Spring RTS Engine

***ALL problems solved now***

my problem turned out to be i uses white when I wanted to represent "nothing" but you got to use black coz white is made of all colors so motehrs map conv freaks out whne it gets a featuremap full of geo's

I'm going to write a nice decent tutorial because the two existign once (althought they learned me alot) have some very important information (like the thing about using black for representing nothing

cheers and thx to all who replied




*** PROBLEM SOLVED***
I put the smf and smt file in the maps dir and forgot to delete em afterwards nwo eevrythign I started my map he loaded them in staid of my .sd7 one


Only one question left: Which version of mapconv do you use?




ok I read the 2 tutorials on the wiki and another one i found on google

Using the things they expalin I got to make my map and ran it in spring

there are a few problems:

- when I use green in my map it is covered with trees
- heightmap didn't seemed to be used its all flat
- map was full of metal and my metal map isn't

I found a version of mapconv that says it doesn't fills up map with trees, I tried it but it only creates 1 file and I need 2 (I take the smd from another file and edit) I tried using that file and the one the other mapconv proggy compiled but same effect

then I Dlded the latest Mother Mapconv but when I try to use it (with a featuremap) it asks for geo's location: and I get a windows error saying the program had a fatal error
I put the geo bmp in the folder and tried giving it differant names but it I keep getting the error



another problem I have is that spring doesn't seems to be able to read my smd file altough I included it in the archive (in/maps)



would be very nice if someone could do this:

- tell me which verison of mapconv he uses and give me a link
- include an archive with a very basic tex, metal, height and feature bmp's that have proven to work and also the exact text command you use for mapconv

an smd file would be very nice too

like this I can test where it goes wrong for me


if I get all this to work I'm going to write a decent tutorial for the wiki that explains which version to use, how to create a simple texture file using photoshop (with screens), how to get mapconv to work if you don't know alot about dos, and hwo to make the sd7 file



cheers! and thanks to those who wrote the existing tutorials!

I'll see if I can help you out with some of your problems.

Here is a link for mothers latest mapconv ....
http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=1421


EXAMPLE:

mapconv.exe -i -l -x 220 -n -60 -f <feature.bmp> -m <metal.bmp> -a <height.bmp> -t <texture.bmp> -o <mapname.smf> -c .6


That's the proper syntax for Mothers mapconv.exe util. I'll break it
down even more.


FEATURE LAYER

-f feature.bmp - It's one of your layers that makes up your map.
This bmp contains the custom features, trees and geos. The
colors you will be using to include trees, features, and geos.
The colors are green and red.


GREEN Channel:

GEOS 255
TREES 200-215 (types 1-16)


Red Channel:

255 - feature of type on first line of text file specified with
254 - " " second "

IMPORTANT !! a txt file called fs.txt is needed to add features.

EXAMPLE of a fs.txt

armsilo_dead
corsilo_dead
armlab_dead
corlab_dead
armsolar_dead
corsolar_dead
armvp_dead
corvp_dead
armavp_dead
coravp_dead
armamb_dead
corpun_dead
armrl_dead
corrl_dead
armhlt_dead
corhlt_dead
armrad_dead
corrad_dead
armllt_dead
corllt_dead
armckfus_dead
corckfus_dead
armanni_dead
cordoom_dead

The fs.txt is hardcoded in mapconv so it doesn't needed to be
added to the commandline, but you will need the txt file to
compile the map.

This is a list of wreckage. Starting from the top its value is 255
then counting down....

When adding trees, geos and features. you only use 1 pixel
for that color selection. The size of the feature bmp depends
on your texture bmp. Its 1/8 the size of your texture bmp
plus 1 extra pixel. So here is a example:


EXAMPLE:

texture.bmp size 10240 x 10240 pixels

feature.bmp size 1281 x 1281 pixels ( 1/8 of the texture.bmp)

metal.bmp size 1281 x 1281 pixels ( 1/8 of the texture.bmp)

height.bmp size 1281 x 1281 pixels( 1/8 of the texture.bmp)



METAL LAYER

-m metal.bmp - It's one of your layers that makes up your map.
This bmp contains the grass and metal deposits. The red and
green colors to add grass and metal deposits.

Green Channel:

0-255 - no grass -> full grass

Red Channel:

255 - 150 ( changes the amount of metal that can be mined)

The final amount can be defined in the .smd file.

When adding metal or grass its up to you how its going to
look. The more maps you do the better you will get. Its 1/8
the size of your texture bmp plus 1 extra pixel. So here is a
example.


EXAMPLE:

texture.bmp size 10240 x 10240 pixels

feature.bmp size 1281 x 1281 pixels ( 1/8 of the texture.bmp)

metal.bmp size 1281 x 1281 pixels ( 1/8 of the texture.bmp)

height.bmp size 1281 x 1281 pixels( 1/8 of the texture.bmp)


HEIGHT LAYER

-a height.bmp - This is a grayscale bmp that's one on the hardest
to make with a paint program. You can use other utils to make
your height map. Here is a list of utils to help make your height
map.

Terragen
TMG V1.2
L3DT V2.3a



I use these and I've also, done some with MS-Paint and PS Pro .
It's 1/8 the size plus 1 of your texture map. Here is a example of the
layers:

EXAMPLE:

texture.bmp size 10240 x 10240 pixels

feature.bmp size 1281 x 1281 pixels ( 1/8 of the texture.bmp)

metal.bmp size 1281 x 1281 pixels ( 1/8 of the texture.bmp)

height.bmp size 1281 x 1281 pixels( 1/8 of the texture.bmp)


TEXTURE LAYER


texture.bmp - This is a very important part of the map. If your
texture map looks bad it will mess up a good looking map.
You should be use 24 bit color and most of your texture.bmp
files will be very big. On large maps having a 500-600 MB
texture file is normal. You can also, use these utils to make your
texture.bmp:

Terragen
TMG V1.2
L3DT V2.3a


Also, when designing your texture bmp. It needs to be in
multiples of 512. Here's a examplr : 10240 x 10240.


EXAMPLE:

texture.bmp size 10240 x 10240 pixels

feature.bmp size 1281 x 1281 pixels ( 1/8 of the texture.bmp)

metal.bmp size 1281 x 1281 pixels ( 1/8 of the texture.bmp)

height.bmp size 1281 x 1281 pixels( 1/8 of the texture.bmp)


NAME of FILE

-o - mapname.smf You can call this anything you want.

-c - is the compression of the file ( .6 is the compression )



On the compiling time, depends on youyr system speed and the
ram in you system.




Their is a uti called Maelstroms SMD Creator to make the smd
file.

http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=1600

I've not used it so, I'm not sure how to work it. It shouldn't
be to hard to figure it out.




I'll post more if you need more. These should help toy out.

thx alot for this reply

but mother mapconv is still crashing on em when he asks for location of geo

and my last 2 maps made teh game freeze when the game started

aah I will get it to work eventually I guess

Wannes,

Convert your metal, height and feature bmp to png format.
Put all the files in one folder and zip it up.
You should be able to post it on FUs website. I'll look at it
and see where it needs fixing.

Maybe some other maps makers might through in a
solution too.

Just a few more things:

You can use my SMD creator to make an SMD easily.
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2420

And there is already a tutorial in the wiki with screenshots and stuff
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Maps:Tutorial

Its not quite complete yet, but im almost finished. Might be able to finish it later today.