blade2k5's Real World+Fantasy Maps

[blade2k5]

The Nowra, New South Wales, Australia map is now available on the LEX.  Enjoy.

[Shadow Assassin]

Very nice work with your maps - shame I can't say the same about some of the DEM data for Australia.

[blade2k5]

Well, I do what I can with what I can get   Anyways, look forward to your thoughts on what terrain mods would work better with this region of Australia.

[Shadow Assassin]

You should've received my PM by now.

Basically, Missouri Breaks'd be a better choice of terrain mod for Cape York, since it's all scrub. It's tropical, but it's not rainforest like the Yucatan is.

[blade2k5]

I recieved the PM 15 seconds after I posted   CP's Missouri Breaks Mod does look a lot better   I re-did four of the 12 maps already, will do the rest over the next few days.<a href="http://plugin.smileycentral.com/http%253A%252F%252Fwww.smileycentral.com%252F%253Fpartner%253DZSzeb008%255FZSfox000%2526i%253D36%252F36%255F1%255F12%2526feat%253Dprof/page.html" target="_blank">

[nichter85]

Hi blade2k5!
...congratulations to your excellent maps!
I hope this is the right place to ask my questions...

I love mountain maps, especially those of NHP (Kinbasket Lake and Andorra were the first ones I played), and I was inspired to create maps myself. Recently, I do more mapping than gameplay. I follow a different approach, instead of making them accurately scaled, I scale them down by 1:2 to cover up larger areas. A 4000m-high mountain still looks impressive at 2000m, i think. 
Now, it's a big problem for me i only know how to deal with 8-bit greyscale technology, it's inaccurate and i'm aware of all the disadvantages of this method.

The last months, I've produced dozens of different maps (some were dumped immediately, others remained unfinished), including some innovative ideas (e. g. merging three different places in real world to one realistic fantasy map) but I was never satisfied with the poor 8-bit quality, and it ended up with hours of patiently smoothing rough terrain in SCTF. I know this technique is not state-of-the-art, and that's why i'd definitely prefer creating maps just the way you guys at NHP do.   

I'd like to use 16-bit technology, but I don't know how it works...yet. And there are still so many places on earth I'd like to map. I've searched the forums but there is little information on the methods NHP uses to obtain its stunning results. I would be really grateful for advices, hints or general information. You stated at the beginning, you were taught by heblem... is there an expert who'd like to teach me ?
Technically, I don't have access to adobe photoshop; however, i've got a registered version of Global Mapper and some GIS programs at university, also i know some sources and basic scientific things about dem data.

I've found a thread about RGB importer tool, which should work fine without photoshop:
http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=115.msg3148#msg3148
delivering results comparable to 16-bit-greyscale technology.
I tested it, it was no problem creating this RGB in Global Mapper , but I don't know which type of file i should export. I tried several ways, but SC4Mapper can't import it because it's not recognised as a correct RGB picture.

I'd love to hear from you, blade2k5, or any expert in this forum. Thanks in advance for your answers!

Best regards,
Stefan

[blade2k5]

Hi blade2k5!
...congratulations to your excellent maps!
I hope this is the right place to ask my questions...

I love mountain maps, especially those of NHP (Kinbasket Lake and Andorra were the first ones I played), and I was inspired to create maps myself. Recently, I do more mapping than gameplay. I follow a different approach, instead of making them accurately scaled, I scale them down by 1:2 to cover up larger areas. A 4000m-high mountain still looks impressive at 2000m, i think. 
Now, it's a big problem for me i only know how to deal with 8-bit greyscale technology, it's inaccurate and i'm aware of all the disadvantages of this method.

The last months, I've produced dozens of different maps (some were dumped immediately, others remained unfinished), including some innovative ideas (e. g. merging three different places in real world to one realistic fantasy map) but I was never satisfied with the poor 8-bit quality, and it ended up with hours of patiently smoothing rough terrain in SCTF. I know this technique is not state-of-the-art, and that's why i'd definitely prefer creating maps just the way you guys at NHP do.   

I'd like to use 16-bit technology, but I don't know how it works...yet. And there are still so many places on earth I'd like to map. I've searched the forums but there is little information on the methods NHP uses to obtain its stunning results. I would be really grateful for advices, hints or general information. You stated at the beginning, you were taught by heblem... is there an expert who'd like to teach me ?

Technically, I don't have access to adobe photoshop; however, i've got a registered version of Global Mapper and some GIS programs at university, also i know some sources and basic scientific things about dem data.

I've found a thread about RGB importer tool, which should work fine without photoshop:
http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=115.msg3148#msg3148
delivering results comparable to 16-bit-greyscale technology.
I tested it, it was no problem creating this RGB in Global Mapper , but I don't know which type of file i should export. I tried several ways, but SC4Mapper can't import it because it's not recognised as a correct RGB picture.

