first contact me at greenbudsmapediting@yahoo.com for the needed files to do this...alot easier than you trying to get all necessary files needed..and i will get them to you...soon i will have them available at bf1942files.com and planetbattlefield.com for DL..

ATTENTION.........People e mailing me with G mail accounts i cant send files to that e mail service...i always get a return e mail when i try to send the files you need......create a yahoo account and then e mail me for the files needed....sorry about this..

ok to start here are the programs you will need other than the files i will send you..

1.Editor42...made by "coin coin"

2.photoshop.....with ability to convert to .RAW files..(i have photoshop 7)

3.mapping files from me

4.TGA merge

5.RFA extractor/makeRFA

now here we go................

"VERY IMPORTANT"...make a folder on your desktop and save a copy of your map in there because sometimes different programs will screw up certain files and this way you have a backup copy to use and you will need your textures and min map and other files when you are done with pathmapping...

First you need to build your map in full...textures,buildings,trees,shadows,100% done

now save the map for safe keeping

now open Editor42 and direct it to your map..(to get editor 42 to work refer to the tutorial here http://www.jwest3.20megsfree.com/custom4.html )now before we get started you should click file then save...whenever i first use editor42 on a map i save and the program freezes and so i shut the program down and restart it and hit save (not save as) and it saves then...why i dont know but saves on doing something and then losing it..

now we will be doing Tank/Car paths first...then after packing them we will do the infantry paths...

with vehicle pathmaps you need to leave more area between the black pathmap and the object...heres the rule of thumb..

black bots follow

white they stay out of

now theres alot of different ways to do the paths..heres some ways to try..

if you are doing a smaller map or one with few roads you can use black to paint the roads and then white to paint were you dont want them to go or

paint the whole map white and add the black paths

or paint all black and use white to direct bots..you will understand more after you have done this...and theres another feature you can use in editor42 which i will explain later....

but we will start here

ok we will be using a 00x00--03x03 map ..this is the texture size (refer to your textures folder of your map)

ok lets say this map has open setting with 5 towns and wooded areas...so we will actually paint over the textures of the map to start so we can more easily set our paths...so remember we are starting with vehicles...

now with Editor42 open and your map showing hit F2 and it will be in the painting mode

at the bottom select the fuzzy screen

now click edit and choose  black ......now click OK

now "IMPORTANT"..the next window has 2 slide bar settings..ambient and sun ..set them to this

"ambient" to 1.00 / "sun" to 0.00

now click OK

now i use the circle setting at the bottom mostly,square for some areas...now you need to set the color opacity to 100% also..thats the arrow in the bottom toolbar..

now that we all have the settings done we can now paint the pathmaps

so dont worry about if you mess up,just paint over it after...but start at 1 spot and work through your map with the black color telling the bots were they can drive....if doing a bridge hit the "R" key for straight lines...

now after you have set most of your roads and areas you want the bots to be accessable to with a vehicle select white and paint all remaining areas you want the bots to stay out of...remember the more open an area the more a bot will use it and less chance of an area to small and bots won't pass through....and paint white around every object (trees,houses,buildings,any stationary object....do not have to do for vehicles you can drive in game...)that you want bots to avoid...

once you have finished and are happy with your pathmaps for vehicles...remember this step you DO NOT pathmap inside buildings...lol..i have done it myself...or the bots try to drive into a house through the doorway...

now hit file and "SAVE"

now close the program down and lets pack up those pathmaps...

now go to were you have your map extracted to c:/bf1942 and go to the textures folder and copy all the .dds texture files...00x00 by 03x03...

now paste then into the dds to tga folder

in that folder are 2 small programs (undx and undxt..remember not to delete these)...with your .dds files in there click on UNDX

it will change the .dds files to .tga files

now close that window ....now the TGA merge program icon looks like  pencil...click on that...now there are 2 selections you need to do.....1st one is to direct it to the dds to tga folder and click ok

now 2nd selection is where to save to and what to call it...now save it into the dds to tga folder and save it as

infantry1level0map24bit

now click ok and it will go back to the tga merge program window and you have 1 more setting...

