[Guide] Dasde's Grand Master Guide to Custom Ingame Maps menu

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    dasde's Avatar Active Member
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    [Guide] Dasde's Grand Master Guide to Custom Ingame Maps

    Dasde's Grand Master Guide to Custom Ingame Maps
    -Warning, this guide has a lot of text, if you cant be arsed to read dont read this tutorial-
    -This is also my first guide here, so some of the info may be obvious, and some of it may not be-


    Table of Contents:


    1. Intro
    2. Ingame Cartographs
    3. Making the map
    4. Technical Part
    4.1 DBC Editing
    4.2 Getting things into WoW
    5. Outro


    1. Intro

    This guide is written to work with patch 3.3.5a, but looking at the DBC files it looks like it will work for 4.0.6 as well, but it isnt tested.

    First of all, you want to find out what to create a map for, a custom zone, map for Azshara Crater, it could be anything. You also need a bit of skill in any image-editing software, it could be Adobe Photoshop, but if you don’t have the money I suggest you download the free alternative called Paint.Net, which works just as good for this. In this tutorial I’ll be using Adobe Photoshop.

    2. Ingame Cartographs

    To make everything easier I recommend you download this tool called Machinima Tool from madx.dk

    http://www.madx.dk/files/WMT_3.3.5_Release.rar

    Now, you need this because it will be easier to create your ingame map, when you have a cartographic map, basicly the same kind of map you see in your minimap, just bigger.
    So, set up a private server with a repack (Download here), logon Grim, and go to the vey middle of your zone, and now fire up CameraTool.exe in the Machinima Tool folder.



    Click on C-Environment, then click on Enable in left hand corner, click on Fog Density and set it to 0.
    Now go into your World of Warcraft again, wait until it has reloaded, now do the following.
    Type in: .gm fly on
    After that type: .modify fly 10
    And now fly from the middle of your zone all the way up and take pictures so you have the entire zone covered.



    3. Making the Map

    Now get your screenshot into your image-editing software, and tweak it a bit so you don’t have too much of other zones.
    First of all, you need some dimensions for your map, the dimensions are: 677 in Height and 1002 in Width, don’t look at me, I don’t make the dimensions, but hell yeah they are weird.
    When you create your map, there are a few “rules” to follow:
    Roads are painted with a 5 pixel radius brush with a small outline in black.
    I prefer to write place-names (towns, not zone names) with the font called “Lifecraft” pulled a little in every edge, the text itself is brown-ish with a yellow glow.
    Zone names are written with “Lifecraft” again, but without a yellow glow, but a slight white one.
    (If anyone find the actual font used for Blizzards stock maps, please give me the name, thank you)
    Make sure you line up the roads going into the zone with the roads from the zones surrounding it.

    After this you make a new layer, call it Highlight, and then begin to paint with a dark-green color, in hex: #295421, on the parts you want to be highlighted when your mouse hovers over it. You want to paint with a bit lowered opacity, it could be 20% perhaps.

    4.0 Technical Part

    Now when you have created your map, the creativeness is over, now you need to actually import it into the game.
    Hide your Highlight Layer, and saver it for later uses.
    First off, you will need to edit your canvas in your image-editing software to 1024 in Height and 1024 in Width, move your picture to the very to, and then left corner, like this:



    Now you will need to download this picture (Download Here) and place it onto a new layer above your map to divide the picture into 12 squares of equal size, 256 in height and 256 in width. This means you will have a little transparent edge on the right side of your map, and some transparent edge in the bottom 4 pieces. The way you do this is to place the 256x ref image side by side on new layers, until the whole map is covered up, then you basicly hide the layers step-by-step and move the revealed pieces of your original map to new layers.
    Now take you Highlight layer, save it to a new image in the original format you made in the image-editing software, which means, a 1024 in Height and 1024 in Width layer. Save it for later use.
    Then after that you crop your canvas to 256x256, and save them as individual images in PNG format, you name them like this: “ZoneNameSquarenumber.png”, here is an example “Awesomezone1.png” (don’t used the “ in the name). To determine what squarenumber you plugin, you look at the picture like this:



    Now, do you remember your Highlight layer?, I hope you do, open it in your image-editing software. Now, resize your whole image to 128 in Height and 128 in Width. You want to fill the whole part that isn’t painted with black, just paint a new layer underneath it. Save it like this: “ZonenameHighlight.png”, here is an example: “AwesomezoneHighlight.png” (again, don’t use the “in the name).
    Lets recap, now you will have a bunch of pictures, that’s okay, save it in a folder called the name of your zone. Also your folder should look like this:



    If it doesn’t, you’ve done something wrong (of cause, don’t mind I called my zone Awesomezone)

    Now lets make sure you actually can see your zone on your Azeroth map. To make this you will have to pick your creativity up again and open Adobe Photoshop or Paint.Net again.
    Now download this file: Download Here
    Now when you open it in your software, just start painting onto a new layer where your zone is, I would prefer to import the Highlight file your made earlier to make the process easier.



