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Airborne Assault
®
MapMaker Manual
written by
Dave O’Connor
© 2003 Matrix Games and Panther Games All Rights Reserved. Matrix Games and Matrix Games logo are trademarks of Matrix Games and Airborne
Assault- Highway to the Reich is a trademark of Matrix Games and Panther Games. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their
respective owners and Matrix Games and Panther Games make no claim thereto.
Contents
A Brief Introduction 6
What Makes a Map 6
Map Making Steps 6
Getting Started 6
Creating a New Map 6
Starting from Scratch 6
Cropping an Existing Map 7
Extending an Existing Map 8
Joining two existing maps 9
Setting the Map Name 10
Map Effects 10
Generic Effects 10
Layer Effects 11
Drawing the Map 12
Using Bitmap Underlays 12
Area and Line Layers 12
Layer Notes: 13
Area/Line Object Notes: 13
Modifying Individual Points 13
Navigating Points 13
Splitting Lines/Areas 13
Crossings 14
Embankments 15
Text 15
Selecting/Deselecting Map Objects 15
Moving Map Objects 16
Preparing the Map for use 16
Calculating Terrain Tables 16
Checking Terrain Data 16
Calculating Visibility Tables 17
Generating the Map Cache 17
Viewing the Map 18
Showing/Hiding Layers 18
Zooming In and Out 18
Scrolling 18
Grid 18
Movement Table 18
Spot Heights 18
Menus 18
File 18
Edit 18
Draw 19
Map 19
View 19
Window 19
Help 19
Layer List 19
Tools 20
Toolbar 20
Index 21
5
A Brief Introduction Airborne Assault® menu.
6
map, the more time required to determine routes and hence the • Select an appropriate Metres
slower the game play. Per Pixel setting from the View
menu to zoom out so you can
• Set the metres per Altitude Layer.
see the entire map.
Altitude layers equate to contour intervals drawn on a topo-
graphic map. So in effect you are setting the contour interval
being used for the map. The default is 10m as used in the game. Alternately:
The value can be set between 1 and 200 metres. Remember that
• Use the Zoomer tool or
you only have 10 Altitude layers, plus the 0m base, to play with.
Thus setting the value to 10 provides you with the following • Hit the Page Up key a number
altitude layers: of times
0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 meters. To help determine the size of the area
to be cropped:
• Select the OK button.
• Select Show Grid ( Ctrl-G ) from
The screen should now look like this, with a new map window.
the View menu.
Note it’s perfectly flat, like a billiard table. A fresh canvas for you
the map maker.
• Select Map Data ( Ctrl-R ) from the Map menu.
Cropping an Existing Map
To crop an existing map:
• Select Open (Ctrl-O) from the file menu or hit
the Open button on the tool bar.
7
This opens the Map Data dialog, which will display the current • Hit Yes to confirm.
map width and height.
8
• Enter the desired X and Y offsets in metres. WARNING. Ensure you choose Save As rather than Save. Other-
wise you will overwrite your original map.
In the above example we have taken the Beek map and added
8000m to the height. We are going to reposition the map objects
by 5000m from the top. This will effectively add 5km to the top
and 3km to the bottom.
• Hit the OK button to save and close the dialog.
A warning message dialog will ask you to confirm.
• Hit Yes to confirm.
The map should now be cropped.
9
• Select Import Map from the Map menu • Regenerate the map cache – see Generating the Map Cache
• Select Save As from the file menu.
Hey presto – the maps are combined. You may need to spend
some time editing the map objects along the join to ensure they
Generic Effects
are aligned correctly.
• Edit map objects along join. See Drawing the Map
Now that the map has been modified it is very important to
recalculate the terrain and visibility tables and if required to re-
generate the map cache ( this makes drawing the map faster in
the game ). To set the Generic map effects:
• Recalc Terrain and Visibility Tables – see Preparing the • Choose “Map Effects” (Ctrl-M) from the “Map” menu.
10
This dialog controls the non-terrain specific Movement and Vis- Note that the Text, Crossing Points and Altitude layers cannot be
ibility affects. Each figure represents a percentage value from 0% edited. The Layer Data window should open.
to 100%.
• Enter the respective values.
Default Movement Effects – The percentage modifiers apply-
ing to the normal movement speed of motorized and non-mo-
torised units in open terrain.
Visibility Weather Modifiers – Reduces the maximum visibility
distance that a unit can be sighted from based on the current in
game weather.
