Questions re Map editor
 

hi, I've just picked up this game and have to say I'm pretty impressed.

I'd like to start creating some maps but have encountered a few issues with the map editor, so have some questions:

1) Numerous places in the manual refer to "batlocs" or battle locations, but I don't see anywhere that provides a clue about which batlocs are associated with which locations??

2) In the manual it says that I can create a winter map and then use the map generator to convert it into a summer map with the same terrain, but I can't seem to do this, because all of the randomizing factors are different from when I created the map, so I can create a summer map alright, but the terrain is totally different.

3) Is it possible to save a map after the completion of a scenario so that building damage, destroyed vehicles, etc., remain on the map for the next battle?

Thanks in advance for any tips.

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

Hiya - and welcome aboard :)

1. There is a text file (BatLocs.txt) which gives a list of the numbers associated with each location. it can be found at ...\shrapnel games\the camo workshop\winspww2\game data\design.

2. Create and save your map as normal in the editor then start a new scenario load in the saved map but have it set to summer/winter etc.

3. dont believe so (open to correction)

hope fully this has helped a little till someone with a little more experience pops along with better/fuller explanations :)

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

Got it, thanks.

I just can't get this to work, the maps created with summer stay green even if I load them as "Winter" (this is in Russia, so...). When I do this, in the scenario editor I load a Custom map--should I be doing something else?

hmmm, bummer.

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

1/ All Batlocs are listed in HELP / Editor Help

2/ Where in the manual are you reading this ? Once you place terrain it doesn't automagically switch to another "season" but YOU CAN build a map with winter features, switch to summer for example, then edit in summer features ( lets say you want some green swamp and trees ) then switch back to winter and the game will treat it like a winter map ( if you don't do the final save as winter it will not know that clear terrain is supposed to be snow.....because you told it to be summer )

3/ you have to manually rename the save game to a scenario then you can edit with the editor ( so SpSv000.dat needs to be changed to spscn000.dat.....along with the CMT file and then copy that to the scenario file........making sure you don't overwrite an existing scenario... then you can use the editor to save the map........HOWEVER... the conversion doesn't always go as planned


Don

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

I must be reading something wrong, because even in your response I read "the game will treat it as a winter map" to mean that clear terrain should be snow? But in the HTML manual I read a few things that made me think this, including:
***************
A BIG note to map designers is that the map will be one of these types only, Summer, Jungle, Winter or Desert, depending on what mode it was last edited in.

Why say this?, well some map designers go in and use say a green summer map, then come out to the main screen, flip to winter, and then go in and place a few white tiles for what they think will be a few patches of 'snow' on a green map for extra 'colour'. Nope, if they last edited the map in 'winter' mode, as far as the game is concerned the map is now entirely a winter map! The colour of the basic clear terrain tiles has no in-game effect, the season of the map is a global variable which affects the entire map. Only the special 'feature' tiles (such as snow drifts or soft sand) have inbuilt special effects. 'Clear' terrain tiles do not. Any tile that gives out 'clear' when you hover the mouse over it is a 'basic' terrain tile, of the type of terrain you last edited the map in, so if you say started with a summer map, exit and changed to desert and laid some 'yellow' clear tiles, then exited again, changed to winter and laid some 'white' clear tiles, this is now a winter map, and all the yellow, green and white 'clear' tiles will be basic snow (winter) terrain, because the last map edit mode was winter.
************
In the part re the map generator it says that the Season switch "allows you to change any map to Desert(0) or Summer(1) or Winter(2) terrain."
*************

It sounds like I'm misinterpreting these sections?

Got, it thanks, will play around with it.

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

Changing the season WILL NOT cause the terrain tills to change to that new season. They will always stay as you placed them but THE GAME only knows what the map represents by the last season it was saved as and it will apply terrain effects to movement based on that

For example, clear terrain in a summer map is basic grass but in a winter map it's snow and there are snow movement penalties applied to clear terrain in winter BECAUSE CLEAR TERRAIN ON A WINTER MAP IS ASSUMED TO SNOW.

So.............. lets say you build a winter map then want to edit in green swamp for cosmetic reasons. You would change the season to summer and edit it in but if you save the map as summer you are telling the game that clear terrain is grass.....all the game knows about what else you have done to the map is code for specific terrain tiles and it doesn't care what they are it just knows the map is " summer" or "Desert" or "Winter" so if you want a winter map to behave like a winter map you have to SAVE it as a winter map after you are done editing any non winter terrain features.

Another way to think of it is ......what do you want the game to think clear terrain is ??? Sand , grass or snow......... and that's what the final save has to be


Don

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

Thanks, alles klar.

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

I didn't read the entire thread, but I have posted the Game Guide, which really helped me figure out not just the entire game, but creating better maps and scenarios specifically. If you already have this sorry for the redundancy...

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

The only way to have winter & summer tiles on the same map is to use the map generator.
On occasions this will produce a winter map with patches of clear terrain which are summer hexes for MP purposes.

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

Hi, thought I'd revive this thread after a couple years...

Back to the summer/winter issue: what I want to do is be able to use the same map in summer and winter conditions (as part of a campaign).

I understand that I create a map with summer conditions and save it as a winter map, and the game will treat it as a winter map, but it will still look like a summer map.

So the next question is whether I can use JSGME or similar to swap the summer and winter terrain graphics, so that I can make winter maps created in the summer look like winter maps?

I'm embarrassed to admit that I actually can't find the terrain graphics files, can anyone point me in the right direction?

Also, maybe I didn't notice it before, but now it seems like there is a "Save as Scenario" button after games, so that I can save a map with battlefield damage after the battle? If so, that's great!

