I've been working on my own overhaul mod for a while (mostly just concepts atm), and while exploring the new stuff we can play with on the Remastered version, I ran down a deep rabbit hole... to create the greatest campaign map 3D mesh of all time. I just want to share the journey of my attempt here with you guys.
Process:
Generated from Natural Earth's 1:10m vector shapefiles and NASA's Visible Earth heightmap raster information, reprojected to the Van der Grinten projection in QGIS (as this map projection distorts our area of interest the least, much less than the common WGS84), imported into Blender with the BlenderGIS add-on, and then finally exported and converted into game files with Feral's set of tools (all of which are free to use and hyperlinked, fyi anyone interested). I hope to document this all soon and put a tutorial together in the future, and upload a bunch of helpful stuff for anyone that wants to attempt something similar. The amount of work it took to get this data usable is incredible.
Map Design Choices:
We can simulate accurate and detailed height with a combination of assets; albedo and material texture, and the mesh model. Coastlines can only be defined accurately via mesh model in the Rome engine, and so this is what I'll be focusing most of my detail/polys on. I don't want the height detail to suffer to any noticeable extent, but I'm not expecting to create mountain ranges super detailed and wrinkly. Also I'm unsure how awkward the difference in interactible stratmap and visual map mesh will be, but the detailed coast line is something I'm keen on keeping, and keen to try make work.
Continue - Techy stuff:
Furthermore, this project is also an attempt at really pushing the limits of the engine, while also (hopefully) maintaining 100% Stability™. The maximum amount of map mesh tiles we can have in an array is 22 on either x or y axis (1 tile = 1 2048x2048 texture). Try to create 23 on either axis and the game will fail to generate a functional heightmap.bin. But having 22x22 tiles (484) causes other problems on occasion, as it seems the game has a limit to the amount of memory it'll dedicate to the campaign map mesh, and will start to cull assets until it meets this threshold (seemingly, I actually have no idea, just done a whole lot of testing). I've had to cut down the amount of total tiles on one axis to accommodate for this, which atm is 22x18 (394 total) tiles. This also helped me define my mod's actual stratmap dimensions (Feral say having even sized tiles is good), which of course being in theme with all the above, is the max width of 510.
Map Dimensions:
I'll have to briefly describe my other overhaul mod's setting. It will be focused on the Celtic peoples, their various kingdoms, and their world's fight for survival against Rome, while also maintaining a map and faction scope similar to vanilla, so as to not take away from the feeling of the grand campaign and it's familiar diversity. So that's exactly what this map is going to cater for (while also adding a bit extra where I can). I hope to release this map as its own standalone mod from my overhaul, designed more in-line with vanilla gameplay.
And so how to define the map borders? The extent of the north and south borders were balanced with each other, not necessarily meeting any restrictions apart from maintaining my 22x10 ratio. These lands from the far stretches of the known world were relatively irrelevant to the factions within the scope of the mod. Originally Orkney defined the north, but having a comfy 22x18 ratio allowed for a land-traversable southern norway, location of modern Stockholm, and the Estonian coast; north defined ezpz. The southern border ends just south of Arabia and Socotra, excluding the Horn of Africa (all of Arabia was maintained as a potential arena for Ptolemaic and Seleukid affairs, also for a potential Nabataea faction); south defined.
Ireland and Hispania needed to be included for the Celts of course, with enough traversable water to sail around both; west defined. The eastern border is currently defined by Arabia, Parthia and western Ariana. This excludes Baktria, Sogdia, Gedrosia, Arachosia, majority of Ariana, the Northeastern Saka of the Silk Road, and all of the Maurya Kingdom and the lands they would compete for. I feel, historically speaking, this was a fairly well defined kinda geopolitical sphere, and the area isn't in the scope of vanilla's map, and I needed to make a big cut to make room for faction slots and a higher detailed map. It seemed to make sense. Also, given that I definitely didn't have the faction slots for Baktria, an Indian Kingdom, or a Saka people to threaten the Baktrians, it didn't seem right to include all these lands without having anything to threaten the Seleukids from their position. As stated above, the eastern border is extended from vanilla, but just not to the extent of which you're probably use to seeing in mods.
I also wanted to have a larger scale map, to make use of our new (essentially unlimited) region limit, without everything getting cramped.
(I'm currently thinking about changing this to extend into the Indus valley).
First Prototype Images:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Dunzo:
Let me know what you think I guess, or if there's a specific area you wanna see. I'm happy to answer any questions too