Metal

Metal maps are used for the built in resourcing scheme (Metal/Energy), they define metal areas on a battlefield based upon the values in the red channel of the metal map.

Example
Example Metal Map	Ingame Result
File:Mapdev-metal.png	File:Mapdev-metal-example.png

Specification

mapinfo.lua

mapinfo.lua

mapinfo ={
   ...
   maxMetal        = 0.02,
   extractorRadius = 500.0,
   autoShowMetal   = true,
   ...
   smf = {
        ....
        metalmapTex = "",
        ....
    },
    ...
}

Image File

The red value of pixel corresponds to the metal value.

File Location

The metal map is an intermediary file compiled into the SMF file using MapConv or MapConvNG, it can also be specified in the mapinfo.lua.

File Format

Any that the Mapconv programs support

Colour Depth

8bpp

Channels

Greyscale

Resolution

Spring Map Size^*	pixels = Spring Map Size * 32
2	64
4	128
6	256
...	...
32	1024
* must be multiples of 2

Additional Information

Patch Technique

If you do want perfect metal patches, use a 6x6 pixel pencil in your image editor with a red value of 255. This combined with setting the "MaxMetal" tag in the definitions to 1, will result in a perfect 2.0 metal generation per patch (using Balanaced Annihilation values). The game use isn't the point however. The fact is that if you can predict how much each spot will output (typically), using the "MaxMetal" parameter, you can easily scale the values up and down. As an example of another extreme, Evolution RTS dictates that all metal patches will output 0.5 metal regardless of the map settings. So whether you need to put a lot of thought into your metal map values depends entirely upon the game for which you are creating the map.