BGF Heightmap Converter (Utility) file - Battlefield 2

1/1/07-
By way of a late Christmas present, at Battlegroup Frontlines we are releasing a heightmap program which we hope will be useful to fellow modders and mappers. It is a fast and easy utility for viewing and resizing heightmap (.RAW) files. It is primarily intended to make it easy to convert maps from Battlefield 1942 or Battlefield Vietnam to Battlefield 2, but it can also be used to change a BF2 map to a different size.

Long-term Battlegroup42 fans will recall that we converted many classic BF42 and BG42 maps to the Battlefield Vietnam engine, including Midway, Guadalcanal, Coral Sea, Gavutu Islands, Angaur and others. Since moving to the BF2 engine we have been developing software that can automatically convert BF42 and BFV maps to BGF. This conversion involves first converting the heightmap using a heightmap utility, then converting the map objects with a map converter program. We are pleased to release the heightmap utility today, and may release the map converter program at a later date (after the release of BGF). We have successfully converted a number of BF42 and BG42 maps to BGF, and today we have pleasure in showing work-in-progress screenshots of some of them. These include the classic open-steppes Operation Citadel map, and the Dnieper River map, from BG42, plus the original DICE Kursk map. Note that these are shown as they were originally converted; apart from the addition of basic vegetation they have not yet been manually improved. Citadel and Dnieper will be worked on by our mappers to bring them up to the BGF standard, while there are no plans to release Kursk or any of the other DICE maps.