Creating maps with the editor (Full Version)

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Gizuria -> Creating maps with the editor (5/21/2012 2:11:57 AM)

I'm looking to put together a few smallish maps to start off and I'd like to know if there's any way to adjust a hex's elevation without having to use an input map. I'd like to start with a map of about 20x40 hexes and I'd prefer to do it from scratch. I tried creating a jpeg input map yesterday but got absolutely nowhere with it and I don't want to start with a monster sized map! Anyone had any success with the editor?



general_solomon -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/21/2012 4:20:36 AM)

it would be awsome if some one could create a tutorial. maybe even a video tutorial.



Gizuria -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/21/2012 4:39:53 AM)

It's certainly not the most intuitive scenario editor I've ever worked with, that's for sure.[:D] I'm hoping to create a couple of simple, low unit-density, combined-arms, firefights to be played primarily from the German side over the next few days. I have some map ideas but my efforts yesterday afternoon to produce an input map met with no success whatsoever. I would really like to know how to do the following:

Cut the existing base map so that I can create a flat map 20x40 hexes. I've tried using the Ctr-Shift_M/N combo but that only seems to partition off the playing area from the rest of the board.

Adjust a hex's elevation level directly from the editor. I see we have a 'Create Height by Noise', 'Adjust Height by Noise' option. What does that mean? How does it work? When I click on it, I get water randomly distributed around my otherwise flat map.

I am willing to put in the hard work to learn something new but I'm going to need a start here. My attempts at Parsing my first three input maps were fruitless to say the least.



Gizuria -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/21/2012 10:22:04 AM)

Another question after playing around a bit more with the editor. I haven't been able to place walls with any degree of certainty yet. I can create the wall ribbons and when I click on 'Create Road and Wall Ribbons', I can get the roads to form up, but not the walls. How can I create walls in the editor?

It was not the best idea to get started on scenario construction at a weekend. There's no-one around to help.[:D] Maybe somebody with some knowledge of this editor can give me (us) some pointers so that I can get my first scenario up and working.

FWIW, I LOVE WW2 East Front games. From what I've played (and won) so far, I'm guessing that most of the Firefights that ship with the game have been designed with H2H balance in mind? I'm mainly a single player and so I'm going to concentrate on missions balanced for the German side against the Soviets for the time being.



ericbabe -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/21/2012 2:09:37 PM)

Walls are created by selecting the wall tile from the menu, then clicking and dragging over hex sides along which you wish to place the wall.

We've talked about putting together a video tutorial for scenario editing. Once we get the next patch or two squared-away I'll see whether we can fit this into our schedule.



Blond_Knight -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/21/2012 7:06:16 PM)

I have to be honest, Im on the fence until I can see some videos or at least pics of the editor and a tutorial.
Its been my experience that if the developer cant be bothered to make the editor intuitive or at least an editor tutorial then its not worth the time to learn it.



Mr. Z -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/21/2012 11:16:28 PM)

I had thought an editor tutorial was included with the install version; however, even if not, our wiki provides an editor tutorial:'

http://cohwiki.slitherine.com/index.php/Firefight_developers_guide

We hope to put up even more details there very shortly.




Gizuria -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/22/2012 4:02:11 AM)

Isn't that Wiki just the same as the Editor Manual? I've read both several times. It's been my experience in the past with editors and manuals that most of the necessary information is actually there, at least for folks who are already in the know. Perhaps this is the same?

Regarding creating walls. Yup, that's exactly what I've been doing. I get a string of little yellow squares on the hex sides, I click on 'create walls/roads ribbons' and nothing happens. Those little yellow squares remain in their place.[&:]

For the record, here's what I've tried so far.

I usually try to keep things as simple as possible when I start work with a new editor. So my first attempt at an input map was to create a 2048x2048 jpeg map in Photoshop and then draw two straight red lines crossing in the middle of the map. I parsed this in and had a look at the map. No roads. [&:] Okay, maybe the colour was not exactly correct. But regardless of the colour, I can't get those roads to appear. Then I've tried adding forests. Again, no matter how I tinker with the colours, no forests appear when I parse in the map. Do these colours need to be more or less exactly the same as the ones in the manual/wiki? When I tried adding elevations, the effect is spotty to say the least. That's why I'm trying to create a map from scratch without using an input map.

