How to make custom maps?

#1 December 13th, 2004, 08:00 PM

Once I have a tga, how do I go about making a map?

daesthai · #2 December 13th, 2004, 08:26 PM

A good place to start is with the documentation for modding and mapmaking that I believe comes with the install. Check in your .../dom2/doc folder. (they're in pdf form.)

Just as a backup, you can grab the mod manual and some other nifty tools from Arynn's site - http://www.dominions-2.org/files.htm#mods

Gandalf Parker · #3 December 14th, 2004, 12:40 AM

Also examine one of the maps that you have played quite abit. If you have played the aran map that came with the game then you visually know the aran.tga with no problem. Examine the aran.map file and see how the commands are used.

Chazar · #4 December 14th, 2004, 05:31 AM

The question about Map making come up as often as people asking for more maps. Edi has offered to compile a Mapmaking-FAQ in Post#315780, provided that we can gather up all questions...

Foom · #5 December 14th, 2004, 06:06 AM

As far as I know there is no official manual on mapmaking.

Check this thread for some information to get you started. Good luck, I'm hoping to release a map soon as well

NTJedi · #6 December 14th, 2004, 06:19 PM

A more friendly map editor is one main feature I'm looking forward to within Dominions_3. Hopefully the developers can pull some ideas from the map editors of Heroes_3 and AgeofWonders:ShadowMagic. Both of them were great map editors.

bone_daddy · #7 January 16th, 2005, 11:47 PM

Quick question. Well, maybe not so quick.

Apart from a white dot to designate a province and red lines for borders, are there any other special colors required for making maps. BTW, I've also noticed that some maps use other colors for borders, and at least one (Faerun) doesn't seem to use anything to indicate borders.

I've noticed that the random maps produced using dommap have certain colors assigned to certain terrain types. Are these colors just what the creator of dommap decided to assign the terrain type?

Or is only the white province dot what matters, and is everything else just handled by the *.map file?

Arralen · #8 January 17th, 2005, 03:41 AM

Quote:

bone_daddy said:Or is only the white province dot what matters, and is everything else just handled by the *.map file?

Yes!

You're free to use every .tga you wish as map, as long as it has only few discrete white pixels for use as province markers.

Chazar · #9 January 17th, 2005, 04:20 AM

...which is a bad thing for provinces which are not circle shaped, e.g. clicking a long and narrow province is sometimes difficult (the boundaries inside the tga file are ignored). There should be a map command to unify white pixels, so that a mapmaker could place more than one white dot per province to fasciliate clicking...

Gandalf Parker · #10 January 17th, 2005, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Chazar said:
...which is a bad thing for provinces which are not circle shaped, e.g. clicking a long and narrow province is sometimes difficult (the boundaries inside the tga file are ignored). There should be a map command to unify white pixels, so that a mapmaker could place more than one white dot per province to fasciliate clicking...

You can make the capital dots larger and easier to see. Just dont use EXACTLY white (255,255,255) to do it.

Zen requested, and got added to the Last DomMap, an option to highlight capitals by putting yellow pixels at 4 points connected to it. It is a nice difference.