This is the first page of this tutorial. Page 2Page 3
In this tutorial I will explain how I used the map builder and editor to create a scenario map in Railroad Tycoon 3. As of this writing I have captured the first elements of this mapbuilding quest. This will be a journal which will explain the process, to be wrapped up with concluding commentary. I hope you enjoy ...
Getting the Map Together
You can use the map editor in a number of ways including building from scratch but it's easier to use the MapBuilder tool to select appropriate looking terrain, scaling it to taste to make your fantasy world. You can also try to copy reality to make historically accurate scenarios, which requires some judicious editing beyond the scope of this tutorial. I'll just create a fantasy railroad scenario for this tutorial. Click on the mapbuilder icon (if it's not installed, you can install it from the CD)
I decided I wanted to make a nice valley scene. Looking at the map I selected an area and cropped out a valley surrounded by nice high mountains. This should be beautiful when I'm done.
Since the selected area is fairly large I selected a resolution of 2 to 1 which leaves the final map size 385 x 385 and clicked on Create Map.
Now it's time to get started with the map editor. Launch RT3, go to Extras > Editor and click on New Map. Note that you should press F9 before doing this to get into windowed mode. This is because RT3 will need to use the Explorer browser to find the file you're searching for. It's also nice to be in F9 mode when working with the editor anyway so you can access your destop to keep notes.
Select New Map > From Heightmap and find the file you created with the MapBuilder. The first time I use the default values. If your mountains seem too high or your terrain is too rough try creating a new map several times while adjusting the modifier parameters until you have a realistic looking and workable terrain. In this case I left the overall height modifier at 1, I kept the default 1 value for the mountain top height and left the smoothness modifier at 1.
Great, so now we have a nice valley scene with high mountain peaks. This should make a fairly pretty scene when painted up. I'll begin by making a large lake in the middle and looking around for possible routes into the mountains to smooth a little bit.
Painting the Landscape
To begin painting the lake I clicked on the Paint Terrain icon.
I clicked on Paint oceans, lakes ... and selected Lake Height
Using varying brush sizes starting with the largest and working down I painted a large lake in the middle of the map running off the screen on one side. Now I want to add a river going the rest of the length.
I'm going to do some terrain altering at this point so it's a good time to save the work done so far. I saved the map as "Summer Lake". Now I can experiment with sculpting a bit and always revert to what I have done so far.
We've come pretty far so far in making a realistic scene, we'll continue with landscaping on the next page of this tutorial.
