modding campaign map

[daydr3amer]

Maybe break down to even smaller provinces in all the realm.

That is a really good idea. I would love that.

[General Brewster]

Cool work.

[Col. Tartleton]

Has anyone messed around with campaign map buildings?

For example in Napoleon the England Region has a large number of Farms, Towns, and Ports in addition to the Region Capital. Shogun is in practice limited to a Regional capital, Farm, Port, and a specialized resource.

Could something similar be done for Shogun 2?

I eventually would like to see/contribute to a modern global mod, and while say China could reasonably be as a few dozen provinces it would require a fair number of sub divisional buildings to make it reasonable.

So something like this would be applicable.

COUNTRY
• 1 (SUPER PROVINCIAL REGION)
o 11 Province
 11-1 Capital or Town

CHINA:
• 1 (NORTH CHINA)
o 11 (BEIJING MUNICIPALITY)
 11-1 Běijīng – Region Capital
o 12 (TIANJIN MUNICIPALITY)
 12-1 Tiānjīn – Region Capital
o 13 (HEBEI PROVINCE)
 13-1 Shíjiāzhuāng – Region Capital
 13-2 Bǎodìng
 13-3 Cāngzhōu
 13-4 Chéngdé
 13-5 Hándān
 13-6 Héngshǔi
 13-7 Lángfáng
 13-8 Qínhuángdǎo
 13-9 Tángshān
 13-10 Xíngtái
 13-11 Zhāngjiākǒu

I suspect it's probably best to wait for Rome II. Given the Province and Region mechanism.

[spartan_warrior]

So for the last few days I have been playing around with the sample .max files for Shogun 2's maps, and while I haven't tried anything out in game yet, I have just been familiarizing myself with the structure.

But anyways what I wanted to say is that, seeing as how the campaign maps in warscape are created from models now (using splines, vertices, and polygons), I had an epiphany today. I am currently taking a Geographic Sciences degree and in that I use a lot of GIS software, which creates maps using raster and vector data, and vector data is essentially a bunch of vertices and splines. So I did a little experiment, I took some detailed world vector datasets and imput them into my GIS software, then transformed that into Winkel Tripel projection to balance out angular and distance distortion (this projection is the standard used by National Geographic). I then exported that out into an AutoCAD file and imported that then into 3ds Max and got this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

So essentially I was able to create usable coastal and river splines for all of Eurasia in a matter of minutes, of course this still needs a ton of work done to it to make it somewhat usable but it will be a hell of a lot easier then drawing these things out by hand which would take hundreds of hours.

The best thing about all this is with the right tools and datasets very detailed maps can be created using different projections.

[Slaytaninc]

EDIT: nvm

[weirdoascensor]

spartan_warrior...
My, thats Ingenious! a promising Speedmapping technique to kickstart development...

[Col. Tartleton]

Great stuff spartan_warrior.

I assume that the extent of your data you imported? Nothing got cut off right?

[daniu]

I then exported that out into an AutoCAD file and imported that then into 3ds Max and got this:

OMG that's beautiful
Probably way too detailed for the game to handle, but man!

transformed that into Winkel Tripel projection

People might still be more used to Mercator... I know I am.
I know, I know...

I took some detailed world vector datasets

Where did you get them? Probably only free for academic use... but I imagine once it's been transformed into the 3DMax files and dumbed down for the game, no one will care.
Taking a wild leap, where you got that from might also have material to create the heightmaps?

Then what's left? Climate zones and cities, pathfinding and roads?
Climate zones are trivial, cities and roads not too many, pathfinding related to roads and height...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Oh, and you wouldn't happen to have that GIS data for Middle Earth, now would you?

[Livebyte]

That's amazing, though I don't want to think how much work will go into making it a sensible LOD.
It seems to me we'd be best off simply making a chessboard world to start. Not only simple and (relatively) easy to debug, the gameplay would be rather unique as well.

[spartan_warrior]

Great stuff spartan_warrior.

I assume that the extent of your data you imported? Nothing got cut off right?

No nothing got cut off when I imported, as you can see in my screens there is a rectangle, that was my crop mark from ArcGIS (my mapping software). In fact as you can see there is actually extra data outside my crop marks, the software actually makes sure you have a little more then you specify, but of course that can easily be trimmed in 3ds Max.

