Heblem made me a custom new region which I just love and am anxious to play on, but after rendering it in the game, I noticed that there is a one cell cliff-like barrier along all the citie tiles abutting the southern and eastern sides of the region. I really don't want to have to go through each city tile and manually bulldoze this cliff barrier down so that it matches the adjacent landscape, so I am wondering if anyone knows how to fix this by another method. I have the Mapper file Heblem sent me, is it possible to revise that? I know that would mean having to re-create the entire region in-game again, but I think I'd rather do that than try to bulldoze the barrier and try to match the rest of the landscape. If it needs to be fixed using the greyscale, then Heblem will need to do it, as he did not send me the greyscale, just the .SC4m file. I have emailed him already about this, asking for his help, but so far have not yet recieved and answer, so I'm hoping it can be fixed using the Mapper file.
Lora/LD
Perhaps an erosion issue? You could try the Erosion Control Mod Set (http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=16056) by Moganite. Even now I am still confused by this mod, but you may have better luck. It will have to load after your terrain mod, but it is only needed during rendering.
If you know Reader, below the Tropical Texture Table in the terrain INI there is a section that starts with ";-----The settings below control cutting erosion for initial terrain generation-----"
If these numbers are set to 0 then no erosion will occur. Your erosion tool won't work, but again, you only need this for rendering.
Lowkee33, I appreciate your thoughts, but I don't think moderating erosion in game is going to solve this issue. The scale of the one cell barrier cliffs are immense...hundreds of meters higher than the terrain they arise from. Eroding them down to the rest of the landscape would destroy the relief in the rest of the landscape, I am sure.
I think this problem is a result of sizing either the config file or SC4M file one pixel larger than the greyscale image that was used to create it. The region is 10 large citie tiles in the east-west direction and 9 large city tiles in the north-south direction. From having played around with trying to create my own custom maps in the past, I know one must calculate the pixel size of the greyscale image carefully to ensure it fits within the game's city tile size config file parameters. I know a single large city tile is 256x256 pixels in size, so if one accidently made the image file 257x257, I think this kind of cliff-like wall barrier would be created. It's either that or the opposite occured and the region is one cell too small on each side, so the game fills in the missing data with this cliff. Keep in mind the barrier is only a single game cell (16mx16m) in size, so the resultant wall is only 16m of game scale in width, yet hundreds of meters tall, like a knife blade slicing up at the extreme edges of the south and east borders of the region. I'll see if I can get some screen captures and post them here, so folks can see what I'm talking about.
Lora/LD
Why not use SC4TF ?
It will save only the city tiles touched by your operation, meanings you will only have to rerender only a small amount of cities in SC4
Well, because, I don't really know how to use SC4T, that's why. And basically, if I understand how it works, I still would have to go city tile by city tile and depress a single cell strip of the city landscape to eliminate the wall barrier, which I would really rather not do, as I don't think I can do that without affecting the adjacent landscape. This is a region created from a RL feature, so I want to try to keep all the RL bumps and lumps, if possible. I think it may be easier and less time consuming to fix either the greyscale or the SC4M file the region was created from, then re-load the region and re-render it in game.
I took a couple of screen shots of the problem, so folks can see what I am talking about:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg227.imageshack.us%2Fimg227%2F7205%2Fedgeproblem.jpg&hash=593ddfaa71a151e9331b0bd25c438dccc2931f7a)
I have turned the grid on so folks can see the single cell width of the problem.
Here is a pic of the SE corner of the region where the two barrier walls come together:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg641.imageshack.us%2Fimg641%2F1017%2Fedgeproblem2.jpg&hash=02dcea9224eca6cc84adbae8585ec02eaa015532)
Keep the suggestions coming, please!
