Heroes3Im2Map

Transforms images into Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Hota files.

Requirements:

• C++ to compile. I'm not a C++ expert, so please try to compile it yourself until it works. I used C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 19.29.30154 on Windows 10.
• 7zip: Homm3 maps are compressed uzing gzip, so this program zips the resulting raw file using gzip

Usage:

1. Create/Find an input image:

   • use the colors from the colors file. I used the colors from potmdehex homm3tools to define the terrain, however I reversed their R and B values (theirs were flipped).
   • i include a .gpl (GIMP palette) file with the colors and their names, so you can use GIMP and paing easily
   • make sure the size of the image in pixels corresponds to the size of the homm3 map
   • Important! make sure that for each color in your image there are no places where a 2x2 pixel sized square cannot fit. Failure to do this will crash map creation at the end.
   • If the image doesn't have the colors defined above, euclidian distance is used to get closest colors. This sucks.

2. Create the map: Inside the root folder do: Heroes3Im2Map.exe <file_id> <source_image> <output_file>

   <file_id>: specifies the size of the Hota Map: "S", "M", "L", "XL", "H", "XH", "G"

   <source_image>: image file, must have the pixel size equal to the tiles specified above (36x36, 72x72, ..., 252x253)

   <output_file>: name of the output file (a homm3 map)

3. Make the map usable:

   • open file using the map editor and see that it looks horrible
   • click anywhere on the map with the terrain editor, and it will attemp to fix the mess automatically
   • Important! if there are places in your image where, for any color, a 2x2 pixel square cannot fit, you will get an error message and crash.
   • if everything worked, now you can add everything else, castles, heroes, objects.

Acknowledgements

This tool wouldn't be possible without the instructions this repo: potmdehex homm3tools