MapTool

Starkku · Last edited by Starkku on Thu Jan 06, 2022 9:03 pm; edited 35 times in total

MapTool is a small open-source tool designed to apply changes to tile, overlay and object data of map files of Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun & Red Alert 2 based on pre-defined conversion profiles. It is capable of performing operations such as converting maps from one terrain theater or another, or even between those two aforementioned games (potentially, this particular feature is not in yet, see release notes for v.1.0.0.0).

Download MapTool v.2.0.1.0
Releases & Changelogs
Legacy Releases

Installation Instructions:
Unpack the .zip archive to a directory of your choice. Then just run MapTool.UI.exe.

As of current, MapTool requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0.

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TAK02 · Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2017 5:22 pm Post subject:

Good app!

Now, let's mess up some maps...

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Nice work, it gets fairly close for further edit. It can potentially make
available a lot of maps if TS to RA2 and RA2 to TS profiles are generated.
Probably [Terrain] objects could also have a profile rule, to replace one
tree with another.

G-E · Defense Minister **Joined**: 09 Feb 2015

First bug found, RA2 temp->snow doesn't do water caves... FA2 demands fixing and it shows up as blank tiles.

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Starkku · Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2017 6:28 am Post subject:

E1 Elite wrote:

Probably [Terrain] objects could also have a profile rule, to replace one
tree with another.

I can probably extend ObjectRules to affect TerrainTypes.

G-E wrote:

First bug found, RA2 temp->snow doesn't do water caves... FA2 demands fixing and it shows up as blank tiles.

Not as much of a bug as just a terrain limitation. Vanilla snow theater does not have water caves - they are added by TX. I made design decision to prioritize converting to TX tiles where needed, since in most cases from vanilla theaters to TX, the corruption they cause is limited and some cases fixed by allowing map editor to attempt to fix it (which usually replaces the blank tiles with clear ones). For temperate to newurban conversion this is noted separately in description due to there being way more of such tiles.

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G-E · Defense Minister **Joined**: 09 Feb 2015

Well in this case they could be remapped to ordinary cliff tiles, perhaps you can add a checkbox to force "strict" conversion for vanilla RA2 terrain?

If you have to add it to the conversion profiles, you could add a section for these strict exceptions easily enough no?

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Starkku · Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2017 2:48 pm Post subject:

That is one potential way to address it. I initially wanted to do separate profiles for TX and non-TX but it would've probably cluttered the interface - albeit it would in my opinion be more logical approach than adding a new feature to have one profile contain two toggleable sets of rules, something that isn't really broadly applicable or useful.

Regardless of which route I'd take, certain conversions would give broken results in one way or another without use of TX or alternatives, since for an example desert theater lacks water cliffs entirely and substituting them with regular ones is kind of nonsensical. So some issues would just be plain unfixable, left for end-user's consideration.

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Attaching a sample set of terrain profiles for TS.

In overlay, 255 isn't removing the overlay. Was trying to remove sandbags
and veins, it didn't work. Though replacing sandbags with wall works.

TSProfiles.zip

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TSProfiles.zip

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Starkku · Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2017 11:14 am Post subject:

Overlay thing will be fixed in next release.

The scripts appear to work fine, given the somewhat big differences there are between the two theaters in TS (particularly how shores and water cliffs tend to work). Would you mind if I include them in the official build, with slightly altered descriptions to fit in with the rest? If yes, is using your username here in the project's readme fine or if you want to be acknowledged by some other name?

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Attached are couple of extra files to replace building etc. Have put the code
for overlay removal and replacing trees, which has to be tested after feature
gets implemented. These could accompany the TS terrain profiles in next
release.

Feel free to change the description in profiles as you see fit. If you want to
include my PPM name in readme, that is fine as well.

TSProfileXtra.zip

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TSProfileXtra.zip

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HG_SCIPCION · Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 3:49 am Post subject:

Very interesting tool Wink

A good help for fast replace and excelent for change isometric codes of the theatres...

A question, how optain this information about the tiles?

Code:

[TileRules]
148-171|176-199
172-182|200-210
183-248|211-276
249-264|277-292
265-285|293-313
286-299|314-327
340-347|368-375
356-365|384-393
386-386|696-696
387-402|697-712
403-412|434-443
413-416|430-433
417-430|735-748
431-446|749-764

This tool is magic for terrain makers!