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

IINM you can't do that. When a user creates a scenario in the scenario editor and saves the map say summer, there is no way to take that map and hit a magic button to turn it to winter and vise-versa.

DRG created a lovely map of Goldap and gave me permission to use it. I did not need the whole map and his map was created in the autumn. My scenario needed some winterization to it. So I cut out part of DRG's map that I needed for my scenario and then "winterized" it. It took some time (probably 4-6 hours to tweak it and bombard it).

It is scenario 718 - Sturmtruppen 11/44. If you load that you can see that I winterized the whole map section. The original map is 320. It was time consuming but worth it, IMO.

Don

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

There are a lot of things we can do with maps with these games that would have a pipe dream with the original SP but changing the season of a map while maintaining the exact terrain contours, road net, trees, buildings etc is not one of them and very ( very...) unlikely to happen.

But I agree it would have been a nice feature and we had discussed it a few years ago

Terrain graphics are TerXXz4.SHP files

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

Sorry, I just saw your responses, I was reloading the page, but didn't see the new page with your responses...

First, very nice Goldap map and winterized version!

Two more questions:
1) I can't figure out how to open the .shp files as graphics files...I guess they are binary, or at any rate not standard graphics files that can be viewed in PaintShopPro & similar? I didn't see any threads about terrain graphics mods either--is it possible to mod terrain graphics files?

2) Even if the terrain files can't be modded, is it really not possible to rename the files used for winter terrain as the files used for summer terrain, so that the winter terrain would be used instead? I'm sure the renaming would be super-tedious, but once you'd done it, wouldn't the game look to the file names when loading terrain? You could save the files in a separate directory and swap them out with JSGME, so it would be super-easy once you'd renamed the files. From your answers I understand that this wouldn't work, but I wasn't sure whether you understood what weird thing I was talking about, so wanted to double-check...

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

You open SHP files with SHPEdit. It's in the Game Data / Graphics folder in it's own folder.

Swapping snow for grass would only work for that one map on your machine. In all the time you've been waiting for an answer you could have done what Zovs66 did...change them manually, Swapping shp files is a waste of time

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

But I won't just be doing one map...in my last campaign (using CMBB) I had more than 80 maps, and the one I'm looking at doing now could have more... Unfortunately I don't think that doing that many manually is very practicable.

Sorry for being dense, but why would swapping files only work for one map? Are the terrain graphics "baked in" when you make the map, and you can't change them later even by changing the names of the relevant files?

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

In game data / design there is a terrain Terrain Tile Index

The game "knows" it is looking for Green grass in TER00. If you swap TER00 for TER10 - Snow you will see snow where there was flat green grass but for one that will only change the flats....hills are another shp file and that is only clear grass terrain but the game looks for the SHP file it does not save that SHP file data in the map save....just that it needs to use that particular shp file so you could go through the lengthy process of swapping the Terrain SHP's around but if anyone else tried to that map in their game it would be green because their grass is still the correct TER00.

You could experiment with a simple flat map.

FIRST MAKE A DUPLICATE INSTALL OF THE GAME

.build that map with standard ground level 0 clear green grass (generate a map and then press the CLR button and then save )then rename TER00 to XTER00 and rename TER10 - (Snow) to TER00 then run that map in the game...should see that green grass as snow. but you will also see about 20% as black voids ( see below).....save that version of the map then put everything back to normal... change your altered Ter00 back to Ter10 and remove the X from your Ter00 and load that map and it will be back to green grass

However, none of that will work exactly as green grass has more basic tiles in its SHP file than snow does so what you propose is impossible even when just displayed in your own game as there will be a lot of black voids

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

Thanks much for the detailed explanation...but one last question! :happy:

What if I start with a winter map, and swap in the grass tiles for the snow? In that case it sounds like the black gaps that you mention would not occur? I understand that the grass tiles might then look a little funny with less variation, but I could experiment with that.

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

It won't matter what you do because anyone else running the map will be running it with the correct terrain tiles. The map save only looks are what ter tile it is not what it contains

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

I guess I should have pointed out that I'm mainly making this campaign for myself.

In the event that anyone else does want to play it, they would need the revised terrain file as well as numerous other files that would be necessary to run the campaign.

[EDIT] But in any event I'll upload the files when I'm finished, just in case someone else wants to winterize their summer maps (or vice versa).

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

No expert here but changing the shape files will not winterise the map in my view, won’t it just change the look but leave movement costs the same.

On rare occasions the map generator can produced mixed maps, normal terrain and movement costs with some snow with winter movement costs so there is something hidden in the code that allows this though it seems impossible to replicate in the map editor.

Re: Questions re Map editor
 

He's not doing anything that anyone can use. Changing the numbering of the Terrain tiles will bugger up any existing map/scenario/campaign as well as any generated battle. This will NOT actually winterize a summer map any more than painting "Ferrari" on your Fiat makes it a Ferrari. It's a complete waste of time and I am fed up explaining why and that is why the thread is now closed.....as I have said the game does not store the terrain info ( green grass or white snow ).. it stores which TERSHP was used and Ter00 is green grass and Ter10 is snow but only on the flats... hills are always a separate Ter file for terrain and there are at least 5 kinds of grass and they are all set up with one file for flats and another for hills so all those numbers I quoted are for the basic type....it takes 2 files to make each type work..more when you add in the types we use for fall maps and snow has 4 and 5 when rough terrain is added and they all use different numbers of tiles for the flats so switching one for another cannot work 100% and, as I said doing that will bugger up any existing map/scenario/campaign