I'm willing to spend a little more time exploring this to see if I can get a breakthrough because I'd like to craft some more challenging single-player missions. If I can't achieve that breakthrough today, then I guess I'll just have to wait for those videos to appear... Or, if you're patching, you might consider adding the following tooltips to your editor:

Raise hex elevation by one level: [clicking on this raises the hex's elevation by one level - default is ground. Click twice to raise it to level 2, etc]
Lower hex elevation by one level: [as above. Only lowers it by one level]



Mr. Z -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/22/2012 4:30:16 AM)

Yes, the wiki is essentially (though not exactly) the Editor Manual :) It seemed some were not aware of the editor manual and we wanted to give everyone the option to use a website in case they found it easier to navigate. This also lets us add more content that isn't in the manual if there is any need for it.

The ribbons need to be drawn--you need to drag your mouse cursor from hex to hex while holding down the left mouse button. You should see the road path appear in red.

I'm not sure how the map parser would interpret straight lines without regard to the hex offsets. Also be sure you are using exactly the color displayed on the legend--importing it into Photoshop (just save the image, then Open it in Photoshop), then using the Eyedropper tool to sample the color (select the tool, then click on the color swatch) should do it.

Same for forests--it really does need to be exactly the same color as found on the legend.

Elevation is the one thing that cannot be drawn in the editor--it must be on the input map. Again, it must be the exact same color as on the legend--I would recommend doing that in Photoshop, too. Adding an in-editor tool to change elevation, as you suggest, is high on our list of priorities.

Also high on our list is a video guide to firefight development :)





Gizuria -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/22/2012 5:13:58 AM)

Yup. Roads I can do But the red ribbon still remains on the map after I've created them [create walls/roads ribbons]. And that's exactly what I'm doing with walls as well. By dragging the cursor, I get little yellow squares on each hexside I cross. Then I press 'create etc' and then no walls appear. The yellow squares remain though.[&:]

I'm solid on CTRL+SHIFT+N and CTRL+SHIFT+M to partition off a section of the huge map for development however and it makes creating a LOS map doable. I've got a rudimentary FLAT map all set up and ready for adding units but when I add the axis units, I'm finding duplicates appearing randomly both on and off map. And they won't go away when I try to delete them but the scenery does![&:]



ericbabe -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/22/2012 6:29:03 PM)

Thanks for your interest in this, and for your reports on how things are going.

Aye, the extra units: I found a bug that was making mouse-clicks appear through buttons. This is probably what is creating the extra units you are seeing. We are testing a fix for this for the next patch. (Unfortunately the editor didn't get much testing during the release testing phase of development -- which is when I fixed another glitch in the main game that caused this problem in the editor.)

I'm not sure why the walls aren't appearing when you create ribbons. I will test this. Don't worry about the little yellow and red squares: those are only marks that appear when you are running the game in editor mode. When you load a map in the normal game, those marks won't appear. For what it's worth, you don't need to create the wall ribbons in the editor for the walls to appear in the game: that creation process happens automatically every time a map loads. Creating the ribbons within the editor is just to let you see what the walls will look like in the game.

Please send me your input map (ericbabe@west-civ.com) with which you are having problems creating roads and such, and I'll take a look at it. Yes you should use palette entries that are very close to the ones in the palette guide: there is some tolerance in the import process for different RGB values, but the tolerance is pretty small (like 5% or something.)

We would like to add a height control gizmo to the editor at some point. The mesh does take a fraction of a second to rebuild, so this editor might be a little frustrating to use when trying to create large height structures.



ericbabe -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/22/2012 10:38:04 PM)

I did a test this afternoon. It looks as though the walls are working properly in the editor. I first selected "Walls" and left-click-and-dragged across the hex boundaries to produce a wall template like this:

[image]local://upfiles/15842/947FDFDC013448B382C619BEFE6321A3.jpg[/image]



ericbabe -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/22/2012 10:40:13 PM)

Then when I selected "Create Road and Wall Ribbons" from the Editor menu I get:



[image]local://upfiles/15842/385E0937A1CB4BB7816C6FF9BD312D33.jpg[/image]



Gizuria -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/23/2012 4:22:03 AM)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. How true. I can see from that screenshot what I was doing wrong. Let's just say that i was connecting hexsides. I'll give it a run through later and no doubt be back with more questions.



