Has Anyone done a Balkans Campaign?NATO

[Wrench 9,811]

them mountain tiles are beyond cool...seriously!!

 

looks like some tiles don't have their alpha working (naples bay)

 

some of the IMEs might work for Sicily and southern Italy. The hard part might be the transitions north of Rome, heading towards the Alps.

 

of course, 'empty' airfield tiles...

and don't forget the really weird transiongs ... like I had to do for WW2 Euro's Berlin -- city/airfield tiles (for those that have airports in the middle of everything!

Edited December 1, 2013 by Wrench

[+Baltika 84]

OK, Proof of Concept for multiple tile sets on the same terrain - it does work

 

 

I have imported Stary's excellent IME repaint tiles into TE to use for the southern nations.

 

Then, a bit of tweaking of the autotexture settings and exclusions zones, and this is how it comes out:-

 

 

 

 

Now we have Malta in much more appropriate tones:- 

 

 

 

 

 

And here are some shots flying around Rome, then into the mountains east of the city:-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like you say, Wrench, there is a fair bit of work to be done on transitions from one tile set to the next, but nothing impossible. 

 

More than two tile sets might be an issue for TE - everything is set up now to autotexture properly in TE, but the exclusion zone settings are quite rigid and may prove difficulty to apply where there are tile sets for each nation, or to try to apply more than two tile sets.  I am trying to avoid hand tiling if at all possible, at least to get the basic TFD fixed, as the map is so huge hand-tiling everywhere would take forever.

 

But I am sure that can be worked out, once I get this over to Brain32.

 

OK, I will tidy up the tile sets (missing alpha channels etc) and get back to plotting cities.  Then at least we will have a proper flyable beta for Brain to take a look at to add in more tile sets if that is feasible.

 

Slainthe!

 

Baltika

 

 

 

 

[Icarus999 70]

I think the tiles from Pureblue's Anatolia version 1 would be just right for southern Italy/ Sicily and Greece, while the IME tiles might be better for North Africa and maybe Turkey.  Just my opinion.

[+Stary 2,427]

me likes!

 

remeber this: you can do ALOT of tile related stuff using autotexture and paint program the smart way -think of copy paste of large autotextured parts of tilemap.bmp, then autotexture borders, add textures for region 2, etc.

 

Autotexture+notepad+PS/GIMP, but who I am typing this to

[+Baltika 84]

I think the tiles from Pureblue's Anatolia version 1 would be just right for southern Italy/ Sicily and Greece, while the IME tiles might be better for North Africa and maybe Turkey.  Just my opinion.

 

Good suggestion, will check it out.  Nothing is finalised, this is a very early wip still, and of course I need to pack this all up for Brain32 to look at - he has made some region-specific tiles which will probably be much more appropriate for the region anyways.

 

I am just trying to work out how to do it.

 

 

me likes!

 

remeber this: you can do ALOT of tile related stuff using autotexture and paint program the smart way -think of copy paste of large autotextured parts of tilemap.bmp, then autotexture borders, add textures for region 2, etc.

 

Autotexture+notepad+PS/GIMP, but who I am typing this to

 

Very interesting suggestion - I have never done hand-editing of the tilemap.bmp, always relying on TE and making lots of extra transition tiles to do the grunt work.

 

But for a map like this, the technique you describe would be perfect.  I had to pick a line (just north of Corsica) for the change between one tileset and the other, and I can see there are regions where the IME tiles don't really fit at all - looking to Bulgaria and Southern Romania especially.

 

OK, I will have to do some experimentating.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, cheers

[+Stary 2,427]

will keep my fingers crossed guys!

[+Soulfreak 6,512]

Looks pretty nice so far!

[+Baltika 84]

OK, just a quick update:-

 

I have imported Stary's Anatolia v1 tileset into TE, so now there are three distinct tilesets available for autotile. 

 

The Southern Med nations have been retiled using the Anatolia set, and it does look more suitable.

 

I have made some early experiments with exporting the tilemap, but am not having much success so far in TE or in gerwin's editor.

 

I have also placed several more airbases:-

 

 

 

 

Not much point in doing a lot of hand-tiling, flattening or targeting work until the tile set is fixed, so I will place a few strategic airbases in the unpopulated areas, then the alpha can go up to the modder's repository.

[Centurion-1 1,228]

Looks excellent so far!

[+paulopanz 2,875]

Excuse me but I saw some quite marginal airports like "Peretola" and not "Grosseto" the home of the mighty 4° STORMO a fist class fighter unit inside AMI and the only OCU (two seater) base too for both F-104 and EFA.

 

Please add. I was there.

 

 

 

[Wrench 9,811]

Andravida

Araxos

Kalamata

Athens

Tanagra

 

 

Greece is a bit empty!!!

[+Baltika 84]

Excuse me but I saw some quite marginal airports like "Peretola" and not "Grosseto" the home of the mighty 4° STORMO a fist class fighter unit inside AMI and the only OCU (two seater) base too for both F-104 and EFA.

