Posts from Map landscape editor program.

Good day, heroes!

I wrote a program in Delphi 7 for editing terrain, rivers, and roads on maps for Heroes III. All the detailed information is on my website: http://www.phomm.narod.ru

It all started when I decided to participate in the HW contest for the best map of 2009:
/topic/6284/
I was working on it, and I thought about how I would like to change specific soil tiles to others, so I started experimenting with the map editor. It took a very long time and was tedious, for example, to create lava terrain consisting only of squares that contain lava. Or to make a shore without that thin coastal line. In the end, I couldn't achieve what I wanted using the editor.
I remembered that there was a map format somewhere, found it, and started searching for the necessary bytes in a hexadecimal editor and replacing them. Very quickly, I realized that changing things this way takes too much time, but it is possible. And then I thought – I’ll write a program for editing terrains. Said and done. The next day, I was already testing it in pseudographics (based on the color of the soils on the minimap).
Then I added rivers and roads, and after some effort, I made it draw graphics from the game itself, which required unpacking the definitions of soils, roads, and rivers. A little later, I refined it, added undo functionality, various convenient features, brush size, brush preview, and various replacement algorithms (for example, replace all lava rivers with exactly the same ones in terms of rendering, but icy ones, without affecting everything else).

I was already ready to release it, but I thought that I should add a feature that would be really useful, because just changing the graphics is just fun; it certainly affects the map, but doesn't bring any gameplay/functionality benefits.
And so I implemented changing the map sizes!! Now I can add many more functions, but for version 0.1, I limited myself to this.

Please check it out!

And of course, suggestions for functionality and bug reports are welcome (please indicate the revision and the map being tested + a description of how to reproduce the bug).

Of course, I didn’t bother and immediately uploaded the source code, so anyone who wants can write/rewrite whatever they want.

Everything is on the website (see above) :)

P.S. This is a copy of my message from DF2; I didn't want to retype it in other words.

Hello everyone! ) So, I've gradually worked on my map landscape editor up to the latest update, implemented everything I planned, and even added a small extra set of features. Although, testing all of this took up a good half of the time, and I was constantly writing bug fixes, but now my editor is stable. Now, briefly about the main thing: Link - http://phomm.narod.ru/h3mtered.htm Everything works fine, and it supports any maps (packed and unpacked, normal and mega sizes), and all functions work: brushes, fillers, changers, fill, and copy-paste (the main new features). And, of course, the graphics are made in 3 versions: loading from defs (included with the program), from Heroes of Might and Magic LODs, and pseudo-graphics. A complete readme is included with the program and on my website. I also created an English page on my website for the editor, so now non-Russian speaking visitors are welcome too!!! I also made a small update to my defparser, only the code has been slightly changed, it's not even worth a separate revision (literally, unused but declared variables and minor things have been removed), but I added deflists!! I think I'll create a folder for deflists and a page where they can be downloaded separately, so for these purposes, I'm opening the submission of lists that you create and want to share, feel free to send them to my email! And, of course, I also made an English version of the page for the defparser)) (because it's not right to offer my programs in English and then direct people to my website for updates, but not have an English page). Everything is available on my website, read, look, maybe someone will need it for modding/mapmaking. I continue to work on both programs and, of course, on the website, periodically posting information and useful things. With that, I'll take my leave... your rN

Greetings, Heroes ))

well, after a lot of struggling, I finally made these obstacles !!!

Now, to view the obstacles in my editor, all you have to do is press a button and you can observe their placement on the battlefield in a separate window ))

True, of course, I didn't make it exactly as I wanted, namely, in native graphics... for now there is only etoprostoya's image (big thanks to him for that), onto which black rectangles are placed :-D

Well, and the main thing that hasn't been done yet is the database for barely 800 battlefields.... while by my estimates it should be as many as nearly 400 000 !!!!! (taking into account magical fields, battles simply on water, coasts and boarding, undergrounds and all such things)

Anyway, for now you can enjoy viewing obstacles in the upper left corner area and only for muddy soil...

To compile the database, decent computer power is needed... in terms of time. I haven't achieved any automation yet, and even less so am I reading data from memory, because I don't know where it is; I simply launch the battle via a script and save the obstacles in an ini file. And as for automating the process of moving the mouse in battle to kill 1 peasant, I use the ballista-killer program forum.heroesworld.ru//topic/2326/

Anyway, whoever wants to, please help with filling the database; if you can run it for even one night, maybe five to seven thousand battles could be processed—for instructions, contact me via my details on the site http://phomm.narod.ru/about.htm

And some sad news: in muddy obstacles there are such tricky obstacles (and maybe not only in muddy ones), where a piece of it, while standing on a certain cell, "becomes" an obstacle (is recognized by the script as an obstacle flag and is removed by corresponding magic from that specific cell), but the cell itself is available for placing a fighter; therefore, the layout picture of obstacles is not always accurate...

For dessert, I added multi-language support to the program, with Russification, naturally, tidied up some things here and there—anyway, enjoy )))

http://phomm.narod.ru/h3mtered.htm

With that, I take my leave... your pH

Basically, the obstacle viewing tool for all standard terrain types is now ready: mud, sand, grass, snow, swamp, rocks, underground, lava, and water (currently only supports 1 ship or 2 ships – the hero battle mode is not yet available...).

So, you download the editor and either open a map, find a cell where you're interested in seeing the obstacles on the battlefield, and click the button to view them.

Alternatively, you launch the editor, select the terrain type and two coordinates (x and y) in the corresponding windows, and click the "obstacles" button to view them on the battlefield. This mode is primarily for online players (although there's currently an issue with how to determine the coordinates in the game; a script for TE/VT would be needed, but there's a problem with that in the community).

Here's the link: http://www.phomm.narod.ru/programs/h3mtered.htm. There's also a sample map on the page to show what this whole thing is for.