaned up some of those to try to blend things a bit better.

I see, some of the stuff I assume is due to simple fact that GlobCover data base has lower resolution that splattype map. Currently I just resample because otherwise I need some method of creating a smooth transition between different terrain types... Maybe I need to do resize AFTER converting to splat types as they already have natural transition from one type to other.

What do you think?

splattype was the stuff I least invested in it...

I haven't changed any of the default settings outside of map size.

What I suggest is to try to play with:

(a) river_level - to control an amount of rivers added by their importance.
(b) water_alt_limit - to control where I stop rendering the rivers such that too high rivers wouldn't modify absolute altitudes too much.

Oh, and when it to comes CBM maps I make mine by hand instead of the ones generated by the program. Although I do use the CBM there to add texture to what I make.

Basically I have blanked out the grid lines in the 512 map graphic in your program. Then take the CBM which does not have gridlines and in photoshop change it to 2048x2048. I then use this and the mymap_elevations.bmp as the starting point for what I create in photoshop for CBMs.

I can quite easily or even trivially creates textures of 2048x2048 for CBM. I only need the grid of same size. I can resale the existing ones but it would be somewhat ugly. If you have good grid set I can add them to makeahmap... Back to AH2 days it was told that CBM must be 1024x1024...



Great thanks for the inputs.

To be honest I'm really glad that the software I write is in use and helps the community...

[ghostdancer]

Hey Artik,

It is not a big deal or frequent not really sure you can fix it since it tends to happen around little coves / inlets / bays.

On the rivers it only really happened noticeably once over on the bob40 terrains and I was able to fix that. So don't worry about it.

On splat types the only one that Malaysia and bob40 had the most issues. Luzon and Tunisia were fine. In the case of Malaysia I figure it is because the Globcover data is less robust for the area of Malaysia. I have attached a screen shot to show the issues usually happening there. Which is like a speckling of unknown terrain type. bob40 sort of had the same issue of speckling but in its case it was sand terrain being speckled about inland France and Britain. Also when there was forest it was blocky. Attached a screenshot of that also. Not a deal breaker because splytype is way down on my list too.

I will play around with the settings you suggested since I am in progress of converting terrains and upgrading several terrains that I released but with new elevations data (instead of the old elevation data from AH2).

I will send you the 2048x2048 grid since I already have it done. Yeah, in AH2 it was 1024x1024 and you can still use that for AH3 but we were told we also could do the 2048x2048 for CBMs so I like doing the larger one now. Anyway I will send you the grid for that size.

Thanks again for the program, it makes things so much easier and quicker now than have to do it via microdem especially now that it comes to raw height files.

MALAYSIA



BOB40

[Easyscor]

I can quite easily or even trivially creates textures of 2048x2048 for CBM. I only need the grid of same size. I can resale the existing ones but it would be somewhat ugly. If you have good grid set I can add them to makeahmap... Back to AH2 days it was told that CBM must be 1024x1024...

The default 2048x2048 grid the TE makes isn't bad. You can capture it by creating an all water terrain of each size, 64,128,256,512 and use Make Map in the TE. Once you have an all water CBM, load it into PS or GIMP and select by color the grid and and numbers, paste as new layer. You can even separate the grid from the numbers if you wish.

 

Oh, and reduce then numbers of color ranges in selection tool to 0 (or maybe 1 in PS) so it only grabs the individual colors you click on.

[jimson]

Hi I have some questions regarding MakeAHMap...

1. What existing AH3 maps were build using this tools - if any. Do they run at AvA and/or SEA?
2. What are the coordinates of the map/size
3. What kind of tweaks you need to do (if at all) to the terrain itself after it was generated
4. What settings have you changed from the default in config.ini if any (besides the obvious lat/long/map-size/name)

I need the inputs to continue to improve the maps.

Thanks,

Artik it's a fantastic program

I believe I used these to make 256 euromis to run missions on.

lat=52.00
lon=7.0
scale=3.0

The rivers it creates seem really wide. I played with that but then the rivers were broken, so I just lived with it.

The automatic CBM feature is excellent for immediate feedback in getting the area you want.

I was totally lost with the new TE and without your program I wouldn't have been able to even make this (adequate for my purpose) terrain.

[ghostdancer]

Btw Artik,

Just ran into something in your program. I was about to start work on rebuilding Aleutians with new elevations and so forth. So I fired up your program and put in the long and lat and size:

lat=52.7629
lon=-174.2926
scale=2.0

And your program gives me this error:

Error:Configuration error: the terrain must not pass E180/W180 meridian

[artik]

Currently there is a limitation that the longitude of the terrain should be in -180/+180 range, and this area violates, it was somewhat complicated to deal with this particular corner case as I thought there aren't many cases of such an area in WW2,  apparently I was wrong.
I assume I can fix it but it will take some time, it isn't something trivial.


 It is related to polygon rasterisation as the simple and efficient algorithm I used does not work on sphere

[ghostdancer]

I am not sure you have to worry about it. Let me think on this since Aleutians is not used very often. Only other area that I can think might be affected by this would be Northern Norway once I work on a terrain for that.

[ghostdancer]

Okay I don't have the same issue with Narvik in Norway. So this looks like it might only be an Aleutians issue. If that is the case I can do this manually and not through your program but it is a one off issue.

[ghostdancer]

Actually after running a couple of test on Norway I am having different issues. Running some more to see if it is my machine or not.

[ghostdancer]

Artik can you try these two coordinates to see what happens for you:

#NARVIK
lat=68.4316
lon=17.4264
scale=1.5

#TRONDHEIM
lat=63.4506
lon=10.3951
scale=1.5

Narvik's coordinates just hang the program for me once it gets to examing water at elevation.

Trondeheim's works but when I look at the CBM map and the raw file there is no elevation north of Trondheim. So you have mountains in the south and then a flat plain.

[artik]

The problem is that Srtm3 does not have coverage above 60N, so you need to use SRTM30 that has required coverage.

The program is hanging due to a bug in altitude optimization that fails due to no optimization actually done as the terrain is flat due to lack of data