 

Please add. I was there.

 

 

Oh yes, absolutely - I will add it in for the next update

 

 

 

Andravida

Araxos

Kalamata

Athens

Tanagra

 

 

Greece is a bit empty!!!

 

 

Um, yeah, it sure is. . .

 

And Bavaria, and Crete, Albania, Montenegro, Southern Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Macedonia, Serbia, south-western Ukraine, the western coast of Turkey (will just fit an airbase or two there) and nearly all of Romania (especially the Transylvanian Alps - oh yeah, I'm really looking forward to Transylvania  )

 

No worries - it's all on the list

 

Keep those suggestions coming, I'll work it all in there.

 

 

For now, I want to fire up a flyable alpha, so that Brain32 can take a look and see how his region-specific tiles will fit into the mix.

 

For that purpose, I reckon I'll go with what I've done already and a capital city and airbase for each of the countries I haven't got to yet.

 

That way, we can hopefully finalise a final tile set, for however many regions.

 

Then I can crack on with populating each country properly with major cities and airbases, and take it from there.

 

As usual, I got carried away with the feature-creep.  I really should have done a Risk-style map with one airbase and city for each country and left it at that.

 

But hey, it won't go to waste.

[+Baltika 84]

OK, when I use "export tilemap" in TE, is it really supposed to look like this:-

 

 

 

I think I understand what Stary was talking about a few posts above, to copy and paste different sections of the tile map to get different tiling on distinct regions on the same terrain.

 

And, as I have now imported 3 different tile sets into TE, I think I see how that could work.

 

But that tilemap.bmp just looks like a mess to me.

 

Any suggestions?

[Wrench 9,811]

I don't think so...

 

I exported the China, just to see.

looks as square as it should be!

 

that just be strange!!

 

(oh, and do I know about feature creep!!)

[+NGHENGO 14]

Very very very good you did what i started few years ago but i had too much problem of spare time to complete.....

 

http://combatace.com/topic/60560-parlando-di-bagatelle-e-facezie/page-3?do=findComment&comment=460299

 

Mauz.

[+Baltika 84]

Baltika do you have a somewhat operational version of that terrain? I'd like to see if I can mold my work into that and see how much stuff is needed for it to be finished...

 

Hi Brain32, PM inbound.

 

"Somewhat" operational version is all I got, right now 

 

Let me know what you think.

 

Cheers mate 

[+baffmeister 1,205]

Baltika, any success exporting the tilemap in TE? I have a similar issue with the fictional terrain I've been working on. On mine the colors look OK but the image is slanted like yours. My terrain was rotated during the build process so was wondering if that could be the issue. 

[+Baltika 84]

Baltika, any success exporting the tilemap in TE? I have a similar issue with the fictional terrain I've been working on. On mine the colors look OK but the image is slanted like yours. My terrain was rotated during the build process so was wondering if that could be the issue. 

 

Hi Baffmeister, no joy for me so far.

 

ATM that is holding up further multi-tileset work on this terrain.  I have Brain32's reworked photoreal GermanyCE set for the northern part of Europe, and Stary's Anatolia v1 tileset for the Med.  I need to make some transition textures for where those sets meet, but that's no problem.  I have IsraelME set listed in TE as a third working tileset for this terrain, but autotile in TE is too crude in its implementation of exclusion zones for me to make the IsraelME set appear only in North Africa.

 

Stary's proposed solution to cut & paste parts of the tileset bmp is the perfect answer for that issue, but I keep getting the screwed up tileset bmp I showed in my earlier post.

 

Stary has said something about saving the palette in PS to get it to work.  It may be an issue that I use GIMP and PAINT.NET for all my editing work - I don't have PS.

 

I will keep plugging away, and if I get a breakthrough, I'll let you know.

 

I have resized this terrain slightly, but not rotated it, but who knows if that makes a difference?

Edited January 31, 2014 by Baltika

[+Brain32 265]

I'll be able to provide some help now over the weekend

[+Baltika 84]

I'll be able to provide some help now over the weekend

 

Excellent news, thanks   

[+Brain32 265]

Well the thing with the tilemap import/export work is that TE can not do it properly on maps that are bigger than standard. I messed around with it today and got it skewed all the time too, then it occurred to me that this map is much bigger than standard maps are...

[Wrench 9,811]

hand tiling it is then!

I know ALL about that!!

[+baffmeister 1,205]

Well the thing with the tilemap import/export work is that TE can not do it properly on maps that are bigger than standard. I messed around with it today and got it skewed all the time too, then it occurred to me that this map is much bigger than standard maps are...

 

My fictional terrain might be considered much smaller than standard, it's 700Km x 700Km.

[Snailman 517]

I have just put my hands on a PDF that shows all soviet bases in Austria and Hungary from '50-'90. If it is needed... I'll happily upload

[+Baltika 84]

I have just put my hands on a PDF that shows all soviet bases in Austria and Hungary from '50-'90. If it is needed... I'll happily upload

 

Brilliant, thanks, would be much appreciated