I'd love to hear from you, blade2k5, or any expert in this forum. Thanks in advance for your answers!

Best regards,
Stefan

Thanks a bunch for the kind words of praise   Funny thing is, the 2 maps you mentioned are not mine   One is by my good, good friend beskhu3epnm and the other was a collaboration between beskhu3ephn and Heblem.  Fabulous maps those two are   I love mountainous maps myself, as you can probably tell browsing through my contributions to NHP's 150+ map catalog.  There is a limit as to how high you can go with height in the game unfortunately.  The highest I've been able to reach without the top being cut-off is just under 17,000 feet or 5231M.  So regions with mountain peaks higher than that I don't do because you can't accurately scale them, but I will do them once I run out of real-world places to map and resurrect my fantasy map projects

Ok, now onto the business at hand.  In order to make 16-bit pngs you'll need Photoshop or Photoshop Elements [I'm using PS4 Elements at the moment].  My understanding from those who taught me is that there is no way around that, so I never pursued other avenues concerning DEM conversion to greyscale.  As for the other method you mentioned I'll take a look at in a little bit, but my knowledge of DEM conversion is limited to the way I do it now.  I'll make a quick list of programs you'll need to convert DEM the way I do [the only way I know how ]:

Global Mapper - when I go get my DEM files online, I download the GEO Tiff format, which GB opens with no problem what-so-ever
Terragen
Photshop 2 or higher or any Photoshop Elements 4 or higher
SC4 TerraFormer
and of course...and this is a real no-brainer, SC4 the game

[blade2k5]

The first 2 maps in the Somewhere On Cape York Peninsula northern section series have been released as LEX Exclusives.  I plan on releasing two of them a week until all have been released.  There are two series of Cape York maps, one series covers the northern half of the peninsula, while the second series covers the southern half.  There 12 maps in each series, all of them as accurately scaled as the data would allow.

Today's releases: [Quick note:  My good buddy Shadow Assassin suggested I use the Missouri Breaks Terrain Mod from CP on these Cape York maps, so all 24 of them will feature this terrain mod ]

SOCYPN #1




SOCYPN #2

[M4346]

I've always wanted to play on a few decent Islands! My wish may just be fulfilled!

[blade2k5]

Maybe after the Cape York series have been released, I'll follow that up with a series of island maps that I've been planning for a long time for all the isle enthusiasts out there  

[papab2000]

Great job on the Ausse maps Troy! 

[blade2k5]

Thanks Rich.  Nice to see you drop by.  Look forward to your return soon

[Scarton]

Maybe after the Cape York series have been released, I'll follow that up with a series of island maps that I've been planning for a long time for all the isle enthusiasts out there  

That would be great, as I have been planning to start an island CJ that would highlight many of the island maps out there. More maps would mean more maps to be featured. I hope some of those maps are fantasy (As a matter of fact, I was just about to ask if you could make more fictional island maps).

[blade2k5]

That would be great, as I have been planning to start an island CJ that would highlight many of the island maps out there. More maps would mean more maps to be featured. I hope some of those maps are fantasy (As a matter of fact, I was just about to ask if you could make more fictional island maps).

Right now I'm not currently planning any fantasy maps,  but that's not to say I don't have something brewing deep in my sub-conscious I haven't consciously thought of yet      Anyhoo, the island maps won't appear until October at the earliest.  There are still 22 Cape York maps to release first...

[Scarton]

Aahh... OK. I really like some of your past fantasy islands (Tropicana, Erewhon Isles, Anchor Isles, Khatari) and I would like to then make a request (though I kinda have already) for some fantasy island maps.

[blade2k5]

Well, a thought has crossed my mind in the past few minutes that could satisfy both the fantasy buffs and the real world buffs   Some of the isles I dl'd DEM for are so tiny that quite a few fit on 1x2, 2x2 large tile regions with some room to spare.  The idea is that I take a bunch of these nifty little isles of varying shapes and sizes and 'transfer' them to a larger blank region.  You'd get real world islands in a fantasy world setting   This I could do

[Scarton]

That is a thought. I would be okay with that. But I would still like it if you could create one fantasy island (doesn't have to be terraformed anytime soon, I wouldn't mind too much if it was released in December).

[blade2k5]

Ok, I'll keep that thought in mind.  About the 1 fantasy isle that is   Not going to promise anything, but I'll keep it in mind.

[Scarton]

Alright. 

[SlimShady]

I must say you make some sweet maps! Thank you very much.  

I had a few questions for you. What do you use Terragen for and have you ever used Microdem? And what is a good site to get Canadian DEMs from? I have been using the tutorial on ST and I just can't seem to get the elevations right.

Its so out of date and I think you should offer our community a proper tutorial when you have enough free time. So you won't get into trouble with the wife and kids.