East Cavalry Field conversion to Spain

I have started map modding with baby steps. I've taken the 2.5 mile East Cavalry Field map from Gettysburg which we've ported over to Waterloo and we already have a Spanish-themed minimap for it.

I started by deleting all the American style fences. Next I began replacing the colonial pattern buildings with Mediterranean-looking ones from Crikey's Italy and Crimea maps. I've previously sought and obtained Crikey's permission to use his objects in any KS map-modding project.

Here's a new farm complex depicting the holdings of a fairly affluent farmer.



[See location 1 on the map]

Next, the small hamlet of Seza has become a larger town with a sizeable church:



[See location 2 on the map]

Last significant change so far, a peasant small holding:



[See location 3 on the map]

Main map:



I have only used objects from the Crimea and Italy mods so far but I have run into my first problem - the Italy buildings use the shadow lighting system; the Crimea ones do not, so some buildings are brightly lit from all directions while others are very dark from some directions. I presume we need to access the 3D model properties to change this? Or can we do so via the map editor tools?

Shadow variations:



After I've finished with buildings and bridges, changing the ground textures is the next task. After that, vegetation.

Those look quite good and a nice improvement over what we currently have. Maybe the shadowing can be adjusted when you right click on a selected building and select properties. Regardless, it's certainly not a show stopper.

I'd like to fix it if I can. The effect is more apparent in-game: the "day-glo" church looks like its lit up by the love of God among a town of sinners!

I will continue to investigate.

Further down my list is to make the churches and the walled farms into forts but that's not a priority task. Its also important to leave some space among the buildings in towns. The settlements need clutter as well... so much to do...

I seem to have found my modding niche! I am enjoying this a lot and find it very easy, though time-consuming. I have done a lot of "world-building" style work in train simulators between 2000 and 2010 and making battlefields in SoW is a very similar experience, almost identical in fact.

I have now replaced all the American buildings on ECF with Spanish/Italian style ones. Phil, if you are looking for bridges there are two excellent ones -one in the Crimea.dat file and one in the Italy.dat file. I know you have these as we played an MP game with Miko on an Italian map some months ago and the Crimea.dat file ships with the Spanish Montana Segrada and Rio Espanol maps. The bridges are "Sp_bridge" and "SP_Bridge2". I've put jpegs of their appearance in the Dropbox object library/bridges section.

I have made some alterations to a few other settlements. Kevin, I have made up a new minimap and would ask if you can add new names and courier locations for the 3 new settlements numbered 4, 5 and 6.

Some pics of progress:

Penalva rebuilt. This is the scene of many fights on this map over the two river crossings. The new Spanish bridges fit in very well.



[See location 7 on the map]

Lerida rebuilt:



[See location 8 on the map]

Part of the new Balaguer (now with front steps to houses!)



[See location 9 on the map]

Seza changed a bit by removing the day-glo church and substituting another. Clutter now added (church yard wall, carts, water pump, horse troughs, boxes and baskets):



[See location 2 on the map]

The farm complex in the south-centre finished:



[See location 1 on the map]

Minimap:

Great what you are doing here, Martin.

I presume we can't get access to the Waterloo buildings? What buildings has Mark used for his Mickel map and could we get hold of them?

Mike

Hi Mike. Thanks for your comments.

Yes, all the WL buildings are available. My conversion uses them as reskinned by Crikey for his Italy maps. In one of the pics below you'll see the very useful Waterloo stone bridge that gets used at Plancenoit and other places. Mark used the WL buildings unchanged for Meckel. There are also snowy-roofed versions Crikey converted for his Smolensk map so we have a good library of things to choose from. We can probably cover most regions of mainland Europe except for Germany with its typical half-timbered steeply pitched roofed buildings. I've approached someone in the modding community to enquire if they could make us a few of that type.

We played a game on the map last night which helped me to see a few building placement errors I can tidy up. There's a few more things I want to do to the map but it was mostly a project to learn how to work with maps so I'm not going to spend too much time on it.