OMG that's beautiful
Probably way too detailed for the game to handle, but man!

Actually I don't think it is, the coastlines in Shotgun have a ton of vertices, and the map from Empire I would think has even more, so the engine might be able to handle that, but if not some data could be trimmed, all those tiny lakes aren't really needed.

People might still be more used to Mercator... I know I am.

I'm not a big fan of Mercator, it distorts areas far from the poles way to much. I mean just look at Britain and Scandinavia in that projection, the're huge! Winkel Tripel is one of the best compromises for lessening the angular and distance distortion on a global scale, which it's why it has been the standard for National Geographic world maps for the past 15 years

Where did you get them? Probably only free for academic use... but I imagine once it's been transformed into the 3DMax files and dumbed down for the game, no one will care.
Taking a wild leap, where you got that from might also have material to create the heightmaps?

All that data I used is freely open to the public. My main source was this site, Natural Earth, it has good fairly detailed vector data. As for material to create heightmaps, I suspect something like this should be sufficient: Heightmap Projection And the source for that you can find here, NASA Blue Marble. Most of the datasets can be found easily, but its the software that you need to work with it that's expensive, ArcGIS, which it what I'm using is around $5,000, there are however, open source GIS programs as well but I have never used any of them.

Then what's left? Climate zones and cities, pathfinding and roads?

This still leaves the need to create, region border, roads, trade routes, settlement placements, mountains and groundtypes, which still leaves alot of work but not nearly as much trying to create a detailed coastline.

As for GIS data for Middle Earth, no I don't have any of that , but just doing a quick search I see there are sites doing this type of thing, such as Middle Earth DEM


EDIT: Just to give some people an idea of what I'm going to try to work on, I plan on compiling a map like this, to be used for various mods, ultimately my intention is to create something that may one day be used in Rome II, as hopefully that will still use the same data structure as Shogun (or at least still fairly similar anyways)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[PietroMicca]

Actually I don't think it is, the coastlines in Shogun have a ton of vertices, and the map from Empire I would think has even more, so the engine might be able to handle that, but if not some data could be trimmed, all those tiny lakes aren't really needed.

I don't know for sure (I have never bought Shogun 2), but I think that Empire has a fewer number of vertices; at least proportionally. 67122 vertices for regions and 49991 for groundtypes in Empire world map. 33072 for regions and 16945 for groundtypes in Napoleon Europe map. So Napoleon uses almost half number of vertices just to draw only proper-said Europe (not Northern Africa and Turkey, and also a cut-version of Scandinavia). So I think that if Napoleon had a World Map as detailed as nap_europe, the number of vertices would have been considerably increased towards Empire.

[spartan_warrior]

I don't know for sure (I have never bought Shogun 2), but I think that Empire has a fewer number of vertices; at least proportionally. 67122 vertices for regions and 49991 for groundtypes in Empire world map. 33072 for regions and 16945 for groundtypes in Napoleon Europe map. So Napoleon uses almost half number of vertices just to draw only proper-said Europe (not Northern Africa and Turkey, and also a cut-version of Scandinavia). So I think that if Napoleon had a World Map as detailed as nap_europe, the number of vertices would have been considerably increased towards Empire.

Just looking at the Shogun 2 campaign map Max file, there are 4,630,604 vertices across all layers, so I guess the engine can take quite a lot.

[apg]

excellent work spartan_warrior.

Now if someone proposes a mod idea im interested in, i may be inclined to join.

[daniu]

This still leaves the need to create, region border, roads, trade routes, settlement placements, mountains and groundtypes, which still leaves alot of work

Yeah, but aren't mountains just extreme values in the heightmap?
As for region borders, settlements, roads and trade routes, those will change depending on era and modder taste... having a model of the geography alone would be great to serve as a base for everybody to start working on.

[spartan_warrior]

Yeah, but aren't mountains just extreme values in the heightmap?
As for region borders, settlements, roads and trade routes, those will change depending on era and modder taste... having a model of the geography alone would be great to serve as a base for everybody to start working on.