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Starkku · Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 6:56 am Post subject:

The command line tool (MapTool.exe) can be run with argument -l to output a list of tile data based on input file -i (should be theater config ini file like temperat(md).ini) to output file -o (a plain text file).

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Starkku · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2017 3:42 pm Post subject:

New build is available. Download MapTool v.1.0.2.0 from here.

Changes:

* Added several new conversion profiles to use with TS, compiled by E1 Elite.
* ObjectRules is now applied to map Terrain(Type) list.
* Destination value of 255 is now correctly parsed from OverlayRules - resulting in the matching overlays being erased from the map.
* INI files that do not have ProfileData section are no longer displayed in the GUI.

Cross-game conversions and the RA2/YR Vanilla/TX separation are still on my future to-do list.

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Tested v1.0.2. Overlay 225 bug is fixed and tree replacements also work.

In TS object replacement profile, the vein/veinhole overlay indices were
wrong. Attaching the corrected file.

ts_tem2snoobj.zip

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ts_tem2snoobj.zip

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Nyerguds · Posted: Tue May 23, 2017 8:20 am Post subject:

Why does the short description of the topic say "Tiberian Sun & Red Alert"? Kind of misleading #Tongue

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Starkku · Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 6:23 pm Post subject:

New build is available. Download MapTool v.1.0.4.1 from here.

Changes:

* Fixed the TS object conversion profile courtesy of E1 Elite
* Added SectionRules which can be used to manipulate map section ID's, keys and their values.
* Added conversion profile options for removing all whitespace and optimizing order of the map sections game checks on map load.

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Starkku · Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2017 4:31 pm Post subject:

Bumping up for updates.

Most recent build is MapTool v.1.0.5.2.

Changelog can be read here.

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Messiah · Civilian **Joined**: 02 Dec 2017

Heysa!
Some guys already know me from the cncnet board.
In a moment of free time I wrote some basic codes to convert maps TS to RA2 and vice versa!

Look here:

https://forums.cncnet.org/topic/7728-converting-ts-maps-into-ra2-maps-ive-done-it/

Starkku · Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 9:25 pm Post subject:

Good work, especially since I never got around to making those. If you allow, I could probably include these in the tool download (possibly with minor alterations, I think I know why TS Ice -> Water conversion might not work for an instance), of course with mentioning your name in the profile files and readme.

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Messiah · Civilian **Joined**: 02 Dec 2017

You can, of course.
But before that, you might add the conversion of the overlay data, I didn't knew how to do this.

E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Sorting the tiles before compressing could lead to better IsoMapPack5 compression. Also removal of Level 0 clear tiles reduces the IsoMapPack5 size. So modified the MapTool, to give such options.

Source code changes over v1.0.5.2 included, didn't change version number as it contains only partial files of the tool. EXE file and a profile file is also included for usage.

Updated V2 version has multi level sort options along with option for removing Level 0 clear tiles.

IsoMapPack5CompressV2.zip

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IsoMapPack5CompressV2.zip

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Updated version to V2 for IsoMapPack5 compression.

Starkku · Posted: Sat May 12, 2018 6:35 pm Post subject:

After few tests to determine how it works I took the liberty of including your changes in the official release, although with few alterations to documentation and how NewTheater works (omitting it just defaults to the map theater now and no changes are made to theater data if NewTheater equals map's theater). The extra compression measures do not make a massive impact but could add up if used on lots of maps, so thank you for taking effort to implement them.

That said, the first post has been updated with download link for v.1.0.6.1.

Changes:
* New IsoMapPack5 optimization features by E1 Elite.
* Fixed an issue with ApplicableTheaters not using the defaults properly.
* Map section order optimization now takes into accord a special case for RA2/YR maps if including MultiplayerDialogSettings in map.
* NewTheater now defaults to map's theater and no theater changes are done if it matches map's current theater.
* Included a profile file for both the new IsoMapPack5 compression features as well as map section order / whitespace optimization.

As a side note, if anyone is wondering what happened to the conversion profiles posted by Messiah further above in this thread, and me including them in the tool - I ran into issues with getting them to work properly, particularly the RA2 -> TS conversion if I recall correctly and have not had time or interest to look into it again for a time being.[/b]

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Thanks for the update, will use the updated code. Another fix for TS Snow maps is on the way.