Visibility Night Modifiers – Reduces the maximum visibility
distance that a unit can be sighted from based on the time of
day.
By default the maximum visibility is 10,000 metres. In heavy rain
this would be reduced to 8,500m during daylight ( 10,000 x 0.85
) and to 6375m if it were still raining at dusk ( 10,000 x 0.85 x
Name – You can change the name of the Layer. This appears in
0.75 ).
the game on the Unit Info display of a selected unit.
• Click OK to save the new affects settings.
Height – This is the hight in metres of the feature above the nor-
mal ground level. The height at any spot on the map depends on
Layer Effects the underlying Altitude layer. When calculating line of sight ( LOS
To set the effects specific to each map layer: ) the height of any overlying terrain is also taken into account, i.e.
tall trees can block the LOS. So for LOS purposes height = alti-
• Select the desired layer from the Layer list in the Side Bar. tude height + object height. Eg. For a city on an altitude layer of
• Select the Layer Data ( Ctrl-L ) from the Map menu 50m, the LOS height would be 64m ( 50 + 14 ).
Distance Visibility
0 100%
100 80%
200 60%
Etc Etc
11
Drawing the Map Four Bitmap Files:
0 1
Using Bitmap Underlays 2 3
There are two ways you can approach drawing a Map, freehand
(using your imagination) or using a scanned image of an exist-
ing ( source ) map displayed in the MapMaker as a “Bitmap Un- Sixteen Bitmap Files:
derlay”.
When the “Bitmap Underlay” option is activated it will draw the 0 1 2 3
bitmap image of your source map under all the other layers of 4 5 6 7
the map. It is much easier to create your map by tracing over
an existing source map image than it is to create a realistic map
8 9 10 11
with no guidance. 12 13 14 15
To use an underlay: Note there are programs, such as PaintShop Pro 8’s Image Slicer,
that will automatically split a file into a specified number of sec-
• Scan your source map. tions.
• Crop, rotate and enhance it till you have an image repre- Once you Bitmap file(s) are created and in place:
senting the area you intend to map.
• Select “Bitmap Underlay” from the “Map” menu to toggle
IMPORTANT - Crop your map to the actual size of your map in the display of the Underlay Bitmap.
meters. Eg. if the map height and width are 10,000 x 8,000m,
make sure that the bitmap underlay is of an area measuring If your bitmaps have been correctly set up the image of your
10,000 x 8,000m. underlay will now appear. If the map remains blank (white), then
check you Directory and File names.
Remember that the MapMaker rounds Maps to the nearest
64 meters. It does not matter how big your bitmap is in pixels, Note that to speed up drawing while using the bitmap underlay,
as the MapMaker will scale it to cover the whole of the maps the map objects are drawn using non-textured patterns. So the
area. However, having said that, the higher the resolution of the map will look little different while drawing. However, once the
bitmap underlay the more accurate your tracing can be. For the bitmap underlay is turned off they will return to the normal tex-
preparation of the original maps used in the Game we scanned tures. This has no effect on the textures used in the Game.
the maps at 300 dpi and then scaled them so that each pixel You are now ready to start drawing your map
represented 4m.
• Save your image as a Bitmap (“*.bmp”) file. It must be
named “MapScan 0.bmp”.
Area and Line Layers
There are two types of layer, Area layers which are drawn as poly-
Note the space between MapScan and the 0. gons, and Line layers which are drawn as, well, lines.
• If necessary, Create a directory called “MapScans” in your
Airborne Assault®” directory. Area Layers Line Layers
• Place the MapScan 0.bmp file in the MapScans directory. Fort Ferry
Industrial Heavy Road Bridge
If your Bitmap file is large you may find the drawing performance
Factory Medium Road Bridge
in the MapMaker suffers. To increase performance:
Village Light Road Bridge
• Break up the original scan into four or 16 smaller bitmap
Town Highway
files.
City Road
The options are to break the image into 1, 4 or 16 Bitmap files. Orchard Minor Road
The names of these files must be “MapScan 0.bmp”, “MapScan
Heide Track
1.bmp” etc. The numbering starts in the top left hand corner of
the map and works its way across then down. Woods Rail Bridge
Light Woods Rail
One Bitmap File:
Major River Dike
0 Lake Stream
Airfield Minor Stream
12
Marsh The Factory layer has been selected;
Broken any drawing will draw a new Factory
Polder area object.
