about scmdraft:
When you begin making a map and place terrain on the map, they react to other terrain in their environment. when "mud" is placed into a "jungle" environment, the jungle terrain changes to make the "mud" fit in the "jungle" terrain. I copy pasted some terrain, and when I want to make so changes to that terrrain, the environment does not adopt anymore. Now, the terrain that is placed is rectangular and does not adopt to the environment.

If I understand your complaint correctly, then the answer is the SCMDraft rectangular/pasted tiles and isometrical script don't work too well together.

They don't get along

ok, but is it still possible to make any adoptive changes to that copy pasted terrain?

Don't think so. I usually do the isometric terrain first, to an outline. Then I go in and make nick picky changes, and on a different same tileset map make the complicated terrain and doodad mixing and paste it in where needed.

Mine actually does adapt, I was sorta surprised. You have to learn to use it the way it is, since it's not perfect. If you place ISOM into a copy/pasted region, it will change based on the current ISOM data. Think of terrain as two layers, an ISOM layer, and a rectangular layer. The ISOM layer is converted into the rectangular layer if there isn't already rectangular data on top of it. When using regular Staredit, you don't have to worry about any of this. Since you can copy/paste or place rectangular terrain in SCMDraft, it requires a bit more finesse when using.

Here are the conclusions I have come to: If you place isometric terrain on top of a copy pasted layer, and the isometric terrain you are placing matches the ISOM currently there, you will only displace 8 rectangles, since the ISOM layer hasn't changed. If you place a different isometric terrain, the entire thing will be replaced, depending on the terrain (high temple over water makes a huge rhombus).

This is my understanding of the situation, and I have no proof that this is how it works, so take it as face value. It makes sense though, doesn't it?

If you want the ISOM to override the actual terrain as you place it, consider using StarForge, but be warned that it can corrupt your map, and doesn't update your ISOM data, making it extremely difficult to switch back. It also doesn't have any sort of copy paste. Try it out on a separate map, or backup your current map. It's always a good idea to have multiple editors, since they do different things. For terrain, switching editors is fairly safe, but once you put in triggers and strings, it runs a serious risk of being corrupted. In general, you should always use only 1 editor, and most people use SCMDraft.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 9 2008, 7:00 am by rockz.

Place first the terrain that you'll paste using the isom brush to make sure that the ISOM data is correct. Then copy / paste the terrain (if you're copy / pasting a jungle rectangle place jungle over the destination area before pasting it).

SF does not remove the ISOM data, but it doesn't update it and will not create valid data for new maps.