if your map is a 1024 x 1024 tga segment size is 4

if your map is 2048 x 2048 tga segment size is 8

above that im not sure

now that everything is set click "MERGE"

now it will merge the TGA files into 1 file to be used...

once that has completed close the window and open photoshop....and go to the dds to tgs folder and open the "infantry1level0map24bit"

now you should be looking at your pathmap ....if not you screwed up somewhere...

now you need to set the size of the image to your map...either 1024 (00x0-03x03 textures) or 2048 (00x00-07x07 textures)and you need to set the resample image to "NEAREST NEIGHBOR"

now you need to select the "MODE" then "GRAYSCALE"

now last thing is to flip the image "VERTICAL"

now select "SAVE AS"

and save as a .RAW

tank0level0map24bit

and also save as

car4level0map8bit

"VERY IMPORTANT"..if you don't do this you will lose the paths..ok now thats done you need to take the "tank0level0map8bit and car4level0map8bit files from the dds to tga folder and copy and paste them into the "8 bit" folder

now delete all files except the "undx" and "undxt" in the .dds to .tga folder

ok now lets go do the bot path...the ones the infantry will follow...

ok open Editor42 back up and using the same paths we just painted for the tanks and car  we will do the infantry paths (saves time from starting from scratch)....now just reset all editor 42 setting to stated above...now with bots you dont need as much space around an object painted white because bots are slow and follow the paths real well...so set your color to black and size to what you need and paint anywhere you would want a bot to go or be able to go....you can not path second floors to houses or the oil rigs map...

now when doing paths in a building in editor42 hit f4 and then click on the building and it will turn yellow...now if you have a center scroll wheel on your mouse hold right click and roll the wheel until the building sinks into the ground to where you can see the ground to paint on...(i save a fresh copy of my map before pathmapping so i can use the textuures and static objects.cons...save from having to raise all the buildings back up)...now path inside the building...i find with bots that sometimes it just easier to set soldier spawns outside building and conquest inside buildings...but that is your choice on how you want to do it...

ok when you are satisfied with your infantry paths we need to pack them all up just as stated above...put textures in dds to tga folder....convert .dds to .tga.....merge .tga files ( name infantry1level0map24bit ).....open in photoshop and save as infantry1level0map8bit....now drag or copy and paste the infantry1level0map8bit into the 8bit folder...now you should have the 3 pathmaps you did in the 8bit folder... .....ok now all 3 sets of pathmaps are done...on to making them work in your map...

now in the 8bit folder is a program called "_pack"...click on it and a window will open for just a few seconds and will close...now look in the pathfinding folder and you should have 15 files ...congrats you have successfully made pathmaps for your map....

now what you need to do is copy and paste the pathfinding folder from the 8bit folder into your main folder of your map...once you have done that here is the easiest way to add the rest of the files for the pathmapping to work...

for a 1024 size map use kharkov

for 2048 map use el alamein

what you do is extract these 2 origional bf1942 maps to a folder to use files from them...why retype something thats already done for you...ok here are the files you need to add from these maps into yours

singleplayer folder

AI folder

AI.con

AIpathfinding.con

coop.con

singleplayerallied

singleplayeraxis

and in the gametypes folder you need to add the coop.con from in there to..

ok now you have all necessary files needed to make your paths work...now to set the strategic areas for the bots to know where to find the flags..

first you need to get a peice of paper and pen to write stuff down...now open the conquest folder and open the controlpoints.con...in there are all the controlpoints and the order they need to be set in the strategicareas.con file...write down all the controlpoint names in a column..one over the next..like this(these are fictious names)

axisbase

alliedbase

town

city

now when you have all the name written down we need to use the numbers listed after them to set the areas..heres how to do that

heres the number listed after axisbase

905.766/86.3/582.717

you will be using the first and last numbers

so take the first number "905.766" and round it off to 905....

last number rounded to 580

now subtract 20 from each and make it look like this

885/560.....this is the first number you will use....now add 40 to each beginning number to get this

