The World Map Community Project

[Ketzerfreund]

Neighbouring the ..data\campaign\terrain directory, which contains land.rigid_mesh (131kb) is the ..\coastline directory with a heap of meshes:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

coastline_group0.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group0.rigid_mesh
coastline_group1.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group1.rigid_mesh
coastline_group10.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group10.rigid_mesh
coastline_group11.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group11.rigid_mesh
coastline_group12.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group12.rigid_mesh
coastline_group13.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group13.rigid_mesh
coastline_group14.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group14.rigid_mesh
coastline_group15.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group15.rigid_mesh
coastline_group16.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group16.rigid_mesh
coastline_group17.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group17.rigid_mesh
coastline_group18.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group18.rigid_mesh
coastline_group19.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group19.rigid_mesh
coastline_group2.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group20.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group20.rigid_mesh
coastline_group21.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group21.rigid_mesh
coastline_group22.rigid_mesh
coastline_group23.rigid_mesh
coastline_group24.rigid_mesh
coastline_group25.rigid_mesh
coastline_group26.rigid_mesh
coastline_group3.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group3.rigid_mesh
coastline_group4.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group4.rigid_mesh
coastline_group5.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group5.rigid_mesh
coastline_group6.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group6.rigid_mesh
coastline_group7.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group7.rigid_mesh
coastline_group8.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group8.rigid_mesh
coastline_group9.cs2.rigid_mesh
coastline_group9.rigid_mesh

The files that have "cs2" in their names are all sized at 1 kb, but those without range from 17kb to 492kb. Since I am not a modeler* I can't make anything of those sizes. I don't know from what size on upwards a mesh can be regarded as large.
It is already obvious, however, that a lot of modeling must be involved in map making.


The naming of those files suggests that all meshes but one (the one named "land" mentioned in the beginning of this post, which probably is a puzzle part of the middle of the largest landmass included in the game) are coastal (well, duh!), reaching more or less far into the landmasses, so that each mesh is kind of a "pie slice".

Sort of like this:


Makes the most sense to me according to what I can see so far.


*I had tried getting into Blender before, but couldn't adopt to it's interface at all and therefore failed getting anywhere, and I don't have the hundreds for a commercial piece of software without even knowing if modeling might be something I could get into deeply enough to be productive.

[dragonsign]

That's a pretty ed up height map

must be because there is no "map" for sub-sahara africa, south america etc.. there is just a image showing a drawn map.

[ReyMandez]

This looks very promising. Will there be more factions added, or some changed. If so, I'd like to help(not that I have any experience). Just looks great, can't wait for this.

[IndoPruss]

I can help you with Dutch East Indies Map/Indonesia. But currently I really don't know how to mod the map. I can do Photoshop/GFX.

I think the problem of crash is because the color table is not right. You should save the table from the original then load it when you want to save the modified one if you guys are using Photoshop.

Pretty detailed Indonesian Map:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Ketzerfreund]

ReyMandez, this particular project is only about blank maps for the whole community to use. I really hope the teams find this thread!

Especially with that supposedly gigantic heap of work that may be involved with all the modeling (all I've posted above is just assumptions according to what the unpacked files reveal so far!), it would be far more effective for the community to work together on a complete world map instead of each team to fiddle on maps on their own, especially since several projects rely on additional regions not included with the vanilla world map.

[Swiss Halberdier]

Really exciting information you've found!

[hypo]

For those of us who are interested in helping but don't have any skills so far, could you edit in links to the relevant tutorials we should be looking at to learn in the first post?

[Ketzerfreund]

This project will probably spawn some mapping tutorials in the course of further investigation; at least as soon as the db and esp files regaring mapping become editable (and therefore readable without headaches). Of course, besides modeling there's also texturing involved, for that googling for "texturing tutorial" will give you gazillions of results.

We're still at the beginning here, and some things remain unclear so far. I hope that we'll know as much as possible as soon as the text files (needed for defining regions, after all) become available properly.

[Choki]

WORLD MAP!!! YEEES!!! If you whant any help just tellme!

I WANT TO PLAY AS ARGENTINA!!!!!!!!

[Andretti]

I tried to edit "europe_lookup.tga", but even if there are no changes, after saving with Gimp 2.6, the filesize reduces to 86 kb from 145, and the game crashes upon load. Any ideas, how to save in an "ETW compatible" mode?

[Ketzerfreund]

Using "save as..." and switching RLE compression off in the little checkbox that comes up then gives me the same file size.

[XiombargDei]

i hereby propose my help as researcher and translator from english to french
i'm a peon, just tell me what to do Sir !

France and belgium had colonies in west and equatorian africa, so i could work on this theater. just tell me what kind of info you need.

[Ketzerfreund]

Well, IndoPruss, it looks like mapping will we more about modeling than about just painting the map, although it's terrain will have to be defined through graphics, I guess. It has become quite clear to me that the campaign map consists of models; that's how they got rid of the tiles, which were the pixels in the graphic files of the previous two games.
[Edit:]But we're far from being finished with researching the concept of the campaign map, yet.


XiombargDei: This project doesn't really need researchers. This is not about adding factions etc., but about having the community as a whole work on a blank world map for other mods to build upon. But I can use more researchers for All Horizons - Total War ; what I told Ramsay in that thread would apply to every researcher.

[Cynik]

I mean to be practical, the world was available pretty much at this point so I don't see why so much of it has been left out. ESPECIALLY, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Africa (major role played in these periods) and ofc China.

I fully support this project and wish it the best of success and that the use of a world map that will be integrated successfully into all the big realism mods!

[Nack]

I mean to be practical, the world was available pretty much at this point so I don't see why so much of it has been left out. ESPECIALLY, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Africa (major role played in these periods) and ofc China.

I fully support this project and wish it the best of success and that the use of a world map that will be integrated successfully into all the big realism mods!

Don't forget the rest of the americas.

WORLD MAP!!! YEEES!!! If you whant any help just tellme!

I WANT TO PLAY AS ARGENTINA!!!!!!!!

The campaign ends in 1800 (16 years before the liberation), but It won't be long until we get a mod that adds, say, 50 or 70 more years so we can kick some spanish royal ass.

[Ketzerfreund]

...but It won't be long...

Your word in God's ears...

[Gwyn ap Nud]

As I said before, I had posted alot in the original thread, so now I'm posting interest here.

[rouma93]

you cant give new regions in the world map to the established empires, or else you are going to end up overpowering some empires and putting others like the Marathas in a huge disadvantage plus in that time colonization has not truly set in. So either way you are going to have to come up with a lot of new factions.(plus why not have Argentina as a protectorate, things dont have to be extremely accurate)

[XiombargDei]

you cant give new regions in the world map to the established empires, or else you are going to end up overpowering some empires and putting others like the Marathas in a huge disadvantage plus in that time colonization has not truly set in. So either way you are going to have to come up with a lot of new factions.(plus why not have Argentina as a protectorate, things dont have to be extremely accurate)

well correct me if i'm wrong but this is not the good thread for this. I think this thread is just about having the world map available for any other mod to use, it is not about balancing. It is just to propose the blank canvas, then check other mods for what to put inside

[Ketzerfreund]

Exactly, XiombargDei. Thank you for helping other people read.