    So, I expanded Stranglethorn Vale for the purpose of the tutorial. Now, like you did with your zone map, you want to cover this picture with the 256x ref image. After you’ve done that, cut the picture into separate pictures of 256 in height and 256 in width.

    So you picture will end up looking like this when you have placed every ref image (the green ones are the ones I edited)



    Now again, you begin to hide every layer you pasted the ref image on, and then go back to your map picture and cut that piece out and save it as a new file. Because this is the the Eastern Kingdoms map, you call the files “AzerothNumber.png”, like this: “Azeroth1.png”. One thing that could make the process easier is to only save the green parts, which really is the only ones you need, but call them, in my case “Azeroth9.png” and “Azeroth10.png”. Basicly, the first block in the upper left corner is number 1, the one to the right is 2, next one is 3, next is 4, the next line in the left side is number 4, and so on.
    Save your map pieces in a folder called Azeroth (because this is the Eastern Kingdoms map)

    4.1 DBC Editing

    If your ingame map is an edit of a zone that already exists, skip to part 4.2!
    Now it is time for the even more technical thing. DBC-editing, yes you are probably close to vomit at this point, just the word makes me vomit. But I let you listen to this music while we go through the process step by step:

    [spoiler]

    And to people like |HypnoToad| Who doesnt like that kind of music , then there is something for you:

    [/spoiler]

    First off you will need a decent DBC editor, I use one that is called Taillis
    Download here
    Another thing you need is an MPQ extractor, for that we uses, Ladik’s MPQ Editor

    Download here


    So, open up Ladik’s MPQ Editor



    Now you want to find you World of Warcraft 3.3.5a directory, go into \Data\ and open up locale-enUS.MPQ (or enGB if you are European or anything similar)

    At the left hand side of the software click DBFilesClient



    Now you want to right click on the following files and click Extract:
    AreaTable.dbc
    WorldMapArea.dbc

    Now close Ladik’s MPQ Editor and go to where you downloaded the software to, go into the folder, go into Work, and then DBFilesClient

    Now we need Taillis, open up Taillis with the file called “start_for_windows_dummies.cmd” This will open a CMD window DO NOT CLOSE THIS, and then another window with the actual software. When the software is open, click on File->Open pick the file called AreaTable.dbc you just extracted.
    Now you will have something like this:



    You will see a ton of numbers, and damm, just replay your music I gave to you and move on.
    Scroll to the very bottom of the list and right-click on the last row and click “Clone selected Row”. Now you have a clone of that row, we want to edit it.
    At the first column called ID, you want to edit the number 6026 to 6027 (or whatever column ID you duplicated), the next column called MapName you want to input 0 if the you zone map is located in Eastern Kingdoms, 1 if it is in Kalimdor, 571 if it is in Northrend, and 530 if it is Outland. The next column called ParrentArea you basicly just put in 0 if it is a completely new zone, and nothing if it is a zone in a zone, like Trade District in Stormwind, the next column called #3 you type in 617. The next column you plug in 64 (I have no idea what else to plug in, but It works for me). The next 5 columns is to be ignored, they are used if you want music to your zone, but that would make you able to remember some numbers I don’t know.
    The 11th column though is for which level the zone is made for, type in 0 if it is a zone within a zone. Now the next column is where you put in the zone name. That’s it, now you can save AreaTable.dbc
    Now it is time for the WorldMapArea.dbc file, open that one in Taillis.
    First you will go into World of Warcraft again, which means, fire up your private server and login on Grim again. Now fly to the place where you want the mouse to be able to highlight the area on the map, this basicly means, the lower right corner of that square that defines your area. Try to look at this picture:



    Here I’ve made a box around Swamp of Sorrows, now I recommend you do the same to your map, now fly to the point marked as 1 and do the following:
    Type in: .gps



    Now you get a buttload of numbers, what you need to write down is the X number, in my case -9967.62, and the Y number, in my case -2363.25. Now do the same to the lower right corner. Call those numbers for X2 and Y2.
    Now you can close wow and the private server again. Go into Taillis again and go into the table of WorldMapArea.dbc.



    Now, like everything you edit, you want to clone the last row. First change the ID in column #0, simply add 1 to it. Next column you type in 0 if it is in Eastern Kingdoms, 1 if it is in Kalimdor, 571 if it is in Northrend, and 530 if it is Outland. The next column, column #2 you put in the same number as the number in the ID column in AreaTable.dbc. Next column is for the zone name. Now column #4 is your X1 coordinate, next column is Y1 coordinate, next one is X2 coordinate, and the next one is Y2 coordinate. Now the next columns you just ignore, and save your DBC files as always.
    That was all the DBC work. Now it is to the easiest part, getting it into WoW.

