World Background Maps

[Oliver1986]

I hope so there comes an update with the Maps for use with Promods 2.46 and other Maps, i love your Maps so much :) thanks for the work

[Samartok (NL)]

Thx for the USA BG

[BenganJ]

@Samartok (NL)

You're welcome, but the recent update was actually only a technical one, nothing changed regarding the BG image,
only how the included map_data.sii file is treated. That was done, just as I did earlier for the Universal ETS2 ones,
to enable for mods like the ones created by Sinagrit Baba, who changes the color scheme of the data displayed on
the BG. You can check out the concept here if you are interested.

viewtopic.php?p=11490#p11490

[luekric]

Hi Bengan
i am carlos from wombats stream here is my game log
Carlos

[BenganJ]

@luekric

You have the following load order:

Code: Select all

Deleted_EU_136.scs
EAA Background Map v1.5 by dOOmERdaZe.scs
xp.scs
HEAVYCARGO-NO-MAPAEAA-1-2.scs
DLC_POWER_CARGO_EAA-V1-2.scs
MAPA_EAA_5-4-1.scs
MAPA_EAA_5-4-1_BASE.scs

Rearrange to this:

Code: Select all

EAA Background Map v1.5 by dOOmERdaZe.scs
xp.scs
HEAVYCARGO-NO-MAPAEAA-1-2.scs
DLC_POWER_CARGO_EAA-V1-2.scs
MAPA_EAA_5-4-1.scs
MAPA_EAA_5-4-1_BASE.scs
Deleted_EU_136.scs

Then test and report back here!

[luekric]

@BenganJ
now its work perfectly thank you so much

[BenganJ]

@luekric

You're welcome! ENJOY!

[BenganJ]

================ The poll is over. ================
===============================================
The question was: "Should I "cheat" like Promods to get Middle-East and Cyprus aligned to my BGs?"
Result:

• Yes: 51 (88%)
• No: 7 (12%)

I must say that I'm not surprised nor amazed, but definitely disappointed! Once again, here's the background.
After spending many, many hours researching and testing tools and methods to create the World background maps,
I found a proper tool and a SCS specified map projection to use with that tool. The resulting BGs in the first
post of this topic were made with that tool and that projection. When Promods recently released their version
2.46, we could notice that they had once again relocated an area of their map, now the Middle-East and Cyprus.
But long before that, I posted on the Promods forum a question, where I asked, if they could publish the used map
projection parameters, that they claimed SCS changed to with version 1.30. I didn't get any answer, until chaos
broke out after the release and the answer I then got from the BG responsible in the team, Mandelsoft, was the
following.

Maybe it's because we honestly don't have any exact parameters, so let me explain the methods we used.

It turns out that the map projection differences between the background map in the editor and the background
map in-game gets worse the further you get from Prague. The first idea was to draw the editor background map
onto the in-game background map, but this has a few issues: not all areas actually have a background in the
editor (especially the Middle-East), and we can't get more data from the original source of the background
map, mapy.cz.Years ago, Mapy.cz changed its projection and now it doesn't completely match anymore with the
old editor background, so there's no way to properly expand it. We did use Mapy.cz imagery to extrapolate the
areas in the Middle East, but that's also a little bit of fitting and guesswork...

We took the map that SCS uses as a base, so we would be future-proofing ourselves for any SCS expansions in
the future, wherever they may be, and converted it into a lossless vector format in InkScape so we can always
modify it later. Then we loaded that background map in-game, took screenshots of areas where the borders and
coasts mismatched with our road network, and pasted these screenshots in InkScape as an underlay to redraw the
coasts and borders, so that all borders match again, the deformations wouldn't look too obvious and that no
city was located in the sea anymore. It was a quite painstaking job, but we managed to make it work perfectly
as we intended within our own mod.

What surprises me with his answer is, that he, having been an employee at SCS and also having participated in
a discussion on the SCS forum about related things, where Max, still an employee at SCS, stated exactly which
map projection should be used, since the change in version 1.30. Further, SCS has documented the parameters
for that projection, both for ATS and ETS2, in the definition files for the game. As I have documented throughout
this topic, that is the projection I have used. According to Mandelsoft, they have taken the very limited, area
wise, SCS BG, then adjusted it to fit their own map data, NOT the other way around, which would have been the
proper way of doing it.

To further illustrate how bad that way of doing things turns out, here's a picture showing what Arayas had to do
to "adjust" to Promods way of handling things! Do you think that looks good? Click on image to get a full size.



I guess, that most of you already have guessed, what my end decision is.

======> NO, I won't "adjust" my BGs to the Promods map data. <======

I had, for a short time, the idea of making a separate "adjusted" BG for Promods as the base map, but as they
can't produce any projection parameters, I can't create a BG. I will further run the game, even in combo where I have
Promods map as base, WITHOUT the Middle-East addon, because I can't stand that placement and violence put on the RC
to get them connected. Not that the Middle-East map is bad in any way, Platypus has done a great job. Sorry folks,
but that's my decision! Thank you for taking the poll though, it at least got me thinking about a solution for pure PM based combos.

For those of you interested in facts, here's some links related to what is said above.

• Link to Mandelsofts full answer quoted above: https://www.promods.net/viewtopic.php?p=293910#p293910
• Link to that full discussion topic: https://www.promods.net/viewtopic.php?p=293675#p293675
• Link to post in topic on SCS forum where Max states the projections used by SCS for ATS and ETS2 and where Mandelsoft participated: https://forum.scssoft.com/viewtopic.php ... 82#p825182

EDIT: I might do some subtle corrections on the placement of the BG, but I will NEVER cover up for the Promods relocated stuff!

[Dogbert]

I have PMME (Israel) in the middle of the sea, using coloured BG map.

Never saw the vote but i just download what is created and shared.

It's all free so i am not going to make a fuss, either way.

[BenganJ]

@Dogbert

You can always read the whole story, as I have linked to all valid info on the subject!