925/600....this is the second number you will use...now open the strategicareas.con and in the first line you need to delete the name that is there and change it to your names...here what i mean

this is the origional from kharkov

aiStrategicArea.create GermanBase 706.5/162 747/184.5 30

now set to your map and it would look like this

aiStrategicArea.create axisbase 885/560 925/600

thats how it will look ...but we need to add a value to the area also so just add a value number to the end ..it would look like this

aiStrategicArea.create axisbase 885/560 925/600 50

the 50 is a value setting for the axisbase..i use 100 for outposts and 20 for bases...

now do what we just did but to each controlpoint in the strategic areas.con...heres an example to help with what it would look like

aiStrategicArea.create axisbase 750/930 790/970 20

aiStrategicArea.create the_bridge 120/20 160/60 100

aiStrategicArea.create novo_gorica 30/340 70/380 100

aiStrategicArea.create novo_mesto 900/330 940/370 100

aiStrategicArea.create northern_island 420/950 460/990 100

aiStrategicArea.create southern_island 420/20 460/60 100

aiStrategicArea.create alliedbase 440/330 480/370 20

added 2/28/05

ok now we need to add the area "NEIGHBORS"...it is VERY IMPORTANT that you add them in the same order as they are above...we will be setting these areas as if they were in a straight line ...if an area has a road connecting 2 controlpoint or more just add that area as a "NEIGHBOR " in the area shown below...the numbers at the setorderposition are the first and last number of the strategic area...here we go..this is a finished strategic areas AI setting

aiStrategicArea.setActive axisbase
AIStrategicArea.addNeighbour the_bridge
aiStrategicArea.addObjectTypeFlag base
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Tank 750/970
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Infantry 750/970
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition car 750/970
aiStrategicArea.setSide 1

aiStrategicArea.setActive the_bridge
AIStrategicArea.addNeighbour novo_gorica
AIStrategicArea.addNeighbour axisbase
aiStrategicArea.addObjectTypeFlag controlpoint
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Tank 120/60
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Infantry 120/60
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition car 120/60
aiStrategicArea.setSide 0

aiStrategicArea.setActive novo_gorica
AIStrategicArea.addNeighbour novo_mesto
AIStrategicArea.addNeighbour the_bridge
aiStrategicArea.addObjectTypeFlag controlpoint
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Tank 30/380
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Infantry 30/380
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition car 30/380
aiStrategicArea.setSide 0

aiStrategicArea.setActive novo_mesto
AIStrategicArea.addNeighbour northern_island
AIStrategicArea.addNeighbour novo_gorica
aiStrategicArea.addObjectTypeFlag controlpoint
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Tank 900/370
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Infantry 900/370
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition car 900/370
aiStrategicArea.setSide 0

aiStrategicArea.setActive northern_island
AIStrategicArea.addNeighbour southern_island
AIStrategicArea.addNeighbour novo_mesto
aiStrategicArea.addObjectTypeFlag controlpoint
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Tank 420/990
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Infantry 420/990
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition car 420/990
aiStrategicArea.setSide 0

aiStrategicArea.setActive southern_island
AIStrategicArea.addNeighbour alliedbase
AIStrategicArea.addNeighbour northern_island
aiStrategicArea.addObjectTypeFlag controlpoint
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Tank 420/60
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Infantry 420/60
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition car 420/60
aiStrategicArea.setSide 0

aiStrategicArea.setActive alliedbase
AIStrategicArea.addNeighbour southern_island
aiStrategicArea.addObjectTypeFlag base
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Tank 440/370
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition Infantry 440/370
AIStrategicArea.setOrderPosition car 440/370
aiStrategicArea.setSide 2

ok now all the strategic areas are done and now we need to go to the conquest folder and copy all the .con files into the singleplayer folder

now make sure you have added these files into your map

AI folder,singleplayer folder,AI.con,AIpathfinding.con,singleplayeraxis.con,singleplayerallied.con,coop.con,coop.con in gametypes,pathfindingfolder......now we are done...pack up your map and select co-op play and see what happens...

i will be rereading this a few times to re write some areas and change some to easier ways...so check often for changes..there will be a date aded if its an updated area in the tutorial...hope this helps you all..

e mail me at greenbudsmapediting@yahoo.com if you have any problems with this tutorial or any other..