Altitude Layers To set the type of points to draw (Cor-
ner or Control ):
Examples of Area and Line layer objects. • Choose “Corner Points” or “Con-
trol Points” from the “Draw”
menu. The default is “Corner
Points”.
• Select one of the two drawing tools
Standard Draw Tool – each click adds one more point
Continuous Draw Tool – holding the mouse down and
dragging will add extra points automatically allowing
Layer Notes: freehand drawing of Areas and Lines
1. The 0 Altitude layer cannot be drawn, it is the base layer
of the map and always covers the whole map. • Click (or Click and Drag) until all the points needed for
the object have been added
2. Altitude layers are drawn under all other layers, higher
altitudes on top. • Hit the “enter” (numeric key pad) key and the new object
3. The height at any location is the highest altitude at that will be deselected and drawn as it will appear in the
location. Game and ScenMaker
4. Altitude layers are always drawn as a solid pattern. • Repeat for each object to be added to the map.
5. Other Area layers are drawn using transparent pat-
terns. Modifying Individual Points
• Select the Area/Line object to be modified
Area/Line Object Notes: • Click on the Point to be modified (it will be displayed as
1. Both types of objects are created as a series of points. either a hollow Square or Circle)
2. These points can be either Corner Points or Control • Press Backspace or Del or “.” to delete the point
Points.
3. Corner Points are displayed as Squares and result in • Ctrl-T to toggle point from Corner to Control
straight lines and edges. • Drag the point to move it.
To incrementally move the selected point:
• Hit one of the number keys.
Hitting 8 will move the point north, 9 north east, 6 east, 3 south
east, 2 south, 1 south west, 4 west and 7 north west. In other
words, in the same direction as the keys are laid out on the nu-
4. Control Points are displayed as Circles and result in meric keypad.
curved lines and edges
Navigating Points
To navigate around the points in an object:
• Select a point
• Hit Left Arrow to select the previous point
• Hit Right Arrow to select the next point
Drawing Area/Line Objects
Splitting Lines/Areas
To select the type of object to draw:
To split a line or Area object:
• Click on its layer in the Sidebar
• Select the point where you want to split
13
• Select Split line/Area from the Draw menu • Drag the bottom right corner of the movement table
window to expand the window.
• Deselect the object
• Select it again
Note that you now only get a subset of the previous object.
Crossings
Major River and Lake layers are impass-
able. They can only be traversed at a
Crossing. There are five types of crossing,
namely a Ferry, Light, Medium and Heavy
Road Bridges and a Rail Bridge.
Technically, you can place Crossings any-
where. Each one will produce a crossing
point icon when it appears in the Game
and ScenMaker. Too many produce a
cluttered looking map, so restrict their
use to where they are really needed. A valid crossing should show a grey or black contiguous line
from one side of the river to the other. The pixels that make up
IMPORTANT – Once you have drawn your map you must ensure
the line can be diagonally adjoining, but there must be no gaps,
that the crossings actually works. To do so:
otherwise the crossing is invalid.
• Calculate the terrain tables – see Calculating Terrain Data
• Select Show Movement Table from the Map menu.
14
• Extend the crossing line on one or both sides.
• Change the angle of the crossing line.
• Reshape the River object by moving its points.
Embankments
Any line object (Road, Rail or River) can have an embankment
added to it. Depending on the value entered, the embankment
either raises the line object above ( eg 3m ) or lowers it below (
eg –3m ) the current altitude by the height of the embankment.
A negative value in effect creates a cutting. A line object with an
embankment is drawn with a grey line down each side.
• Select a line object.
• Enter the text in the Text field.
Note that you may have to split the line if you just want to em-
bank a segment of it. See - Splitting Lines/Areas. This is what appears on the map. To specify the text style param-
eters:
• Choose “Line Embankment” from the “Map” menu
• Either select one of the predefined styles from the Style
popup menu or by specifying the individual style com-
ponents
Font – The font the text will be drawn with.
Style – Select any combination of styles.
• Enter the height of the Embankment
Point Size – These drop down lists let you choose the size of the
• Select OK to close the window text at each of the six different map zoom levels. Setting a size of
0 will stop the text being drawn at that scale.
• Hit the Enter key to deselect the line.
Whatever settings you specify here will be saved and used as the
default next time you enter text.
• Select OK to save and display your new text.
To edit existing text:
• Select the text to be Edited
• Hit the Enter key (NOT the numeric keypad Enter key)
The above dialog will appear.
