I see this project would be pretty huge, but how much time would it take to make a small square with some provinces and some mountains?
It would be a great resourse to observe.
I see this project would be pretty huge, but how much time would it take to make a small square with some provinces and some mountains?
It would be a great resourse to observe.
Very intriguing.
"Everyone believes in something. I believe I'll have another drink."
"Wise was he who created god."
Just a little update, I've been working on preparing my data to begin work on a map, while doing that I noticed the datasets I was using were far too detailed for the size map I am trying to make. I was using vector data for 1:10,000,000 scale maps, and there was just way to many vertices, I don't think the game would be able that many. So I instead switched to 1:50,000,000 vector data and that seems perfect, about the same ratio of vertices per area as the FOTS map. Heres a sample of what will hopefully one day work in game...
ur a legend if you make this work!
Still looks great.
I'd take less of Africa and go deeper in Russia in the North though... it's going to be needed in case anyone wants to remake Napoleon with the Shogun engine and for Rome-era stuff, some more Mongolean territory. I don't know how hard it would be to rotate.
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That is possible but i am hesitant to good too large, as we still don't know that that limit for map size in the Warscape engine is yet. I don't want to make something too big only to have it not work. I'll test the waters with this, as really this map is intended for a Roman or Medieval setting.
For an Napoleon or Empire setting we would ideally want the Americas as well. Really once I get this one working I may go larger including all of Eurasia or even global, but for now I want something manageable to work with, as if this map isn't ambitious enough...
Excellent work spartan_warrior
For people interested in GIS softwares, QGIS (Quantum GIS) is free.
About bigger map, it would be interesting to know if we can use "theaters" like with ETW
it shouldn't be a great problem
we can generate each theatre as a separate campaign map, than I can work directly on esf files using taw's tools. I can manually handle transition areas between theatres.
There are 3 kind of problem.
1 - I don't know for sure if regions.esf in Shogun 2 has a format similar to Empire and Napoleon, because I haven't Shogun 2 (but taw told me that the great differences are in startpos and pathfinding)
2 - We haven't in Shogun 2 a UI to highlight transition areas
3 - Manage trade_routes between theatres is very hard and long and it needs a sort of mixed-work using both 3ds and taw's tools
One thing I noticed in the sample .max files is that there is an unused layer called 'transition zones' in that there are a few rectangular polygons, I'm guessing those are for the areas which link the theatres.
yes spartan_warrior exactly
this a confirmation
theatres are still active even in Shogun 2
February 17 2011
This is a quite old explanation of transition areas
Layers in .max file (FotS map) :
- Borders.cs2
- Bridges.cs2
- Groundtypes.cs2
- Land_Trade_Routes.cs2 [none]
- Land_Trade_Routes.cs2 [working]
- Moutains.cs2
- Playable_area.cs2
- Railways.cs2
- Regions.cs2 (grids)
- Rivers.cs2
- Roads.cs2
- Sea_Groundtypes.cs2 (grids)
- Settlements.cs2 [farms]
- Settlements.cs2 [ports]
- Settlements.cs2 [region specialties]
- Settlements.cs2 [settlements]
- Settlements.cs2 [stations]
- Toms_rail_pieces
- Trades_routes.cs2 [none] (sea international trade routes (usa/france/great-britain)
- Trades_routes.cs2 [working]
- _camera_for_render
- _Guide_image
- _heighmap (composed of heighmap_2D and heighmap (grayscales heighmap))
- _Port_Coast_Areas (Coastal batteries bombardment area)
- _Railway Guide
- __Borders_For_Render (composed of Moutains_Borders, Region_Borders and Land_Borders)
- __Camera_For_Render
- __GUIDE_Settlements
- __OLD_Regionsmap
- __Port_for_rendering
- __Region_Label_Highlights
- __Region_Labels
- __Region_for_Rendering
- __Rivers_for_Rendering
- __Roads_for_Rendering
- __Sea_Crossings_for_Render
- __Settlements_for_Rendering
- __Trade_Routes_for_Rendering
- rail_lod1
We can found more layers in S2TW .max map such as __GUIDE_transition_zone or Coasts.cs2
This thread is awesome , I look forward to seeing where this goes, as I am new to modding.
For Middle Earth or other fantasy type settings it may be worth looking at maps made in terragen, i know they can be converted/imported to 3dmax.
With the new tools possibly for battle maps also?
Any kind of collection of open source base maps converted into useable 3dmax that can be put together would be a treasure trove in terms of attempting a large scale mod on warscape.
If this works out, that map could be incredibly interesting especially with the ways to access India. You could sail through the Suez canal, rendering that province vital to trade routes etc, or conquer your way through the middle east to access India. It would add a new perspective to the whole way of playing total war, EPIC.
Cheers.For people interested in GIS softwares, QGIS (Quantum GIS) is free.
Agree....including South America and Africa....5 theatres....Australasia and Far East.....7 theatresAbout bigger map, it would be interesting to know if we can use "theaters" like with ETW
Last edited by coolgit; October 11, 2012 at 04:47 PM.