Lora/LD
ok, I got it now
if you can use SC4Mapper with photoshop do the following:
-load your SC4M
-export to 16 bit png
-load the 16 bit png into photoshop
-remove the first row and first column ( or last row/last column as I don't know if the cliffs are on the top/left or bottom/right of the region )
-save the 16 bit png ( it should be one pixel less in widht and height now )
-in SC4Mapper create a new region using the saved png, it will complain about the fact the 16bit png is not correctly sized, but it will prompt you if you want to proceed anyway with a resizing. jsut press yes
-save the new region and go to each cities in SC4
if you can use SC4Mapper but you don't have photoshop do the following:
-load your SC4M
-export to RGB bitmap
-load the RGB bitmap in your image editing software of choice
-remove the first row and first column ( or last row/last column as I don't know if the cliffs are on the top/left or bottom/right of the region )
-save the RGB bitmap ( it should be one pixel less in widht and height now )
-in SC4Mapper create a new region using the saved RGB bitmap, it will complain about the fact the bitmap is not correctly sized, but it will prompt you if you want to proceed anyway with a resizing. jsut press yes
-save the new region and go to each cities in SC4
And FYI, a large city tile is 257x257 pixels meaning 256x256 tiles
Wouanagaine-
I do have Photoshop, but it's very old, version 6.0, copyrighted 1998-2001 and I am wondering if it will accept 16 bit files. Also, if I remove the problem edges and the PNG is now one pixel smaller in each direction, do I need to re-do the config file also?
I'm going to go ahead and try what you suggested, and if it works, no need to answer the questions above...I'll post back to let you know how things go.
Thanks for the help!
Lora/LD
Ok, several problems. 1.) Using Photoshop, I was able to crop the color 16 bit PNG down from 2561x2305 pixels to 2560x2304 pixels. I was able to save as a color PNG this new, fixed file. I opened Mapper, went to Create New Region, chose 16 bit PNG, loaded the new file, accepted the (I think) 35/32 size, and said yes when prompted to resize the file to fit the region. A couple of second later I get a message telling me the file is not a valid 16 bit greyscale. Greyscale? I was supposed to make a greyscale? That part of the instructions got left out, I guess...
So, back to Photoshop, load the newly fixed PNG file, then in Image>Mode, I chose Greyscale (it had been set to RPG). The image goes grey, but I notice it is now in 8 bit, not 16. I check the option for 16 bit, go to save as and find I cannot save the file as a 16 bit greyscale PNG, my choices are a PSD file, RAW file, or TIFF file. The only way I can save as a PNG is in 8 bit, so I try that, load Mapper again, and get the same message: file is not a valid 16 bit greyscale.
Any suggestions?
Later edit: Turns out my version of Photoshop only supports 16 bit files in those 3 formats listed above and the color PNG I originally made was an 8 bit PNG, not 16 bit, hence the error message in Mapper. So, I tried using GIMP, my only other image editing software, but Gimp does not support 16 bit files at all. So, I tried the second RGB bitmap method and that was semi-disasterous. I used Photoshop to open, edit and save the RGB file and when I openeed it in Mapper, it was a mess, didn't look anything like the PNG images. Not to be daunted, I went ahead and created a new region from the RGB and when I opened in it game, it was a sea of black and white graphic "noise". I managed to find a city tile by clicking on where one would normally be and when it rendered, it was grotesque, nothing like the region I am trying to fix. So now I am very discouraged. I spent the last hour searching online for free 16 bit PNG cabaple image editing software and found nothing for Windows. Heblem still has not responded to my PM over on ST, so I don't know what to do. If I email the "bad" PNG to someone who has 16 bit software, can someone edit for me? The extra row and column are at the bottom and right, not top and left, only took me a few minutes to amend it.
And can anyone tell me why, when I post replies to any of the forums, my message window doesn't scroll down when my message becomes longer than what the window displays? I have to type my message without being able to see what I type, then manually scroll down to check spelling/typos, etc., then when I start typing again, the window jumps back up and I can't see my typing again....a royal pain!
