Comprehensive DEFCON Map Modding Tutorial | Full Step-by Step Walkthrough!
15CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS IN DESCRIPTION
DEFCON Modlist: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vV0bRWCzmZNDEWWZDi8EwscL85NsQlEkRA3wX1fHwJw/edit#gid=1117798429
DEFCON Discord: https://discord.gg/qADkVKY
First, a slight correction to the issues raised about indexed bitmaps. The only bitmap that can not be indexed is travel_nodes.bmp. All others will be perfectly fine as indexed bitmaps. map.bmp, ai_markers.bmp, and screenshot.bmp should be RGB or Indexed, since Grayscale destroys the colors. The REAL thing that breaks all the files is the writing of color space information, which Paint.NET seems to do arbitrarily. When exporting from GIMP, ALWAYS select "Do not write color space information". I created this handy dandy table for reference: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16bcs0BY8HVxeDJmixddRD1nkmOJObgw-93RAsFyizfk/edit?gid=0
DEFCON is a very special game to me, and DEFCON modding has always been an intensely interesting thing to me. I've dabbled in modding this game since I was in high school, and I have only improved my workflow and results with each passing attempt. Now I can say that I am fully ready to release this, a FULL step-by-step guide on how to create a high-quality DEFCON mod from start to finish.
I very much hope you find this helpful. If nothing else, I hope this tutorial gives you inspiration and the information you need to go out and create your own vision. I know this game is rather dead, and even more so its modding scene, but I believe that there is a great beauty in this game and its strategic complexity, and I feel that the more variety there is in ways to play, the more this game can evolve and change shape.
I intend to redo this video once DC Earth comes out, and at that point I will probably be a bit better at my presentation and workflow. I tripped up a couple times here and there during this video, and I would like to minimize that when we get better tools working for a more definitive tutorial. Regardless, I am pretty happy with how this turned out. I very much hope you enjoy.
0:00 Introduction
0:48 Necessary Tools
4:30 Map Selection
11:43 Mod Folder Structure
17:23 Base Maps
42:20 Territory Files
52:23 Graphics Files
1:01:14 Preliminary Testing
1:04:14 Error Reading Bitmap
1:06:46 Sailable
1:08:32 AI Markers
1:11:34 Travel Nodes
1:33:10 Coastlines
1:38:21 International Borders
1:43:13 Coastlines/International Adjustment
1:52:46 City Placement
2:07:11 Extra Cities
2:08:06 Cities Formatting Error
2:09:26 City Numbers in Debug File
2:11:06 Population Data
2:28:47 Preliminary Population Balancing
2:36:20 Trimming Satellite Cities
2:44:34 Final Population Balancing
2:47:01 Final Quality Checks
2:55:14 Metadata
3:02:27 Publishing
3:02:52 Troubleshooting
3:07:02 Outro