Seeking map or need advice on making it

[Saber Cherry]

I think it looks good like that, too. What tools / filters did you use to get that effect?

[Targa]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I think it looks good like that, too. What tools / filters did you use to get that effect?

I must be hallucinating...there was a post by GP answering that a little while ago.

Anyways, this map project is officially dead unless I can figure out why Dom2 dislikes it. Ran -dd switch, and got about 500 lines that all kept saying the same thing:
LoadBigMap targa.tga ()
loading map ./maps/targa.tga
tga2rgba32 alphamode 0 tgatype 3202 tgaadr130613288 dstadr138346536 tgalen7680539
w1600 h1200
FindCapitals
155 capitals found
FindNbors (hl155)
gooddist=180341.000000
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 1 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 1 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
....

Kept going until I had to force Windows to shut the game down. I checked the map about 5 times, and the only pure white are the 1-pixel capital dots. Saved in uncompressed tga. Tried both 24 and 32 bit.

Maybe the game doesn't like your borders. Without a clear defining line it doesn't think the provinces are seperate?

[Targa]

Originally posted by Zen:
Maybe the game doesn't like your borders. Without a clear defining line it doesn't think the provinces are seperate?

Thought about that, but if you look at Aran and Orania, the water province borders aren't even solid and completely enclosing the provinces. I thought (and this is what I've read here in the forums), province borders are merely for human convenience, and all the game looks for are the white dots. I can't even explain why it appears to be trying to find neighbors, since you're supposed to set that manually. "Guess neighbors" doesn't come into play until you select it in the map editor.

EDIT: Saber Cherry's all unit view uses a totally black map with 2 white dots, now that I think about it, so it's not borders.

[ February 06, 2004, 03:46: Message edited by: Targa ]

[Saber Cherry]

Yeah, the game only cares about white dots, and does not understand anything else. Are you trying to load the map with a .map file, or trying to run a map editor?

BTW, the first province should be 1, not 0... can you post your .map file contents?

[Targa]

There isn't any .map file. I'm just trying to load the .tga into Dom's map editor.

It appears that there's a map editor bug related to the placement of the white dots. I moved a few around and came up with a different error.

Edit: As you can see below from my printout, it finds the 155 capitals w/o a problem. Then it gets caught in an infinite loop while trying to figure out who's neighboring who. So the 155 white dots are there, and being seen. I pasted sections of my map to a new file, and they can be loaded. But not very many. If I had to guess (and I may be way off base here), I'd almost say that there has to be a certain number of pixels both horizontally and vertically between white pixels. If they're....say, within 2 rows horizontally or 2 columns vertically, the game locks up.

[ February 06, 2004, 04:47: Message edited by: Targa ]

[Unwise]

I had a similar problem when putzing around with my first map. I solved it thus:

If you're using photoshop, use the color/hue option to slightly darken all the layers except for the one containing your dots (if you don't have a layer just for the dots, make one).

The theory is that there are several white pixels very close to one another that is confusing the routine. By darkening the "eye candy" layers an infintesimal amount, you disqualify these from consideration.