Jamm -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/23/2012 12:20:12 PM)

Spent my day off yesterday playing around with the editor (after I squeezed in a round of golf).

It isn't the most user friendly or intuitive but i managed to create some maps and a couple scenarios.

There was quite a bit of trial and error but it is doable.

[image][/image]

[image]local://upfiles/32997/7371F967DD26482F80D9CE1639E49091.jpg[/image]



ericbabe -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/23/2012 2:39:08 PM)

Glad to see you were able to put a firefight together. What were some of the trickier things to figure out? Maybe we can improve the documentation in these areas.



Angiel -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/23/2012 3:28:08 PM)

I created a small scenarios but I have a problem.
How do I, with the editor, to turn the unit I just placed? [&:]

thanks Angiel

Ok, I solved.....[:)]



Jamm -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/23/2012 3:29:06 PM)

I think the biggest problem was not being able to access map while designing scenario.

Can overcome this by writing down key hex grids on paper.

Inputting the hex template and color palette from the game made parsing the input maps simple.

Now I'm off to design larger maps with linked firefights (campaign style with carried over units)


PS - love the game



Titanwarrior89 -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/23/2012 6:01:34 PM)

Were is the link for the editor guys?



JR5555 -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/23/2012 6:31:19 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89

Were is the link for the editor guys?


Its a program outside of the game, so its hard to see. When you first load up the game there is a screen that says play Conflict Of Heroes, below that it says "Scenario Editor", click that..



ericbabe -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/23/2012 6:33:16 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Angiel
I created a small scenarios but I have a problem.
How do I, with the editor, to turn the unit I just placed? [&:]

Ok, I solved.....[:)]


Glad you figured it out. For everybody else, rotate units you've placed by using the 789456 keys on the number pad. Make sure Num Lock is on.



ericbabe -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/23/2012 6:37:19 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Jamm
I think the biggest problem was not being able to access map while designing scenario.

Can overcome this by writing down key hex grids on paper.

PS - love the game


Thanks for the kind words. I put most of the firefights into the game using the map editor and I also found that not being able to find coordinate information while the scenario screens were open to be annoying. I got in the habit of figuring out the coordinates of all the hexes I wanted to use (for floating text, victory hexes, reinforcement boundaries, etc.) and writing all that down on paper before I started using those screens. It would be nice if I could make these screens non-modal, so you can flip back and forth between these screens and the main map, or put the scenario screens off to the side.



Titanwarrior89 -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (5/24/2012 5:13:32 PM)

Thanks
quote:

ORIGINAL: hattrick1


quote:

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89

Were is the link for the editor guys?


Its a program outside of the game, so its hard to see. When you first load up the game there is a screen that says play Conflict Of Heroes, below that it says "Scenario Editor", click that..




Blond_Knight -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (6/26/2013 1:07:37 PM)

Is there a way to remove sections of roads or walls if you make a mistake? And how does the schrub creator work? How do I define where I want these billboards to be?



ericbabe -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (6/26/2013 11:01:11 PM)

Right-mouse button will clear roads and walls (though this just puts down the red box showing the hex is cleared, it doesn't update the graphics right away.) Use "Create Wall/Road Ribbons" to see where the roads and walls are.



Blond_Knight -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (6/27/2013 12:21:42 AM)

Hmmm Ok thanks Eric that works.
Can you please explain how the shrub creator dialog works? If I set my map size and select a billboard from the dialog and click "build according to perlin noise" and then click "ok" Im not seeing any change.
BTW I do like the flexibility assigning different scripts to different units gives the scenario designer.



Ratzki -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (7/5/2013 3:55:30 AM)

I think that you are asking the same question that I posed some time ago. I believe the answer was that the "noise" was not working as expected and needed to be adjusted to give more variation in the build.



ericbabe -> RE: Creating maps with the editor (7/5/2013 4:51:17 PM)

The shrub creator doesn't do anything for the final map -- it was just a way for me to experiment with the algorithm that we use in the game right now, to adjust the parameters that create the shrubbery items. So you can play around with it, but it doesn't affect your final map. I think the shrub creator should show something if you have values in the right ranges, but values that are out of range might not show anything (it would be random whether they did or not.)



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