I am getting comfortable now with it, just completed my second map (come on illwinter, post em up, I wanna see my name in lights
What I have been doing (works pretty smooth)
1- creating the map with my favorite paint program (macromedia fireworks). After it is drawn, but before placing capitals I edit the color range of the whole thing so that no color comes within 20-40 of pure white (255 255 255). Then I place the 1 pixel capitals. I have not really been worrying about borders, they are not so important.
2- opening them up with Gimp and maybe playing with the effects. Be sure to do this -before- you place the capitals. Gimp can then save them (right click on picture, File > Save As > blahblah.tga, using the RLE compression.
3- rename a map file (like aran.map to blahblah.map). Edit the map file to point to blahblah.tga. For the life of me I cant get that New Map thing to work, but this has no problems.
4- save the map file, then open it up again with the editor and clean it up (delete all current neighboors, add special stuff, etc. Then load it up again and manually set all the neighboors (click to create path, ctrl-click to remove).
Anyone want to play-test a couple maps? They should be bug free (been working for days on em) but you never know.
[ December 19, 2003, 18:30: Message edited by: Tiltowait ]