Making WKB Maps

[MRM | McChief]

Hi All,

If it is possible - I think if we can get the community making and uploading maps, it would really keep this game going. Personally, I would love to make maps but have been pretty unsuccessful with the Map Editor included (and unlocked by Mods) in the game. If anyone can make a tutorial on how to get maps working that would be really cool and could give some of us the tools we need to make some new maps.

[AdrienTD]

Hi MRM | McChief,

As always, the map editor is buggy. But I was able to make some maps with it and play them. Of course that was tricky.
My tricks were to use a painting program (Gimp) to make an heightmap and import it in the editor. (Using the vertex tool from the editor is very difficult).
When creating a map in v1.1 be sure to select a texture database (see readme of wkbmee for details), otherwise reloading the maps wouldn't work. In v1.23 it's a bit idiotic because it's impossible.
Also I would like to mention that the map editor in the game only can change the terrain and lakes. The rest, like objects, units, buildings, trees, ... are stored in a saved game (sav/lvl). Unless you have a non-final release of WK and have access to the "Designer mode", you can only do this with for example my program "wkbre".

I made some sample maps that I uploaded here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-xteMV6gdTebkVqQUpvbUI3VWc Extract the contents of the zip file to the "saved" directory and load the new saved games. You can also open these maps in the map editor, do some modifications and see if it works better.
I will maybe create a program that (at least) will create a map from an heightmap and automatically a savegame using the map, so you don't have to make it yourself, then do the rest like texturing and lakes with the map editor from the game.
If you have specific problems, you can tell me and I will do my best to help you. :)

[MRM | McChief]

Hi AdrienTD,

Thanks much for your reply. I'll try to play around this weekend and see what I can accomplish. I'm also looking forward to checking out your sample maps.

Cheers!

[Ghunter43]

Originally posted by AdrienTD:

Hi MRM | McChief,
I will maybe create a program that (at least) will create a map from an heightmap and automatically a savegame using the map, so you don't have to make it yourself, then do the rest like texturing and lakes with the map editor from the game.

On this note, I assume there's a way to manually get a .sav file. How to do it? I've got my .bcm readied up and I have no idea how to get a .sav file to finish it up. Are the sample map .sav compatible with every map? (excuse my ignorance, I'm unsure what information gets stored in the files). Thanks.

[AdrienTD]

You can change the map of a savegame by opening the sav file in a text editor (like WordPad) and look for this at the beginning:

	LANDSCAPE 1032 
		MAP "Maps\128_4Peaks\128_4Peaks.bcm" 
	END_LANDSCAPE 

Then you change the path to your own BCM file (relative to the root of "data.bcp", or "saved" directory). For example, put your file "mymap.bcm" in the "saved" directory, and in your savegame you change MAP "..." to MAP "mymap.bcm".
However be careful about the size of the map. If the new map is smaller than the old map of the savegame, then there is a risk that objects might be out-of-bounds and thus the game will crash.

[Ghunter43]

Originally posted by AdrienTD:

You can change the map of a savegame by opening the sav file in a text editor (like WordPad) and look for this at the beginning:

	LANDSCAPE 1032 
		MAP "Maps\128_4Peaks\128_4Peaks.bcm" 
	END_LANDSCAPE 

Then you change the path to your own BCM file (relative to the root of "data.bcp", or "saved" directory). For example, put your file "mymap.bcm" in the "saved" directory, and in your savegame you change MAP "..." to MAP "mymap.bcm".
However be careful about the size of the map. If the new map is smaller than the old map of the savegame, then there is a risk that objects might be out-of-bounds and thus the game will crash.

Thanks for the reply, managed to get it started - also thanks for the software, it's really surprising you can do a whole lot within the save editor itself. One question though, any way to remove every object from that sav file? I'd like to start over without having to delete everything one by one.

[AdrienTD]

Originally posted by Dr. "The Heavy Load" Ghunter43:

Thanks for the reply, managed to get it started - also thanks for the software, it's really surprising you can do a whole lot within the save editor itself. One question though, any way to remove every object from that sav file? I'd like to start over without having to delete everything one by one.

To delete a big amount of objects you can:

• Drag select and press DELETE
  
• Menu > Object > Delete type... to delete all objects of a particular type.
  
• Menu > Object > Delete class... to delete all objects of a particular class.

For example, removing all objects of class CONTAINER will remove all resources: trees, gold, stone, and even birds. PROP will remove all decorations, ruins, ...
If you really want to remove everything you can delete all objects of class PLAYER, but then you will have to recreate them, and I won't recommend to do this because it can be buggy.
You can also do this directly in a text editor, for every player remove everything between
PLAYER "..." 10..
and
END_PLAYER.
EDIT: What I recommend is simply to use the Delete class... (F4 key) function for every class except PLAYER and LEVEL.