The majority of these tutorials are for command and conquer mapping but as this page grows I will most likely have many more tutorials of varying types.

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Big Map Preview Tutorial

This technique is used to create a large version of the preview of maps you have made, this technique was developed by Dad_A_Tude of the tiberiumsun.com forums. This tutorial was created by me, fraser101.

This is not an easy thing to do and I recommend that your computer has at least 256Mb of RAM, the more the better. My computer has 256Mb ram and it caused my computer to grind to a halt several times due to insufficient memory. I also recommend having a decent gfx card, geforce2 mx 64 MB minimum, capable of 1280*1024 pixel resolution or more, the greater the better.

1. Close all programs running on ur comp (use the task manager, ctrl, alt, delete usually)

2. Crank the monitor resolution as high as your monitor/gfx card supports. Use the display properties (right click on your desktop, click the display tab).

3. Open your map.

4. Start your graphics package, I used windows paint but most graphics packages will do, you will have to adapt the tutorial to your own software.

5. Increase the isoview to its maximum size.

6. Select a smudge tool cursor from the object browser.

7. Move the mouse to the top of the screen (making sure that the mouse does not cross into the isoview).

8. Press Alt, Print Screen, this copies what is currently viewed onscreen to the clipboard.

9. Paste the clipboard contents into paint (or equivalent).

10. Modify the image so as to remove the 'money on map: ****' section and if you let the cursor be viewable, remove it also.

11. Repeat this process, making sure to line up each section exactly. This is a slow and frustrating process which will most likely require much trial and error. You may have to open and start the process in a new paint file as the paint program can only handle files of a certain size. To combine the two (or more) massive images you must use a program capable of handling larger files, I used Microsoft Picture It! Express which as I discovered reduces the file on saving to a much smaller resolution, your software can probably do that for you. Save the final product in *.jpg format in resloution of width less than or equal to 1024 pixels.

The results are excellent although you may feel it is so much work for such a result, I doubt I will use this again because accumulatively you may spend hours doing this for numerous maps.

I do not take credit for the technique, I developed this tutorial on a couple of posts made by Dad_A_Tude on the TiberiumSun.com forums. I hope that Mazte may incorporate a similar output product (ie: the big preview) into his map editing programs.

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Tutorials property of fraser101 aka frazzz101