Importing image into Terrain Editor

[Kenster]

I saw in another thread about importing a gray scale into the editor..

.....I used the same greyscale ......

Hmm..
So we can import a gray scale in to the terrain editor?

Do you need to make the gray scale to the exact size to import it into the terrain editor?
If it does need to be sized does any one know the pix sizes for all the different terrain editor sizes?

Does it then make the elevations or is it used just as a guide? If it does make elevation changes automatically, what shade is for mountains and whitch for Vallie's?

I was making a map from scratch, but if I was able to import a sat image this would greatly speed up my efforts..

I have photoshop to make the image, color & extension changes.

Thanks for any help.
Ken

[CeeBee51]

I don't believe you can import as such. I just created a map from an existing scenerio of the size I wanted and made a greyscale from an elevation map. I had to fiddle with the values to get the lakes/rivers to be low enough to show water and I had to resize to match the tga(top part) and then I just cut and pasted in the greyscale and presto, I had my BC map. I used PSP6 and had a fair bit of help from my lovely wife who's a web page/graphics art/ picture framer/artist help me but seeing as she's a heck of a lot more talented than I am it really was the only way to go,
As for size, I believe the largest one available is 900x900 pixels and the standard in game one is 600x600 but don't quote me as my memory has been known to play tricks on me.

[d53642]

Ceebee the actual sizes are always 601 901 701 etc

Also you can import into the greyscale if they are the same sizes. You may need to stretch or shrink a map to get it to the right map pixel size though. How do you think I made my early maps before Nov when I got the map editor.

Daryl

[snoopy55]

Ok people, where do you get these 'grayscales'? I want to do a map of the Michigan Upper Peninsula, with a peice of Wisconsin in it. Any Ideas?

[d53642]

The map doesn't actually have to be a greyscale. It can be color too but it will take more work to fix a color map over a true grey scale one.

The first time you use the editor it will grey scale. But it its a color map the light colors are usually ground and darker colors are mtns and it will make the map in the terrain editor look weird and will take a lot of work to fix it up. Usually easy to do it from scratch and just use it as a visual reference.

Daryl

[Kenster]

I don't believe you can import as such. I just created a map from an existing scenerio of the size I wanted and made a greyscale from an elevation map. I had to fiddle with the values to get the lakes/rivers to be low enough to show water and I had to resize to match the tga(top part) and then I just cut and pasted in the greyscale and presto, I had my BC map.

Ok if I understand you correctly then I should just make a blank map of the size I want in Terrain Editor then take the .tga file and bring that into photoshop or any photo editor. Then get a satellite image of the area I want to do and turn it into a grayscale. Then take the grayscale sat image and paste it onto the top part of the .tga image that Terrain Editor made. Then take the new .tga I messed with and put back into the map folder created with the Terrain Editor.
Then tweak the elevations as needed

I used PSP6 and had a fair bit of help from my lovely wife who's a web page/graphics art/ picture framer/artist help me but seeing as she's a heck of a lot more talented than I am it really was the only way to go,
As for size, I believe the largest one available is 900x900 pixels and the standard in game one is 600x600 but don't quote me as my memory has been known to play tricks on me.

Hug your wife for me.. well for your self.. mine gives me "the look" when I'm "playing" games on the comp..

-CeeBee Thanks for your help

Ceebee the actual sizes are always 601 901 701 etc

Also you can import into the greyscale if they are the same sizes. You may need to stretch or shrink a map to get it to the right map pixel size though. How do you think I made my early maps before Nov when I got the map editor.

Daryl

Daryl if I just get a sat image and grayscale it and resize (601x601, 701x701, etc..) it I should then be able to import it ok?
Then make all the tweaks to it as needed.

Thanks..
Ken

PS I have been working/testing an industries XMLs so people then can just copy and paste them into there Terrain Editor created maps.. It works good so far. I gives you every industry/resource that comes with the stock/vanilla SMRR.. so you can use the Terrain Editor to place any or all of them.
The only thing is it then gives you all the train engines and will show you multiple icons.. ie the stock yard will show you both the cattle & pig icons..

Need to see how to limit the engines available today or tomorrow..
I know the train.xml but I need test why now all of them are there etc...

I'm planning to make a mini tut on this when done..

Thanks - PaF Daddy for your thread on xml.. helps a bunch..

[d53642]

You I used paintshop in the early days to make maps. You can also go into the editor and do like you said, Make a map save it then use a good paint program to import the new image in. With Paintshop or Photoshop you can use snap to grid to make sure you got it in the right spot.

But the sizes definitly end in x01 by x01 and its always the same size all the way around. then you can go back into the editor and use it to correct your map. In the old days I used Paintshop and it was not the easiest think to use to make round peaks and stuff.

[d53642]

The engines are controled by the RRT_TRAINS_MAPNAME.XML file. What ever trains you put in this file is what you get in game. Just check some other maps to see how its done.

Daryl

[snoopy55]

I'm working on a Wisconsin Map and that built in editor, while great for some things, really can make a mess. It gives you all the engines available to the game. When it sets up the requirements for Villages, towns, etc., it only does pass and mail, you haveto go in and add the rest by copy and paste as I found out. The time frame is 1850 to 1900. It needs work, but it still works

I'm making notes on my use of it and setting up some files to copy and paste from also Kenster, so maybe between us and others we may yet get this thing working correctly.

I've got a couple more cities to add and a few more industries and I'll put it up for a beta test before I get into the terrain and foliage.

[Big Papa]

Hello all,

I found a web site with all of West Virginia in Digital Elevation format by county http://www.wvview.org/wvview-county%20data.htm
Click on the county of choice and scroll down a bit…presto!

I think this can be put to good use here if someone knows specific locations they would like to reproduce (in West V of course). Also another note; google: Digital Elevation and look at what you find. I am currently working on “Susanville East, Californiaâ€

[Dr Frag]

Wow, great find. The Digital Elevation Model images are perfect. I'd be interested in checking out your Susanville map.

I took a look around and found some neat stuff for budding mappers.
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/SRTM
Sri Lanka anyone??
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06670

I also downloaded the GTopo30 data and I'm playing with that.

[snoopy55]

Try this site:

http://seamless.usgs.gov/website/Seamless/

It does US and International. I haven't used it yet, but it does have a tutorial.

[Dr Frag]

Yeah, I went there and it's a pretty kewl tool but you can only download small areas of data. Not bad for a few states I'd think but not for a whole country. It looks like it would be useful for TerrainMap pictures too. I'm working on creating HeightMap images from the GTopo30 data.

[Big Papa]

susanville.jpg
This is Susanville untouched (resized and brightened a tad to keep the lower right flat area above water)

Susanville-1.jpg Started painting. I added the rivers. Notice the mountain, this came in as is. I did not touch the elevation data one bit.

Correction on my above post, more specifically: Search Google Images for “elevation dataâ€