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PostPosted: Tue Nov 26, 2002 4:53 pm 
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Chapter 2: Getting started and requirements

Photoshop vs. everything else
The programs I use are not the only programs you can use. I use Photoshop 7.0, and such, it's written for it. You can use Paintshop Pro if you want, but many of the commands and techniques you'll have to figure out how to do what I describe in Photoshop. Why do I use Photoshop? Mainly because I've used it since version 3, and I'm used to it. Yes, it's an expensive program, but I consider it the best. There are other programs you can use as well. Gimp is a free program that I've played with a little and it does work, but the learning curve is rather steep on it. I.Mage is yet another free program you can use. It's rather low end, but work very well for what we are doing. I use it on occasion when I need to do detail work as the zoom feature is excellent. A program I do not recommend is MSPaint. It can be used if you absolutely must, but you'll find it's severely lacking in control of what you can do.

Using the correct color mode
The map you'll be creating is going to be an indexed, 256 color (8-bit), uncompressed bitmap (bmp). This format is required as Dragon, the converter program that actually creates your map0.mul file that is used in game, requires this format. One of the first problems people run into is they start out with a full color (24-bit) bmp. This will cause problems, as there are too many colors in the bmp that Dragon cannot do anything with. It is very important to start with the correct colors, to prevent having to completely redo the bmp. I'll cover this more later.

Layers
Some people use a feature of Photoshop that can be quite handy when working with the bmp. Layers can allow you to keep areas of the map intact while you draw other things over them. For example, you may have a grass island, but want to paint mountains over it. If you have one layer as the grass, and another layer for the mountains, you don't have to worry about repainting grass if you change the mountains. I think of it as an extra strength undo mode. Then when you are finished you can combine the layers and save it in the correct format. While this has advantages, I personally do not use it since you cannot use the correct color table to prevent incorrect colors bring painted. Only by being extremely careful can you make sure you have the correct colors. Layers only works in true color (24-bit) mode so this is one extra thing to worry about.

Pencil vs. paintbrush and anti-aliasing
I also recommend using the pencil tool in Photoshop and using the paintbrush can cause problems as well. When using the paintbrush, it will automatically blend the edges of what ever you are painting. This is called anti-aliasing, and has the possibility to create errors on the map. Anti-aliasing is basically the smooth edges that are created in a picture when you look at it on the computer. It's useful for photographs to eliminate choppy edges. That being said, it's a BAD thing for creating the bmp for a map. Compare the below side by side "islands" You'll notice that the left side is smooth, which actually looks better than the one on the right.
Image
Here's a close up. You can see that by using colors that are "close" you can blend the colors of the item and its background to create a much better looking picture.
Image
The bad thing about all this is that those colors that make up the blend may not be colors that Dragon can use when you convert the map. If they are correct colors though, you'll end up with weird errors in the map. Having anti-aliasing on when you paint will create these extra colors resulting in a messed up map, which, of course you don't want. The easiest way to prevent anti-aliasing is to use the pencil tool in Photoshop. Additionally, the Magic Wand, Marquee, and Lasso tools have an option in the toolbar for turning it on and off. Make sure the checkbox is de-selected to turn it off.

Actions
In my Dragon mod 9 there are actions that you can use to get started with Photoshop. I highly recommend using them as they can prevent many problems with starting out in creating a map. You can access the actions by opening the Actions window from the menu: Window -> Action. Once that window is open, you'll see a round right facing arrow in the upper left of that window. Click on that arrow and a menu will appear. Select "Load Actions..." or "Replace Actions..." and browse to where my "mapactions.atn" is (in the Dragon/addon folder). Once the actions are loaded you can do several things. "Map Template mod 9" is the first one you'll want to use. It will create the correct sized bmp, and set the colors correctly. The second one to use would be "Set Oceans and Dungeon Areas" as this will put the proper regions on your new map. I highly recommend using the standard sized dungeon areas as the OSI clients that your players will use do not technically support anything other than this. If you do not use the standard dungeon size, then you'll end up with a black unwalkable area in-game where the dungeon border is supposed to be. Two other actions that use on a regular basis are contract, expand and smooth. I've assigned these as hotkeys to F2, F3 and F4 respectively. These are useful for selecting areas and manipulating them. I'll cover there uses in the appropriate areas.

Brushes
I've also included the brushes that I use on a regular basis. You can get to them the same way as the actions above, except through the Brushes window. Some of these you may find useful, or not.

System Requirements
While technically any version of Windows is acceptable, and even the slowest computer is able to run Dragon, there is some basic requirements that I recommend. These are based on my previous experiences using Dragon. Anything less than 128MB Ram you might run into problems with Dragon being able to finish. As Dragon loads everything into memory, it can be very intensive on your computer. A typical run of Dragon will use over 100MB of Ram. The bmp is 24MB, and the map0.mul is 74MB. It will also need to load scripts into memory as well (although it only loads one at a time). The other factor is the speed of your computer. This isn't as important as the ram, but it helps considerably in the time it takes to finish the process. On my computer (AMD 1.5 GHz, 768 Ram) it takes about 4 minutes to complete a full map. The less you have on your map, of course the shortly it will take. I used to run Dragon on a PII 266 with 192 MB ram and it took about 20 to 30 minutes to convert the map. Disk space is the last factor to consider. This really isn't much of a factor as Dragon needs a map0 file to use (it cannot create its own) but the main thing is if you keep backup copies of you map as you work, that 24MB for each map. I typically go through 15 to 20 revisions of a map before it is "finished" but I'm a backup freak.

Setting up Photoshop
If you've not already opened Photoshop, now is the time to do so. As explained above, loading and using the actions makes getting started quite easy. However, here are the details for starting out manually.
Create a new document. (File ->New)
Set the size of the document (Width: 6144 pixels; Height: 4096 pixels; Resolution: 72 pixels/inch; Mode:RGB Color; Contents: White)
Convert to indexed color and load the color table. (Menu: Image -> Mode -> Indexed Color... ; In the Indexed color window: Palette: Custom... ; This will bring up another window: Load: Find "dargon-mod9.aco" in the Dragon/addon folder and select that; load; OK; OK.)
Open the Swatch file for the palette or load the colortable-mod9.bmp to use as a visual reference.
Set the Ocean and Dungeon areas. (Using the Info palette, select from x:5120 to the entire right, completely from top to bottom. Fill the selected area with Black 0. Invert selection (Ctrl-Shift-I) and fill the other area with Water -5)

As you can see it's much easier to use the actions if possible. (However I'll expand this description better later on. Refer to the old tutorial for now, if needed)

You are now ready to start painting. This will be covered in Chapter 3.


Last edited by Ryandor on Tue Dec 03, 2002 8:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Wed Nov 27, 2002 4:34 pm 
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I received a question at www.runuo.com related to starting colors and elevations of water and grass. Here's my answer (mainly so it gets put into the final tutorial):

Water -5 is the "level" that allows boats to be able to travel on water. This is how it is on OSI, and most emulators, by default (unless programmed or scripted differently.

As for grass, again, you can use whatever z you like, and in fact I use 0 as just a starting point. But as you'll see in later chapters, I use a lot of different elevations for the land, as a flat landscape is boring.

Also, Dragon is designed to create coastlines at that z level. As on the OSI map, coastline transitions look better with a difference of 5 z between the grass and coast.


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