The World Map Community Project

[Ketzerfreund]

What did you do? Have you only painted the heightmap?

[Jammi]

Yes I edit the heightmap, create a map of the whole world and delete the camera-borders. The problems you can read above.

[Ketzerfreund]

Yes I edit the heightmap,

Okay...

create a map of the whole world

What does that mean to you? Edited the campaign map detail mask? Manipulated coastline meshes?

and delete the camera-borders

Is that the preference file option about switching the camera to "debug" mode that I've read of somewhere?


Please be a bit more specific about your steps or it's hard to discuss your findings and problems.

[Jammi]

I mean that I create a bumpmap of the whole world. So all continents are completly included and i didn't edit die campaign_detail_mask... I test it but it havn't any effect. Do you understand?

preference file option? I don't know something about this file. I edit the region.esf to see the completely world that I create.

[jonny duck]

How about trying to add provinces to the trade theatres? There are already maps of those areas and coastlines, so surely it should be realtivly easy to turn them into provinces with towns that can be controlled, but still keep the yellow trade circles for fleets?

[Ketzerfreund]

Jammi, probably at that point the coastline meshes come into play... I hope the modellers will be able to access this game's meshes, soon. "I edit the region.esf to see the completely world that I create." was new to me, by the way; no wonder I didn't get how you made that.

Maximus, one day those areas will probably be made, too. So far a proper Africa and South-America just hold the higher priorities regarding the era this game covers.

Jonny, whether trade-ship-circles and regions with settlement can coexist peacefully in the same theatre hasn't been tested, yet. It would indeed be a neat mod that puts some regions ("installed" trade-posts, so to say) in the trade theatres while keeping trade circles around; those regions would add the aspect of real naval control of the theatre through having a port.
Depending on how much else we're able to find out - and we're actually pretty far with handling regions, if you take a thorough glance on this thread - such a mod may happen not too far in the future.

[Actus Reus]

Jonny, whether trade-ship-circles and regions with settlement can coexist peacefully in the same theatre hasn't been tested, yet. It would indeed be a neat mod that puts some regions ("installed" trade-posts, so to say) in the trade theatres while keeping trade circles around; those regions would add the aspect of real naval control of the theatre through having a port.
Depending on how much else we're able to find out - and we're actually pretty far with handling regions, if you take a thorough glance on this thread - such a mod may happen not too far in the future.

No... No, no, no...

I disagree entirely sorry if this is offtopic but I think if you can transform the trade nodes places thingys into regions with ports then this would be far better than those stupid yellow nodes, and to cover the use of trade ships (which isnt much) some lovely modder could make so that you 1st need to send a trade ship from home/trade place - to - trade place/home, before you can receive an income from the new region..

Either that or just hav it function as an extrmely valuable region with limited development capabilities like some already present in the carribean for example..

[Simon754]

My proposal map of Europe:

[Ketzerfreund]

Sooo... I'm back with some more news. Jammi, this may be why your additional heightmap landmasses don't show up:

I've used the mesh converter made by just and the DirectX SDK mesh viewer to take a look at those .rigid_mesh files that are part of the map.

This is what they look like in 3d:

..\data\campaign\terrain\land.rigid_mesh

Compare this to the campaign detail mask files... And look how wrong the ivory coast trade theatre is misplaced.
This is one big sheet with the oceans cut out.

Here's a coastline:
..\data\campaign\coastline\coastline_group26.rigid_mesh


Those two rings (=lakes?) are not on the same level as the rest of the coastline - turn it around a bit:

[Jammi]

This looks very interesting!
But now there is the problem to importing the new mesh files, right?

After I check the new informations I will tell you my results.

[Ketzerfreund]

But now there is the problem to importing the new mesh files, right?

Right. We're not able to do so, yet. If you have some experience with 3d modelling (I don't have much. Programs like 3DSMax are too expensive for checking out on a whim, whether modelling may be something for me.) take a look at the converter thread. Maybe just is able to come up with a converter which works in both directions; and maybe with better formats than *.x; that one doesn't seem to be one of the most useful formats out there.


@Simon754:

This is NOT about what region goes where and who held what colony etc. - this shall be a project to provide BLANK map material to be used by actual mods.

Placing regions and giving them to someone is to be done by the actual mods people are working on out there. Errabundi for example.
Here, we'll only provide additional landmasses to populate in the future.

[Antantoon]

wow im new to all this modding stuff lol and this map if it works would be wicked i can't wait to conquer the lands of africa, SE asia and S america you guys rule

[Ketzerfreund]

Jammi, you said you removed the camera restrictions in regions.esf. How? I've just browsed that file again with the EsfEditor, but there's no sign of a "camera-border".

[Dud doodoo]

I remember seeing some camera related stuff in startpos.esf

[Jynx]

Shouldn't there be more regions in the Brirish isles and Scandinavia and maybe Persia and Turkey? France was split up so why not them too?

Also, has the way of editing the map textures been found? Lots of people liked it better im Med I and II so there should be an easy way to revert it.

[Berdiche Knyaz]

You guys are forgetting much of Sweden and Norway.

Norway had Bergen and Trondheim and were very big in those times (not as big, but yiu know what Im saying), Rovaniemi should also be included since it was the only largest city in the north of Finland. Also your forgetting Kalmar, Gotenborg, and Norrkoping or was it Nykoping.

For India and Caribbean, your going to need alot of colony settlements in those regions since they were big.

[Dud doodoo]

As stated in the very first post, this thread is about making a world map and/or editing the terrain of the map. It is not about editing regions within the map, for that you can make a separate thread.

[Errabundi]

Ketzerfreund, I'm just really started to worry whether these people are following all the posts or are just looking at the topic's title and read the last post to add a totally-out-of-the-question answer.

Ask the mod to remove unnecessary posts. I'm getting confused, because I expect a breaktrough or something relevant to the matter and suddely it appears to be Simon's map or BKnyaz'es Norway thoughts.

Guys: please - read the 1 post. And at least check the others then paticipate in the discussion. People are getting irritated.

BTW, THX Dud doodoo.

[Multiball]

Hmmm some interesting progress thought I'd chip in, I think the land.x thing is something to do with the map, but not as important as we think, it's far to low poly to be the empire map, and if theres a land one... may be worth checking if theres a sea.x one. The more I look at the campaign map the more I think the entire thing is one giant max model that we can't see as it's buried somewhere. RIGID_MODEL, RIGID_MESH, RIGID_SPLINE sound like some sort of processed max file, probably a max model run through a converter to strip out useless max data.

Also one reason I think the map is a Mesh, click on any unit and look at the edges of the pathfinding models, they're teselated in places NOT smooth like a texture would be made, It must be highlighting polys in the base map to create movement extents, I definatly think there is some base model that will be very detailed, probably have land and sea and regions and maybe mountains and stuff as part of it.


and Ketzerfreund I think the coastlines models are for waves, and those 2 little circles are Islands not lakes, Im guessing this as Im not 100%, but the waves are broken up and seperated in places, and I had a quick look round some coasts and lakes and there doesnt seem to be any waves on lakes as they're mostly very small and waves would need to be in the middle, whilst Islands have the sapce around them for waves.

[Jammi]

@multiball and ketzerfreund: The land.x declares the land and the water. It is so "low poly" because the coasts has their own mesh objects.

ps: Try to make an island with the heightmap in the nordsea or so, you will see that isn't possible now.