• Make your changes
• Select OK.
15
• Choose “Multi-Layer Select” from the “Edit” menu. Checking Terrain Data
• Click on the desired object. After calculating the Terrain Tables you MUST check that all lo-
cations on the Map are reachable from all other locations. This
The first object under the location you clicked will be selected
check is needed as the route finding code in the game depends
on the map and its layer will be selected in the Side Bar as well.
on this being true. To check:
To select all the objects of the current layer:
• Choose Show Movement Table from the Map menu.
• Choose Select All ( Ctrl-A ) from the Edit menu.
If any locations are not reachable then the following message
To deselect: will appear.
• Select a new object or
• Select a new layer or
• Press the “enter” (numeric key
pad) key
• Click OK.
Note that once you deselect an area object its texture fill is re-
drawn.
The MapMaker will then calculate the terrain data for your map.
This may take a few seconds, more on a slow machine or if the
map is really large.
IMPORTANT – If you have changed a map then before using it
in the Game or ScenMaker you MUST Recalculate the Terrain
Tables.
16
In order to create a valid map, you must change this area of
the Map until there are no red locations – ie everything is ei-
ther reachable or impassable. In other words, no unreachable
islands.
To achieve this: This can take some time. Large maps can take a few minutes,
• Edit one or more objects to create a clear traversable even longer on slow machines
path.
• Recalc the Terrain Tables Generating the Map Cache
• Show the revised Movement Table When the Map is displayed in the Game, or the ScenMaker, it can
be drawn using two different methods.
1. On the fly – requires less disk space but is slower.
2. Using a Cache – faster but requires more disk space.
If you wish to increase the drawing performance for you map
then you must first generate a Map Cache file, this must be
done each time you change the Look of your map, or the Map
displayed will not be the map you drew. To do so:
• Choose Generate Map Draw Cache from the Map menu.
Note you can have any number of Movement Tables open at the
one time.
Another option for providing a traversable path to the island in
the middle of the lakes would be to create a crossing.
• Ensure the Generate Antialias Map Cache is ticked.
It is ticked by default. Only turn this option off if you are really
short of disk space. This option smooths lines and edges and
generally looks better.
• Specify the map cache file name and location.
While you can choose to write the cache to any location/file name
you want, it will only be used in the Game or ScenMaker if it is
located in the Maps directory and is called “MyMap.aam.cache”,
where your map file is called “MyMap.aam”.
• Select OK
In the above example we have used a ferry.
17
Once complete, the map cache is then ready for use. • Select Show Grid from the Map menu
18
Draw • 32 Meters Per Pixel ( Ctrl-2 )
• Corner Points – Points added to Lines/Areas will be cor- • 16 Meters Per Pixel ( Ctrl-3 )
ner points, produces straight Lines and Area borders
• 8 Meters Per Pixel ( Ctrl-4 )
• Control Points – Points added to Lines/Areas will be con-
• 4 Meters Per Pixel ( Ctrl-5 )
trol points, point acts as a Bezier control point producing
a curved Line or Area border • 2 Meters Per Pixel ( Ctrl-6 )
• Toggle Point Type (Ctrl-T) – Toggles currently selected • Toolbar – Show/Hide
point between a Corner and Control point
• Status Bar – Show/Hide
• Join Lines – Joins two selected lines
• Tools – Show/Hide
• Split Line/Area – Select a non end point of a line/area
• Layers – Show/Hide
and use it to break the line/area in half. Warning: Areas
cannot be joined
• Simplify Lines/Areas – Removes points of a Line/Area in Window
an attempt to reduce their complexity, tends to straight- Provides standard Window menu features.
en Lines and Area borders. Helpful to make map drawing
faster when there is no cache available. Help
Shows about box.
Map
Layer List
• Map Name – see Setting the Map Name
• Map Data – used to resize and reposition the map size and to
change the metres per altitude – see Creating a New Map
• Map Effects (Ctrl-M) – see Generic Effects
• Import Map – see Joining two existing maps.