Any idea why for X = 122 and Y = 26, you are setting UData as 0 in ApplyTileConversionRules()?

Starkku · Posted: Sat May 12, 2018 7:00 pm Post subject:

E1 Elite wrote:

Thanks for the update, will use the updated code. Another fix for TS Snow maps is on the way.

Any idea why for X = 122 and Y = 26, you are setting UData as 0 in ApplyTileConversionRules()?

If you are planning on doing further code additions / changes of suitably large scope that you would like to see in the official release, I would appreciate it if you could rather fork the repository and make pull requests, as that'd make it much easier for me to include the said changes. Of course that might require some familiarity with Git and GitHub so understandable if you'd rather not.

I don't remember the original reason for including that bit of code, but my guess would be some bizarre debugging scenario and I believe with almost complete certainty that it is not necessary in any capacity, so I removed it.

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Current Github source has problems running with the MapTool v1.0.6.1, tried with replacing MapTool.exe only. May be the StarkkuUtils.Tools name change is causing it. I had to use few functions from the older version.

UData(or 11th byte in tiles) in IsoMapPack5 is used for Ice growth in TS snow maps (not used in TS temperate or RA2/YR maps). Set to 1 enables ice growth and 0 disables it. FinalSun doesn't have any option to set UData for individual tiles, it sets all to 0, but retains what is set for tiles. Attaching the update with TS Snow Map Ice Growth bug fix.

A bug in earlier version of MapTool was setting all UData to Level, that is fixed with this update.

My familiarity with Github is almost none, so I will keep off from it for now, for these occasional coding.

Edit: V2 with minor update. V3 gives a reset option which sets UData to 0 for entire map.

Update version V4 for FixTSSnowMaps (changes):
- Bug fix for IceGrowthFixReset when building count used for ice growth fix was 0.
- Changed variable name UData to IceGrowth, affects compression profile also.
- Documentation updated with more explanation.

Minor update version V5 for FixTSSnowMaps (changes):
- Added IceGrowth check while removing Level 0 clear tiles.
- Added log comments for IceGrowth processing.
- Minor change in documentation.
- Included remaining MapTool executable files also in the zip.

FixTSSnowMapsV5.zip

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FixTSSnowMapsV5.zip

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Update to V5 version for TSSnowMaps fix.

Starkku · Posted: Mon May 21, 2018 8:50 pm Post subject:

Again, implemented your changes with some tweaks. In particular, FixTSSnowMapIceGrowth was removed as an unnecessary extra step.

1.0.7.0 is now available from the first post or from here.

Changes:
* New ice growth fix features by E1 Elite.
* ApplicableTheaters & NewTheater now use their defaults if the key is declared in INI file without a value.
* A couple of internal optimizations.

E1 Elite wrote:

Current Github source has problems running with the MapTool v1.0.6.1, tried with replacing MapTool.exe only. May be the StarkkuUtils.Tools name change is causing it. I had to use few functions from the older version.

If the DLL is updated you need up-to-date versions of all three files to run properly, (both executables have a dependency on the DLL, just FYI) otherwise you risk running into errors or unexpected behaviour.

Also, your change to TilesetCollection.cs would be unnecessary if you used more up-to-date IDE that recognizes C# 7.0 features. For now it may just be that one thing that gets reported as an error on your side but it may not stay that way forever.

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Thanks for the review and update. But found the following left out when comparing FixTSSnowMapsV5 code with current the Github source and tool:

- MapTool.cs Line# 717 : isoMapPack[i + 10] = t.IceGrowth; // Important bug fix, without this, ice growth byte gets wrong values.
- MapTool.cs Line# 630 : if( ... || t.IceGrowth > 0) // even if someone experiments by marking level 0 clear tiles with ice growth, we don't want to loose that info.
- maptool-1.0.7.0 Conversion-Profile-Documentation.html - SortBy - UDATA to be replaced with ICEGROWTH.

Starkku · Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 12:58 pm Post subject:

v.1.0.7.1

Changes:

* Bugfix to ice growth flag not being saved correctly in IsoMapPack5.
* Don't erase tiles with ice growth flag set to true through RemoveLevel0ClearTiles.
* Corrected error in conversion profile documentation still referring to 'UDATA' sorting method for IsoMapPack5 tiles.