Lora/LD
Hi Lora
Just try the second version with RGB Bitmap I proposed instead of the 16 bit png
Quote from: wouanagaine on January 03, 2011, 11:57:34 PM
if you can use SC4Mapper but you don't have photoshop do the following:
-load your SC4M
-export to RGB bitmap
-load the RGB bitmap in your image editing software of choice
-remove the first row and first column ( or last row/last column as I don't know if the cliffs are on the top/left or bottom/right of the region )
-save the RGB bitmap ( it should be one pixel less in widht and height now )
-in SC4Mapper create a new region using the saved RGB bitmap, it will complain about the fact the bitmap is not correctly sized, but it will prompt you if you want to proceed anyway with a resizing. jsut press yes
-save the new region and go to each cities in SC4
Oh No! It's the Cliffs of Insanity!
Good luck, Lora- if anyone can help you, Steph can.
David
Out of interest, when you entered the city tile, did it ask you to reconcile your edges? I know it did that whenever I imported a custom map from SC4TF or SC4M, and then it would move the one edge of the map right to the bottom, also only one tile wide even though the neighboring edge wasn't land! Might help, I don't know though. :/
Actually, I think I may have gotten the situation fixed. When I tried the RGB bitmap method, I hadn't read the instructions very carefully and so I saved the image of the region as displayed in Mapper as an RGB bitmap instead of EXPORTING it as an RGB bitmap. When I caught that error, I tried once again, exporting the RGB bitmap this time, then using Photoshop I cropped it, saved it, then used Mapper again to create a new region. It appears to have worked, but I am having trouble with either my computer or my disk drive and could not get the game to load last night...the drive is not "seeing" the disk. I have to run by Radio Shack this afternoon anyway, so if I can't get the drive working by then, I'll just buy a new one and install it tonite or tomorrow. I'm moving my "office" from the dining room to my bedroom tomorrow, so the entire workstation will be torn down and unplugged, making a good opportunity for opening the case and replacing the drive, if that's what needs to be done. I might as well grab a can or two of compressed air while I'm at it and blow the dust out of the case innards while I have it open. Both my roomie and I are cigarette smokers and I know smoke is death to electronics, so I try to blow the case out at least once a year. Smoke could be why my disk drive isn't working, too. But, I'll let you know if my fix (of the region...and the disk drive), worked or not.
Lora/LD
When you are buying a new drive think about using something like Daemon Tools or VirtualCD in order not to destroy your disk (literally). I am using GameJack for this reason for years now, unfortunately as soon as I get a new machine I need something else as GameJack doesn't work neither on Vista (shiver) nor on WIndows 7.
Under Windows 7 RC/beta I used a deLuxe disk set as no of the above alternatives was working under 7 at that time. The result is a large crack on CD2 ... &mmm while my old SC4 & Rushhour CDs from 2003 are still working fine.
Well, the problems with the disk drive continue, but what the problem is is hard to determine. I was able to load the game this afternoon (took almost 20 minutes) and the newly fixed region works fine and dandy, looks good, only problem being I have all small cities now rather than large ones, which allows me to figure out what the numbers 35, 32 meant in the Create Region dialog box...cities across and cities down. I'll remake the region again at 10 and 9, although I'm thinking about creating a custom config file for this map, as it has some large and interestingly shaped water features that are going to need bridges. It will be easier if I can contain the water features within large city tiles, then infill with mediums and smalls. But anyway, the cliff barrier is gone now, so thanks everyone for the suggestions and help, very much appreciated!
Lora/LD
I recently learned how to add tiles to the north and west side of a city. Basically, once you have the exported RGB you can rotate it. After making this map in Terraformer I instantly added pixels to the bottom of the config. SC4 was opened, so the region.ini was updated. The region was then re-opened in terraformer, RGB exported, RGB rotated, and viola, new tiles on the north. It meant that a 1/4 of a large tile was completely flat (it looks strange, I made it ocean), but I think it was better than splitting a point where rivers met.