• Layer Data (Ctrl-L) – Edit current Layer’s Movement and Visibil-
ity Effects – see Layer Effects
• Line Embankment – see Embankments
• Calculate Terrain Tables – see Calculating Terrain Tables
• Calculate Visibility Tables – see Calculating Visibility Tables
• Generate Map Draw Cache Tables – See Generating the Map
Cache
• Show Movement Tables – see Checking Terrain Data
• Show Height Map – see Spot Heights
• Bitmap Underlay (Ctrl-U) – see Using Bitmap Underlays
• Bitmaps Across – How many Bitmap files make up the Underlay,
1, 2 x 2, 4 x 4 - see Using Bitmap Underlays
View
• Zoom In ( PgDn )
• Zoom Out ( PgUp )
• Display All Layers ( Ctrl-E )
• Hide All Layers ( Ctrl-H ) • Lists all the layers that make up the Map.
• 64 Meters Per Pixel ( Ctrl-1 ) • Double clicking a layer opens its Layer Data dialog.
19
Tools Toolbar
• Arrow – Used to select objects on the Map, Areas, Lines, • New – Creates a new Map
Text
• Open – Open an existing map
• Draw – Used to draw single Area and Line points and to
• Save – Save the Map
add new Text items
• About – Displays the About Box
• Continuous Draw – Used to draw multiple Area and Line
points and also new Text items
• Magnify – Zoom In, Zoom Out (when holding Ctrl key
down) the Map
• Grabber – Grab the map and scroll around
Keyboard Shortcuts
Left Arrow Select previous point
Right Arrow Select Next point
Backspace Delete
Del Delete
Enter (Numeric Keypad) Deselects the currently selected Area, Line or Text object.
Enter Opens Edit Text dialog for currently selected Text object.
Page Up Zoom Out
Page Down Zoom In
Print Screen copy the current screen to the clipboard
Space ( while held down ) Activates Grabber tool – left click and drag to scroll map
Ctrl-1 to 6 Zoom Map, 1 = 64 meters per pixel, 6 = 2 meters per pixel.
Ctrl-A Select All
Ctrl-D Deselect All
Ctrl-E Display All Layers
Ctrl-G Show Map Grid
Ctrl-H Hide All Layers
Ctrl-L Open Layer Data for currently Selected Layer.
Ctrl-M Open Map Effects window
Ctrl-N New map
Ctrl-O Open map
Ctrl-R Open Map Data window
Ctrl-S Save map
Ctrl-T Toggle Selected Point Type between Corner and Control Points.
Ctrl-U Toggle display of Underlay Bitmap
Ctrl-Y Redo
Ctrl-Z Undo
1 Incrementally move selected point south west
2 Incrementally move selected point south
3 Incrementally move selected point south east
4 Incrementally move selected point west
6 Incrementally move selected point east
7 Incrementally move selected point north west
8 Incrementally move selected point north
9 Incrementally move selected point north east
. Delete
20
Index N
navigate 13
A new map 6, 7, 8
Night 11
Altitude 6, 7, 11, 13
Area layers 12, 13 O
B offsets 8, 9
Bitmap Underlay 12, 19 R
C repositioning 8
resizing 8
Cache 6, 8, 9, 10, 17, 19 Route Tool 14
Continuous Draw Tool 13
contour 7 S
Control Points 13, 19, 20
Corner Points 13, 19 source map 12
Cropping 6, 7, 9 split 12, 13, 15
Crossings 14 spot heights 18
Standard Draw Tool 13
D Style 15
deselect 15, 16 T
E terrain 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16
Terrain Tables 16, 17, 18, 19
embankment 15 Text 6, 11, 15, 16, 20
Estabs 6 traversable path 17
Extending 6, 8, 9
V
F
visibility 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 17
file name 10, 17 Visibility Reduction Per 100m 11
Visibility Tables 8, 9, 10, 17, 19
G
W
Grabber 18, 20
Grid 7, 18, 19, 20 Weather 11
H Z
Height 8, 11, 18, 19 Zoomer 7, 18
Hit Effect 11
I
import 10
J
Joining 6, 9, 19
L
Layer Data 11, 19, 20
Line layers 12
M
map cache 8, 9, 10, 17, 18
Map Data 7, 8, 19, 20
Map Effects 6, 10, 11, 19, 20
Map Objects 6, 15, 16
Movement Effect 11
Movement Effects 11
movement grid 14
Movement Table 14, 16, 17, 18
21
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© 2003 Matrix Games and Panther Games All Rights Reserved. Matrix Games and Matrix Games logo are trademarks of Matrix Games and Airborne
Assault- Highway to the Reich is a trademark of Matrix Games and Panther Games. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their
respective owners and Matrix Games and Panther Games make no claim thereto.