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Bittah Commander · Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 1:58 pm Post subject:

Could this tool also be used to randomize tiberium overlays on a map? And if not, could such a feature be added? Preferably you should be able to randomize a specific tiberium type within a certain range (so only overlays 1-12 for example or only 13-20 so that they won't get mixed up).

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Currently there is no randomize function. One overlay can be replaced with another. So if in [OverlayTypes] index (without gaps - in vanilla 40, 41 are missing) TIB13 to TIB20 are at 114-121, it can be replaced with say 106-113.

[OverlayRules]
114-121|106-113

Or can get some amount of randomization by assigning individually like

[OverlayRules]
115|112
116|104

This will replace in the entire map.

On update: Verified the fixes of 1.0.7.1, they work well.

Starkku · Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 3:17 pm Post subject:

Shouldn't be too difficult to add an actual randomizer though, so I'll probably do it.

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Bittah Commander · Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 6:17 pm Post subject:

The randomizer is actually primarily for when someone for example has only placed TIB01 on the map, which then needs to be randomized to use TIB01 up to TIB12. Likewise when someone has only placed TIB13 on a map, you might want to randomize it between TIB13 up to TIB16 for example.

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Crimsonum · Seth **Joined**: 14 Jul 2005 **Location**: Fineland

I haven't had much time to look into this tool yet, but from what I can tell, it looks very promising. Keep up the good work.

What's with the ice growth requiring a TSTLAMP, though?

Bittah Commander wrote:

Likewise when someone has only placed TIB13 on a map, you might want to randomize it between TIB13 up to TIB16 for example.

The overlays TIB13-TIB20 are meant for different slope facings, wouldn't that cause problems? TIB13 & TIB14 are for NW slopes, TIB15 & TIB16 are for NE slopes, etc.

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TAK02 · Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 7:54 am Post subject:

Crimsonum wrote:

Bittah Commander wrote:

Likewise when someone has only placed TIB13 on a map, you might want to randomize it between TIB13 up to TIB16 for example.

The overlays TIB13-TIB20 are meant for different slope facings, wouldn't that cause problems? TIB13 & TIB14 are for NW slopes, TIB15 & TIB16 are for NE slopes, etc.

It's possible he didn't know (although the sig sugggests Bittah should knw that) or mixed it up #Tongue

But if what you said is true, then probably a randomizer for TIB13 & TIB14, etc.
And maybe a randomzer for TIB01 to TIB16 for clear/flat tiles Smile

(^^This if it's possible to differentiate between slopes and flat ground on the same height)

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Crimsonum wrote:

What's with the ice growth requiring a TSTLAMP, though?

I used TSTLAMP as an example for a test map and left the profile file as it is.

Use any 1x1 building of your choice that is not used in the map, could also make a separate building or a cloned one for this purpose for mods etc.. In FinalSun, place that building on whichever cell where ice growth/regrowth is expected. Then edit the profile file misc_fixicegrowth.ini to state which building ID is used. Basically a building ID is used to gather X and Y coordinates from the map which is used to set the ice growth flag for the respective tiles in IsoMapPack5. Check with the tool documentation html file and ModEnc on the IceGrowth also.

Using a building ID for gathering coordinates gives the flexibility for the user that [Structures] list can be taken as backup for later use. Building ID can be renamed. Or removed in one shot with this tool. Or it could be left in the map and made visible in FinalSun and not visible in the game etc.

Starkku · Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 10:53 am Post subject:

Only feasible alternative for it work would be to give a list of tile coordinates for which to turn the flag on. Pick your poison I guess.

v.1.0.7.2

Changes:

* Using ~ as a range separator for tile or overlay rule destination values now toggles on randomizer logic where source tiles/overlays are converted to randomly selected tiles/overlays within the declared range.

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Bittah Commander · Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 1:49 pm Post subject:

Crimsonum wrote:

The overlays TIB13-TIB20 are meant for different slope facings, wouldn't that cause problems? TIB13 & TIB14 are for NW slopes, TIB15 & TIB16 are for NE slopes, etc.

I'm aware that's what they're originally for, but while you can't place regular tiberium on slopes without causing problems, it's perfectly fine to place the sloped tiberium on flat ground. It then of course can't spread other patches of sloped tiberium around it (IIRC it'd just spawn regular tiberium around it instead), but in DTA this isn't an issue because the sloped tiberium is only used for scrap debris (which of course doesn't grow or spread).