Mountains are really divided into two parts, one is the visual appearance which is dictated by the heights map but that is only visual it doesn't affect the pathfinding, you can still walk over the mountains. The second part is in the .MAX files, these are polygons and I believe they are the part the tells the game that these sections are inaccessible, the same goes for the groundtypes and sea_groundtypes.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And yea part of my plan on doing all this is to create a detailed base map (stretching from Europe to the Eastern edge of India and the Himalayas) useful for all modders, my personal intend to to work on a map for Rome II as I know this will be a slow process so thats why I'm starting early. But once I get something workable in game I will release it to be adapted for other mods, but I won't expect that to be anytime soon

[Col. Tartleton]

Mountains are really divided into two parts, one is the visual appearance which is dictated by the heights map but that is only visual it doesn't affect the pathfinding, you can still walk over the mountains. The second part is in the .MAX files, these are polygons and I believe they are the part the tells the game that these sections are inaccessible, the same goes for the groundtypes and sea_groundtypes.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And yea part of my plan on doing all this is to create a detailed base map (stretching from Europe to the Eastern edge of India and the Himalayas) useful for all modders, my personal intend to to work on a map for Rome II as I know this will be a slow process so thats why I'm starting early. But once I get something workable in game I will release it to be adapted for other mods, but I won't expect that to be anytime soon

I suspect the Rome II Map will already cover most if not all of that. Go for broke, go Atlantic to Pacific. Deep down everyone wants a proper Afro-Eurasian map.

Attachment 245168

Ideally a full global map.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(EMPIRE II)

Don't make me learn how to do it myself.

[alhoon]

This still leaves the need to create, region border, roads, trade routes, settlement placements, mountains and groundtypes, which still leaves alot of work but not nearly as much trying to create a detailed coastline.

For a really really big area, like the ones you describe it would take a lot of work. Of course, it probably depends heavily on how detailed that map would be and how large the game map will be. If it's x10 the size of Shogun's map, it would be probably too heavy for most machines to cope with.

Are theatres still in S2TW, just unused, or they've been eliminated? If there are no theatres, then it would be hard to make large maps.

[Col. Tartleton]

For a really really big area, like the ones you describe it would take a lot of work. Of course, it probably depends heavily on how detailed that map would be and how large the game map will be. If it's x10 the size of Shogun's map, it would be probably too heavy for most machines to cope with.

Are theatres still in S2TW, just unused, or they've been eliminated? If there are no theatres, then it would be hard to make large maps.

I don't know. It only takes a few seconds to go through all the dozens of factions' moves if they're obscured. It seems pretty streamlined. I don't think it's a issue.

Rome II will be even more so I reckon.

[spartan_warrior]

I suspect the Rome II Map will already cover most if not all of that. Go for broke, go Atlantic to Pacific. Deep down everyone wants a proper Afro-Eurasian map.

I don't think Rome II will have a map including all of India and with all of Scandinavia and the horn of Africa, I believe it will be something like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And the map I plan on creating will be on a fairly large, detailed scale... I don't know if the the engine could handle that including all of Eurasia. Those coastal splines in the images I posted had nearly 200,000 vertices alone!! With all the other data needed, the map would probably make my computer explode...

EDIT: Just to give an idea of scale, here is a comparison of maps, Shogun2 & FOTS and what I hope to create. This is all uncharted waters... no one knows how large of a map Warscape can handle, I don't want to go too large, but the benefit to the map be mostly a 2d model it will be able to be shrunk and enlarged fairly easy. Currently I intend to have Ireland about the same size as Shikoku on the original Shogun 2 map

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Col. Tartleton]

I don't think Rome II will have a map including all of India and with all of Scandinavia and the horn of Africa, I believe it will be something like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And the map I plan on creating will be on a fairly large, detailed scale... I don't know if the the engine could handle that including all of Eurasia. Those coastal splines in the images I posted had nearly 200,000 vertices alone!! With all the other data needed, the map would probably make my computer explode...

EDIT: Just to give an idea of scale, here is a comparison of maps, Shogun2 & FOTS and what I hope to create. This is all uncharted waters... no one knows how large of a map Warscape can handle, I don't want to go too large, but the benefit to the map be mostly a 2d model it will be able to be shrunk and enlarged fairly easy. Currently I intend to have Ireland about the same size as Shikoku on the original Shogun 2 map

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Looks good. You're right. If that map runs smoothly it'd make sense to go bigger. But only then.

That's probably over a thousand regions assuming a similar density to Shogun 2.