[How To] Map making with Adobe Photoshop
 

This will walk you through making a map from start to finish using Paint Shop Pro. I have also included EXAMPLE.ZIP which contains a logfile and 3 graphic files you can use to test with. I have also included mapperfr.xml which can be used if you live in France and mapper.xml does not work for you.

Things you will need

1. Perl
2. Inkscape
3. DDS plug-in
4. Blank map (attached to this post)
5. Mapper.xml (attached to this post)

Step One

1. Download and install Perl. Install it to C:\Perl. The reason is because we will be using a Dos command that is limited in how directories are named.
2. Make a folder called C:\Maps. We will be putting our logfile in here.
3. Start Notepad and enter in the following text, c:\Perl\bin\perl "c:\maps\mapper.xml" "c:\maps\logfile.txt" > "c:\maps\map.svg"
4. Save it as Map.bat.

Step Two

1. Goto *\EverQuest II\logs\server\character and rename the logfile that is there. If one is not there, skip this part.
2. Goto *\EverQuest II\cache\ioplans\
3. Start EQ2 and go to the area that you want to map.
4. Create two macros. One will be Location to do the /loc command and Map Line with the command /emote You start new map line.
5. Put those two macros on you button bar so that you can access them easily.
6. Now do a /log which will start a logfile in your *\EverQuest II\logs folder. (It may help to go into your chat settings and turn off everything that you do not want to be recorded)
7. Now go around the room running the Location macro at all corners along the walls.
8. At each break (i.e. a doorway or to stop there and to go start somewhere else), run the Map Line macro.
9. When you are done, do /log again to stop the recording.
10. Write down the file name of the file found in *\EverQuest II\cache\ioplans\ that matches the time/date of when you was making your map. (i.e. qey_village03+qey_adv01_oakmyst.iop)
11. Goto *\EverQuest II\logs\server\character. There you will see your logfile.
12. Copy this logfile to C:\Maps and name it logfile.txt

Step Three

1. Download the attached Mapper.xml and save it to C:\Maps
2. Download the attached map_blank.dds and save it to C:\Maps
3. Click your Window's Start button then select run. Enter in cmd and click OK.
4. Type in C: and press ENTER. Now type in cd maps and press ENTER. You will now be in the C:\Maps directory.
5. Type in map and press ENTER. This will run the map.bat batch file we created earlier.

Step Four

1. Download and install Inkscape.
2. Click File, then Open. Goto your C:\Maps folder and select map.svg. Click OPEN.
3. Press 4
4. Check out your map. If it is not ok, you will have to edit it by hand. This may involve adding a start new mapline in your logfile or editing the graphic it's self. Either way, that is beyond the scope of this How-To.
5. Click File then select Export Bitmap.
6. Select the Drawing button at the top of the window that appeared.
7. In the middle, you will see Bitmap Size, change the largest of the two numbers in that area to 512.
8. Change the filename to C:\Maps\map.png.
9. Click Export

Step Five

1. Download the DDS Plug-in and install it.
2. Start Photoshop
3. Click File then Open. Goto your C:\Maps and select map_blank.dds then click Open.
4. Click File then Open. Goto your C:\Maps and select map.png then click Open.
5. Select the Map.png window. Do a CTRL+A then a CTRL+C (this will select the entire image of map.png and copy it)
6. Select the map_blank.dds window.
7. Press CTRL+V (This will paste your map onto the blank as a new layer.)
8. Press V to select the Move Tool and move your map to the proper place on the blank.
9. If you must resize, press CTRL+T and adjust theW and H on the tool bar. Make sure you keep these the same! (i.e. 95% and 95%)
10. In the Layers Pallet, right click the new layer (Layer 1) and select Duplicate Layer then click OK.
11. Click the eye beside Layer 1 to make it invisible.
12. Click Layer 1 Copy to select it.
13. Press W to select the Magic Wand Tool.
14. At the top, you will see a toolbar for the magic wand tool now.Change the settings to Tolerance: 65, Contiguous and Anti-Alias.
15. Click inside the main wall of your map. A dotted line will appear along all the borders. A shadow will be coming from this dotted line so hold down the SHIFT key and select the areas inside the main wall of your map that you do not want a shadow coming from. As you select these areas, the dotted line that surrounded them will go away.
16. I am still working on the best way to do this.. will update soon!
17. This will have made a shadow going all around your map. Now press F12. Change type to DDS *[*.dds]. Name it map_****.dds where **** is the part of the file name you wrote down earlier (i.e. qey_village03+qey_adv01_oakmyst.iop would be map_qey_adv01_oakmyst.dds) and click Save. Click Yes at the promt.
18. Change format to DXT1 ARGB [1 bit Aplha], 2D Texture, No MIP maps. Click Save
19. Save it as JPG if you want to post a picture of it for people to see.
20. Your done!! :nana:

*** If you want to get the ZONERECT, read on***

Tonyis3l33t has made a great little tool that will figure out the zonerect for you. My only problem was when I tried to use it, it required Excel, which I do not own. Instead, I downloaded the free office suite called Open Office...


Step Six

1. Download eq2log XYZ + Zonerect + Elevation Extractor.
2. Run the script. It will ask you for the logfile's name. Put that in.
3. For the output, make it a slightly different name and end it with .TXT.

Open Office

1. Click File then Open.
2. Change files of type to: Text CSV
3. Select your output file and click open.
4. Under Seperator options, deselect TAB, select OTHER and put in %
5. Click OK.

Excel

1. Go to Data->Import External Data->Import Data
2. Find and open the OUTPUT file
3. Check the Delimited Option, say NEXT
4. Click in the OTHER field, type in %
5. Click Finish, OK

Once the file is loaded, you will see all your /loc. Scroll down to the bottom of these and you will see the zonerect.

Nice guide diztorded but I think you'll like this better...


http://www.eq2interface.com/download...fo.php?id=3936


This gives you crosshairs with the /loc of them. you paste the map onto the background... resize however you want, then use photoshop to get the pixel loc of the crosshairs and enter everything into tacomans calc and you got a really solid zonrect.

Then if you have to slice a map in half..

http://www.eq2interface.com/download...fo.php?id=4162

When I tried to use this for the Vaults map, the crosshairs weren't on anyplace that you can walk to, so they didn't help. I ended up just writing down the image coords of some particular feature in one corner and the opposite corner of the map, then going in game and writing down the in game coords of those locations, and plugging them into taco's tool.

The crosshairs arent sapose to be anywhere you can walk. The game /loc of those corsshairs are written at the bottom of the image by the program. Making for a near perfect zonrect.

Here is an example of a map I'm working on. I added some notes and arrows to explain better. Ofcourse you remove the text and +'s before you send out the map to us.

This is sweet Dolby!! Going to have to try it out then make the changes to my 2 guides. Thanks a ton!

I have some problems with .dds exporting. Tried DXT1 and DXT3 with no difference. Any advice?

Try... DXT1 ARGB [1 bit Aplha], 2D Texture, No MIP maps

tried that with no effect.

What's the problem? Here's a post with some links to a lot of DDS and DXT compression information.
http://www.eq2interface.com/forums/s...9403#post59403

DXT1, DXT3, and DXT5 all compress color information the same way. Use DXT1 if you don't need an alpha channel or a 1 bit alpha channel.

Other apps
 

Is there anyway this can be converted so you can use Macromedia Flash 8 Professional instead of Photoshop?