How I make my maps.~

**Ilsamir Lord** · 12-13-2005, 06:50

I can't understand why CA didn't do something like this to begin with! Google Earth is an example of how this technique could have been utilised by CA. We could have had perfectly accurate representations of the campaign map, which, when used to generate battlemaps, would have remained accurately scaled and proportioned! Grrr

. This leads me to ask: How do the battlemaps turn out using this technique?

**BDH** · 12-13-2005, 18:53

The mountains turn out very accurate but there is litte change in many areas. If you want the battlemap to turn out like real life, you need to make a 1021x1021 map of a small area, otherwise the resolution isn't high enough (at least for a rtw to real life comparison)
Also, you need to make another change. CA cheated a tad and gave the map different gradients so even flat lands will have some curve. One can get around that my turning off the gradients in geography.txt

**Lentonius** · 12-13-2005, 18:59

can you get or download any of these maps you make?

**alpaca** · 12-13-2005, 21:41

Oh, BDH, do you know what the latitude parameter means in descr_terrain.txt?
This would probably be related to the projection used, wouldn't it?

And I think that CA used something similar, at least for the height file. It has the same file format as another radar topography satellite project...

**BDH** · 12-13-2005, 23:11

Originally Posted by alpaca

Oh, BDH, do you know what the latitude parameter means in descr_terrain.txt?
This would probably be related to the projection used, wouldn't it?

And I think that CA used something similar, at least for the height file. It has the same file format as another radar topography satellite project...

i know of the parameter, i don't know what it does but I do know what it specifies
this pic should help explain

basically, what they did was specify 4 points. The nothern points are on the same latitude and the southern points are on the same latitude. The left points are on the same longitude and the right points are on the same longitude. Why then isn't there a specifier for longitude then if that has something to do with it? Well, in order to make their projection, they drew a STRAIGHT line (as it would be perceived form space) across the points that have the same latitude. Thats how they made their map projection. The longitude lines had nothing to do with it since they were used as normal for the width of the map.

What it specifies in game i am not sure, but my guess is that it has something to do with the tilt of the map. If you look to the edges, you can see that it is tilted.

As for the hgt file, to the best of my knowledge CA just ripped them off :)

**alpaca** · 12-14-2005, 00:15

Well I know what latitude is, of course

I wanted to know what it does in-game.
Still, it's interesting that it can be found in the descr file...

I'd also like to know what the fractal setting does...

That stuff suggests imo that CA used some external map- (or at least height-)creation mechanism, but who knows...

**Tittils** · 12-14-2005, 00:23

I think changes to descr_geography won't work as it wont regenerate the db file. I've tried many times to make this happen, but I didn't get it to work. Have you got it to work?

**BDH** · 12-14-2005, 05:44

Honestly, most of what I have is just speculation on some of this more experimental stuff.

**BDH** · 12-14-2005, 20:45

Originally Posted by Tittils

I think changes to descr_geography won't work as it wont regenerate the db file. I've tried many times to make this happen, but I didn't get it to work. Have you got it to work?

the relationship could be one whereby if the db file is delete it defers to the txt (like it was with vanilla rtw for the tga and the hgt)