How do people create maps to look exactly like what they are referencing?

[Immortal7777]

Take world of warcraft for example. They have downloadable maps but you could create it by hand because the editor for land is to large. Is there a download for civ 3 that gives you the ability to copy paste them from other sites?

 

[Puppeteer]

If I understand you correctly, you are asking if you can take a map image and convert it into a Civ3 map.

Not with the included tools, but I'm pretty sure in the mod forums there is a utility that does a reasonably good job of that, but you probably need to clean it up in the Civ3 map editor and make playability adjustments. (For example, lots of one-tile islands can be a pain because the AI will settle them and you can't conquer them until marines or if you're Scandanavia.)

 

[Immortal7777]

Exactly however I can't find any civ 3 downloads. I only saw a few for civ 4.

 

[MPK]

There are references to Map Making in 'Civilization III Creation & Customization Forum\Civ3 - Tutorials, Reference, & Guides'.

Hope this might help.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=29350

 

[T-mun]

Better than the thread by Exsanguination (and easier) there are utilities like bmp2bic (post #4 by Grey Fox) and MapTweaker that help a LOT when you try to create a realistic map. The only "real world part" map I have created so far was made from a screenshot of a special area in Google Earth, then I reduced the colors and chose the ones that were needed for B2B to work ok, then cropping and resizing with MapTweaker and finally adjusting it in the Editor.
It needs some testing, trial and error is the way to go. But then you get the perfect map that you wanted to play, with the exact size and shape.

 

[Quintillus]

bmp2bic is the classic solution. However, I recently added the option to do essentially what you're describing to my Civ3 editor (link in signature). The advantages over bmp2bic are that it allows any map size (instead of a few predetermined sizes), and that you don't have to do as much work on the image before converting it. You can see an example of what it creates in this post, and it's now a bit better than that, particularly in that it has support for hills, mountains, and landmark terrain.

It isn't quite copy-paste. You'll need a picture of the map, and then will need to resize it (there is a utility in the editor that will tell you how big the picture needs to be for the Civ3 map size that you want). Then you'll need to save it as either a 16-color or 256-color bitmap file. From there, you load it up in the editor (in a BIQ that doesn't have a custom map yet), choose what colors match up with what terrain, and tell it to import. You'll still need to do some clean-up work, like with any utility, and the amount will depend somewhat on the colors you use in the bitmap file (I recommend using no more than 32 or so - having 256 will take more time and probably won't be much better). But it should get you off to a running start. See this post for more information, and within the editor, you can also find some help by clicking on the "?" button and choosing the "Import Map From BMP" link (it's slightly out-of-date, but still covers the basic process).

I've only personally used it on pictures of Earth that I got from Wikipedia and NASA. I'd be curious to hear how it does with maps from different games.