RS 2 Map workshop

[swhunter]

Are we planning to move to the new map RS1.6?

[Paedric]

Do you want me to try to smooth the coast line?
I've never done that, but I could try, there are some tutorial out there.

[apple]

I'm currently trying just that. It would be great if you could help me doing it.

[Paedric]

What are you doing exactly to smooth it?
I read about changing coast and sea height.
Also, does it work?

Anyway, just give me a part of the map to do, and I'll try.

[apple]

map_heights.tga is the file you work on.

You change the color to ether make the sea/land higher or lower.

The brighter the land color is the higher the terrain becomes. So black=low land and White=high mountains.
The darker the blue (water) is the more it pushes the land IN.

Here is a great tutorial
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=241854

Btw the the base sea color is 0, 0, 253 (the blue)

If you are able to fix the main coasts I could work on adding little islands and fixing lakes etc.

[Paedric]

Yeah, I'm currently reading it, with this one also http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...t=70584&page=7.
So, you haven't start working on it?

[apple]

I have but not in as large scale as I would have liked to. I have got limited time to work on it so far so it's mostly minor tests to see how it works.

The largest problem as I see it is that we have a much larger map than PI (the one sig is showing in his tut) and that makes it harder for us to make the coast as smooth.

[Paedric]

Alright, I'll try to have a look.

[apple]

Thanks mate. Most appreciated.
I'm going to give it another go tonight.

[dvk901]

Make sure you exchange files guys, otherwise you'll undo each others efforts!

[apple]

Yes. I'm thinking of just copy my little tweaks to Paedrics map as I am going to concentrate on islands and other smaller stuff. It shouldn't be that hard to do that.

Btw Paedric a good way of testing the map ingame is to run it in window mode and every time you change the map save it so that it overwrites the game map. Quit the campaign and using the launcher delete the map.rwm. after that just reload the save. That way you don't need to restart the whole game, just the save.

[MarcusTullius]

Yes. I'm thinking of just copy my little tweaks to Paedrics map as I am going to concentrate on islands and other smaller stuff. It shouldn't be that hard to do that.

Might be worth using dropbox or something to keep files fully in sync

[apple]

Ok here is some work on the coast outside of Genoa/Massilia. Haven't done any refinements yet. Basically just the ground shape of it.

[Paedric]

Dunno how it work, but it might be useful.

Here is a small test I've made on the straight coastline to make it look better, this is rather basic for now, but I think I've understood how it worked.

Does someone has the original one to compare?

[apple]

Yep. now you just need to smooth them even more. It takes allot of time to get started but I think I'm getting some fairly pleasant results now.

[Paedric]

Yeah, but I'm trying not to smooth it to much, I don't want it to be straight.
Can you please show me one you've done? That way we can do something mostly uniform.

I'll look into that drop box stuff.

[apple]

Well I open Google earth and zoom into that specific are and then draw a basic markup of the coast as close as you can with 1, 1, 1 (black) or 2, 2, 2 (black). Then I take a look at it ingame, correct some things if needed and then smooth the coast with different shades of blue.

[tone]

Great work guys - Paedric that looks way better.
I'll do a little texturing work to improve things too.


@sw - you have NO IDEA how much work changing to RS1.6 map would involve. Besides which, there are big improvements in the terrain that we've gained over that map, all coordinates for cities, scripts and so on are tied to this map. Generally, not a good move!!!

[swhunter]

I'm not recommending it.
I just asked a question that I heard DVK bring out.
I love the map we have now.


DVKs quote.........

The map is unfortunately a kind of 'sore point'. Although it is more geographically correct, many of us have never liked the overall look of it, and the fellow who was going to do some work on it has disappeared. Personally, I prefer the RS1.6 map myself, so you know where I stand. But, to try and add that map back into RSII would take a month most likely. So it may well remain a WIP.

[Paedric]

Apple, is your map_heights working?
Because I couldn't launch a campaign, and I had an error when quiting telling me a port couldn't be placed at (99,151) in region 85.
That would be around where you worked on the coast.