    4.2 Getting things into WoW

    You first off want to open up Ladik’s MPQ Editor, go to File->New MPQ



    Call it something like “patch-F”, or something you decide, but the name must include patch- and then a letter in uppercase.
    Click Next (I have a Danish computer, so it is called Næste on my computer) three times, now put in a check mark in the box for “Create MPQ Archive with format version 2.0” and click Next again, and now Complete.



    Call the folder “Interface” (without the “), it is case sensitive, so make sure you have an uppercase I. Right click on that folder and make a new one called “WORLDMAP”. Now make a new folder, call it Azeroth if it is the map from Eastern Kingdoms, call it BlastedLands if it is a map from Blasted Lands, and Kalimdor if it is a map from Kalimdor. Just remember that if it is a zone with two words you simply just ignore the space, so Swamp Of Sorrows will be SwampOfSorrows.
    Now tab out of the software and download this:

    Download Here

    When it is done and extracted drag all your .png files for the map, including the highlight file, into the same folder and drag them upon the BLP2PNG.exe file. This will make a copy of the .png files and make them .blp files. These files are the kind of files World of Warcraft needs to work properly. Now drag those files into Ladik’s MPQ editor.



    Click Ok to the popup you will get when you drag and drop.
    Now you want to make another folder like so:
    Right click on you patch-F.mpq (or whatever you called it), click new folder, and call this folder DBFilesClient.
    Drag and drop the DBC files you made in Tallis here.



    That’s it, now you can exit Ladik’s MPQ Editor, and go to where you launched the exe from, and drag the .mpq file from there:



    To your World of Warcraft\Data\ folder

    Now just launch your private server, and launch WoW.exe and see the great things happen.



    5. Outro

    Now, if you have done everything correctly, it should be working. I know there was a alot of text, but I felt like this was a good thing, even though pictures are more noob-friendly. I hope I helped you guys out there. I would like to hear feedback from you guys so I hopefully can improve
    Last edited by dasde; 04-01-2011 at 03:18 AM.

    [Guide] Dasde's Grand Master Guide to Custom Ingame Maps
  2. Thanks stoneharry (1 members gave Thanks to dasde for this useful post)
  3. #2
    Herbalism's Avatar Knight-Lieutenant
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    This sir, is one of the most epic things I've ever seen on MMOwned. The only thing missing would be some screens from when you make the zone map in photoshop. Other than that, +Rep to you, epic sir.

    'Nuff said

  4. #3
    I Hypnotoad I's Avatar Contributor
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    This topic brought a tear to my eyes.
    I wish I could rep you a million times.

    The music choice, however, killed me. D:


    Dragon[Sky] can get into our signatures, AND our pants.



  5. #4
    diviee3's Avatar Sergeant Major
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    Wow dude. You really helped me out here, even though I only do TBC. Most deserved +rep ever.
    WARNING: The above post may contain sarcasm and/or sophisticated satire. Any psychological damage sustained is purely your fault.

  6. #5
    I Hypnotoad I's Avatar Contributor
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    I like the new song. xD
    However, I suggest this one.




    Dragon[Sky] can get into our signatures, AND our pants.



  7. #6
    newtech's Avatar Active Member
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    Great tutorial Dasde! =D You are a great inspiration to everyone!
    No, but really :P Thanks for the epic guide <3

    Thanks
    Newtech
    LuaHypArc Lua scripter - 3.3.5a World Builder.

  8. #7
    MadameGrip's Avatar Contributor

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    Ugh I still love this guide.. I feel a sort of guilt for never repping it :P

  9. #8
    steff's Avatar Active Member
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    The cord order and the column numbers are wrong. Did someone used this guide?

    Now column #4 is your X1 coordinate, next column is Y1 coordinate, next one is X2 coordinate, and the next one is Y2 coordinate.
    Right order is:

    1 ID 2 iRefID_Map 3 iRefID_AreaTable 4 areaName 5 locLeft Y1 6 locRight Y2 7 locTop X1 8 locBottom X2 9 iRefID_displayMapID 10 iRefID_defaultDungeonFloor WorldMapArea.dbc - WoWDev
    Noggit dev Team - https://nogg-it.blogspot.com - https://modcraft.superparanoid.de - https://twitter.com/Noggit3Read the FAQ and post bugs on the bugtraker

  10. #9
    dazizizi's Avatar Member
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    If anybody still knows anything about this, help would be appreciated. (TBC 2.4.3 Client)

    Im trying to add a World Map to Azshara Crater, i have the 12 .blps files i've added into a patch, Interface -> WorldMap -> Made a folder called "AzsharaCrater"-> 12 x blp files

    I've also added updated the row 37 in map.dbc for Azshara Crater and added a new row into WorldMapArea.dbc for Azshara Crater

    But when i open the game and go into the Azshara Crater Zone and click "M" nothing shows up besides the general world map selection (Azeroth/Outland).

    Any Idea/Suggestions to what im doing wrong?

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