UTILITY: Map Making Utility and Save Viewer

[Harlan]

LookANinja,
Great program, man! I just rediscovered it, now that I'm getting back into Civ3. It looks like a lot of people have forgotten about it or never gotten it to work properly, which is a shame. I had some trouble myself at first with the whole map appearing as ocean. However, one easy work around:

Copy and rename the file GigaWorld.bmp.
Open the renamed version.
Resize it to the map size you want.
Paste in the map you've made.
Save.

This will guarantee that the file has the right color palatte and so on.

Anyways, with a scenario editor coming up in June, I think your program will soon be in big demand. I'd LOVE to see you keep improving this program. Most importantly, please please please released a "free form" map size version. If there has been no problem with the AI on these maps, then why not? Give some people a chance to test it out and see if there are problems, at least. Secondly, it would be great if you could include the other terrain categories, like snow covered mountain, bonus shield grassland and pine styled forest. Most of these have no effect in the game but visual, but still it would be a big help for mapmakers.

Keep up the good work!

PS - You should know your palatte key appears to be incorrect. Jungle and Forest B (Plains under Forest) should be switched.

[BigFurryMonster]

Re: Map Making Utility And New Save Viewer

Originally posted by LookANinja
-Output is written to the file "BMPToBIC Output.bic" which will be located in the same directory as the program is installed.

Actually, the file is stored in the same folder as the picture was stored in (I converted .bmp to .bic)

[teturkhan]

I am sooo choked

I freakin worked my butt off, finished my map after hours, weeks, months of work.. and NOW I find this tool!?

This tool is amazing!!!!!!
It should of been given to us from Firaxis themselves..
my hats off to you LookaNinja, I just wish I had of come by your utility program earlier.. sigh...

honestly this is perhaps one of the best utility programs I have ever seen...

[teturkhan]

Can't get it to work

I planned on releasing my map tommorow but I figure first put it to the test with your tool. One problem, I can't seem to get this map to load, just keep getting a blank white screen?

It doesn't do this with all maps, most work except a few including mine. I turned off the rules setting but still nothing..

any ideas?

[LoD]

Yeah, one. This utility was last update prior to the arrival of 1.29f, so there might be a compatibility problem.

[sprnv8]

BMPtoBIC

For some reason I can't see the map in civedit. Is there somewhere that I should put this Palette pic.?


I loaded a BMP in the program;
Generated the map;
could not see the map in civedit v1.29
This is the BMP I loaded:

[Firebird]

You need to make your map with the palette given by the "BMPToBIC Palette.bmp"-file.

Furthermore your bmp must be 256-color bitmap. It work for me to load the worldmap that comes with the tool, cut the size if nessesary and then draw my map based on the colors already on the map.

[Karhgath]

Hey Ninja, are you still working on it?

I would like to help you to program it. What I want to add as a feature is that you choose a .bic with rules in them, and then when you load an image, you can assign the palette value to a terrain in the rule file. That would make it so much easier to use. Also maybe add custom size soon.

-karhgath
info@cerberustech.net

[sprnv8]

No new version??????

[Sheik]

5) You can now load in any .bmp, .bic or .sav file from civ3 and convert it into a map.

I can't get this to work. I load up the save file and do not see anything to even indicate that it is loaded. I have a feling it is loaded though. I can not see a map preview and can not get the Generate Map to function.
I am using a civ3 1.29f save file.

Do you plan on making your program work for PTW?
Also what language do you program in?

[Elowan]

I downloaded the version you have linked at the top of this thread.

I loaded a .sav file made in 1.29f.

I clicked on generate map and nothing happened.

I guess that either:[list=1][*]I don't know how to use the utility[*]it doesn't work with 1.29f[*]ir put the .bmp file somewhere I can't find it[/list=1]

[Datajack Franit]

hmm awesome man

[RichMartel]

Has anyone ever had this problem:

I made a 256x256 map, and when I go to play on it, the tech rate is way too fast (always 4 turns for ANY tech, no matter what my tax rate is set to). And the forbidden palace is available when I build my second city. My guess is that there is an internal setting in the map file that is currently set to Tiny when it should be set to Huge or Giga.

Anyone else observe this problem? Any ideas on how to fix it? Is it a problem with BMPTOBIC or just something I'm doing wrong?

Thanks,
Rich

[sprnv8]

Originally posted by RichMartel
Has anyone ever had this problem:

I made a 256x256 map, and when I go to play on it, the tech rate is way too fast (always 4 turns for ANY tech, no matter what my tax rate is set to). And the forbidden palace is available when I build my second city. My guess is that there is an internal setting in the map file that is currently set to Tiny when it should be set to Huge or Giga.

Anyone else observe this problem? Any ideas on how to fix it? Is it a problem with BMPTOBIC or just something I'm doing wrong?

Thanks,
Rich

I'm pretty sure that you can adjust the TECH rate in the Editor (World Size Tab)

[RichMartel]

I think it that setting only effects randomly generated maps, not the custom map that is already part of the scenario. I may be wrong though.

My guess is that there is a special map size setting that is saved in the scenario, and somehow mine is not being set correctly.

This problem only happens to me when using the BMPtoBIC utility.

Rich