Creating a World – Working with the Demis online Mapper

[Wild Boar]

Thanks. I want to create a new Mod based on Joshua's conquest of Canaan. I decided to do the map first so that I could recruit for areas i am no good at like creating units. So the map would be mostly land stretching from southern Lebanon to north eastern sinai down to the negev and east to Amman. I will let you know how I get on. Cheers

[Gigantus]

That range\area should give you a nicely detailed map. Even more 'zoomed in' then my 'Holy Land' sample map I guess.

[Kilij of the East]

Hello, I am looking to make a basic map for my mod so I can dive into my kinda work and leave the skillful map making to someone of your caliber(I love your ROTK map soo much!). The map is for the new mod I am starting which is centered in Central Asia, http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...e-Wild-Steppes

However, I can't seem to make it Demis since my map is too big too get the features like rivers and the strait though Constantinople into the Black Sea and the ideal map projection I want is somewhat angled like this:


Is there any other help, wisdom, or resource you can lend me? This may be my second map, but it's starting to seem harder to make real world maps than one of a world I made up.

[Gigantus]

Making a 'real' map is by far more difficult then making a phantasy map - that's for sure.

It's a shortcoming in general that maps of this size lack details. A stop gap measure is to maximize the browser window and set your screen resolution to a higher setting. This is a screenshot from a 1920*1080 resolution:

[vladimirt]

hello Gigantus

you can tutorial for me how to can create a new mod from bare geomod be not. I messenger but you not answer me should me can post here. I want contact with you in my forums. I need you help me do mod. I will wait you answer me at here

[Kilij of the East]

Making a 'real' map is by far more difficult then making a phantasy map - that's for sure.

It's a shortcoming in general that maps of this size lack details. A stop gap measure is to maximize the browser window and set your screen resolution to a higher setting. This is a screenshot from a 1920*1080 resolution:

That map you got was almost something I could've used, I just need something big like that, but more North, I can crop it as an angled map myself. Still fooling around more with Demis myself though

[Kilij of the East]

That map you got was almost something I could've used, I just need something big like that, but more North, I can crop it as an angled map myself. Still fooling around more with Demis myself though

Alright, I managed to get the map I needed and have did the angled crop I want. I've been going through your instructions though, and I'm at the map features part and I don't think the rivers came out right. Maybe it was the angling I did that ruined them or maybe it was the resizing that I had to do(since my map's width was over 1021) that caused the problem, anyhow, I'm uploading the current map files I made according to your directions, along with the xcf of everything before I resized to 1021 width and did minor edge crop(there were faint jagged pixels at the edge).

SteppeMap.zip

[Gigantus]

Check page 11 of the manual - it describes how to enlarge the rivers before resizing. Check manually as well and correct where necessary that you get a good, thick river from start to end before resizing.

[Kilij of the East]

Check page 11 of the manual - it describes how to enlarge the rivers before resizing. Check manually as well and correct where necessary that you get a good, thick river from start to end before resizing.

Got it! Dragging to the right while using the colour select tool made it select more of the river pixels(since they didn't come out all monotone). Saved it as WIP and just went on with no rivers. Skipped heights too, for now, and just tried to get it to load on Geomod. Threw the files in a Bare-Geomod installation and upon updating the map_terrain.txt with my map dimensions, It worked! Thanks for your help! I got ALOT ahead of me with such ambitious a mod as mine, but at least I can start doing the kind of modding I'm good at and wait until I get a specialist mapper who can make the map a true piece of art!

[Gigantus]

Great to hear that you are making progress - check out more mapping stuff in the 'creating a world' link in my signature.

[cjm81499]

Hello, I am trying to follow this tutorial to create a map of West Africa. I got up to the "Preparing the Map Graphics" section and opened all the .tga files as layers and such, but when I move my radar picture it looks like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Gigantus]

Even the little preview is totally black - something went certainly wrong when you took the screenshot. In fact your 'heights' picture has a black landmass as well.

I would suggest to make a new set of pictures, this time open each of them as you take them - that way you can repeat the screenshot if something went wrong.

[cjm81499]

Good idea, and thank you for such a quick response

[Gigantus]

One is glad to be of service

[cjm81499]

Hey, I tried opening them in GIMP as soon I saved them from the Online Mapper but whenever I open them as layers, it just puts this strange tan box thing, is that supposed to happen?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Gigantus]

Seems the pics are of different size to start with, did you resize the window in between takes?

As to the colors: the pic will be in indexed mode - open the images individually, then go to 'image\mode' and choose RGB, save again. That will sort it out.

Saving the Map Pictures

This is as easy as right clicking within the map area and choosing ‘Save as..’ Enter the name suggested in this tutorial and then add the tga ending to it. I would suggest saving the pictures to the desktop for easier localizing once you are finished.
I would suggest to open all pictures and changing the mode from 'indexed' to 'RGB' as this will save problems later.

[cjm81499]

Oh okay I saw that notice (indexed to RGB) but had no idea what it meant or how to do it lol. And I don't think I resized the window but I don't remember. i suppose I must have.

Again thank you so much.

[Gigantus]

Indexing means that only the original RGB values of the first picture will be used\permitted - that's what causes the color distortion of the second layer.

[TemístoclesGR]

Hi, Gigantus. I followed the tutorial, but "Biome" not available in the current version. Is there another way to create the climate map? Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[Gigantus]

That's tough luck, sorry to hear. Duplicate and rename the Region Map (before resizing) and then enter the climates by hand.