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Crimsonum · Seth **Joined**: 14 Jul 2005 **Location**: Fineland

I see, I assumed you meant randomizing the TIB13-TIB20 when they're actually on a slope, not flat ground. I haven't tested whether it causes any issues to have TIB13 on an "incorrect" slope, for example.

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Bittah Commander · Posted: Thu May 24, 2018 11:53 am Post subject:

I don't need to worry about that because DTA has no slopes in the first place #Tongue

Either way, it was just an example to demonstrate the need for custom ranges for randomizing tiberium (assuming that the randomizer only takes indexes into account and not the ID names).

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

@Bittah Commander: Getting doubt whether you are aware of randomizer being already implemented in v1.0.7.2.
Use like:

[OverlayRules]
102|102~113 ; Randomize TIB01 in the range of TIB01 to TIB12

Bittah Commander · Posted: Thu May 24, 2018 6:47 pm Post subject:

I actually seem to have missed Starkku's post, so thanks for pointing it out.

Edit:
I created a profile for randomizing all of DTA's individual resource types (green tiberium, blue tiberium, ore, scrap metal, green gems, blue gems and mixed gems) and tested every single one of them to make sure it works properly.

dta_randomize_tiberiums.ini

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dta_randomize_tiberiums.ini

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

The overlay rules could be extended to replace a range of overlay frames in OverlayDataPack. This could help modders as the game supports all 0-255 of overlay frames but FA2/FinalSun does not show more than 60 frames in the Overlay & Special dropdown. A manual placement of overlay frames can be done but without confirmation of which frames are placed as it shows only hex codes for frames above 60.

G-E · Defense Minister **Joined**: 09 Feb 2015

Starkku wrote:

Only feasible alternative for it work would be to give a list of tile coordinates for which to turn the flag on. Pick your poison I guess.

This ice thing is a fascinating problem, perhaps using something like celltags to pick the spots on the map where this happens, with an option "convert celltags to iceflow" or something?

Does the ice data persist on resaving from any editor to add new celltags or no?

E1 Elite wrote:

The overlay rules could be extended to replace a range of overlay frames in OverlayDataPack. This could help modders as the game supports all 0-255 of overlay frames but FA2/FinalSun does not show more than 60 frames in the Overlay & Special dropdown. A manual placement of overlay frames can be done but without confirmation of which frames are placed as it shows only hex codes for frames above 60.

This is starting to sound very niche... like a single mod niche Smile

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Ice growth fix is already implemented with building coordinates and the ice growth data persists, FinalSun retains it.

On OverlayDataPack request, it isn't tailored for any mod, but is a generic extension of what the tool already does, should benefit anyone if implemented.

E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Overlay frame replacements is implemented by extending overlay rules to take overlay frame IDs also now. Attaching executable and source code changes.

OverlayFrameReplacements.zip

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

Attaching MapTool with the following changes:

- Based on 1.0.7.3 version (Github 2018-06-24) (OverlayFrameReplacements changes included)
- UI enlarged to accommodate a bit of higher DPI scaling
- Tool can now take additional arguments/parameters for analysis
- parameter -logx for extensive logging which generates non-zero/non-default log of IsoMapPack5, OverlayPack and OverlayDataPack.
- parameter -filex generates the raw data in IsoMapPack5, OverlayPack and OverlayDataPack as bin files
- ModifyOverlays ruleset added which takes map coordinates, overlay and its frame index and applies to the map
- TS profiles now makes use of randomizer instead of manual randomization
- Minor corrections to couple of TS profiles
- Documentation updated

Executable and source code changes over the current Github version is included in the attachment.

Edit: Changes 2018-11-25:
- added options for the extended logging feature
- code re-organized and updated couple of profiles

MapTool_20181125.zip

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G-E · Defense Minister **Joined**: 09 Feb 2015

One thing I had zzzattack add to the CNCMapRenderer was an option to replace all missing tiles to cleartile. I thought it would make sense to be the standard function, but he only made it optional commandline.

How does MapTool handle such a case?

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E1 Elite · General **Joined**: 28 May 2013

MapTool uses conversion profiles to convert tiles in the map. These profiles contain info on which tiles are to be converted into another. The existing profiles are for vanilla games. You can create your own profiles if you want to convert a missing tile or a bunch of those in IsoMapPack5 to another.