Tutorial: Placing Palms on the Battlemap

[Duke John]

The first problem is that the engine uses the wrong trees at long distance, while the second problem is about the wrong trees at short distance.

In this case everything seems to work [...] until you get up close.

...
Hmm, he probably:
In this case everything seems to work except some sprites so that the forest appear as a normal deciduous with a few of the tall thin palms (until you get up close where it works again).

Ah! In that case, did you try my earlier suggestion:

You still have original DDS files around in the sprites folder.

That is why I asked wether you deleted everything. If you still have old sprites in DDS format then the game will use those instead of your generated TGA sprites.

I guess that you removed only the VEGE files, and not also the content of the data\vegetation\sprites.

[Dol Guldur]

Thank you for your input guys - this problem is a monumental pain.

Yes, I meant the same thing as Adherbal pointed out ;)

The only semi-arid sprites I have in the sprites folder are palm ones, all of them new.

[Dol Guldur]

I now have the palm mod fully working in a bi -mod folder.

So that others do not suffer the same fate of many wasted hours I include below the reason for my month-old problem:

In the vanilla rome folder there is a file in vegetation/sprites called "semi_arid_dense_forest_0.tga.dds"

One of the palm generated files bears also the same name (but is generated as a tga unless you convert it to tga.dds).

It seems that the game will default to the one in the rome directory, which is why those sprites show in-game rather than the palms.

As the vanilla game needs this sprite (?), I assume it cannot be deleted or have its name changed (which is not really practical anyway for installation).

So, reason for problem identified...now to work out how to get it to work without whilst keeping the original vanilla sprite intact...tips anyone?

Has no one else encountered this problem, or is it a BI thing?

[Duke John]

Are your new sprites in TGA or DDS format? Try converting them to DDS if the former.

[Dol Guldur]

Makes no difference, Duke. I have tried converting it myself as well as using the one Teleklos made. The game still looks to the file in the rome data folder.

Teleklos, do you have it working now from in a rome -mod folder?


EDIT: Well the aforementioned sprite file has no reference in text so cannot be renamed or repathed; the only option is for the install to overwrite vanilla and I do not wish to further complicate install instructions by telling downloaders to backup the vanilla sprite file and remember to swap it over when playing vanilla :(

[Dol Guldur]

I can confirm that Adherbal's method avoids the use of same-name sprites and thus I now have the palm forests displaying correctly.

Thx. Adherbal - and Duke, Teleklos and Shifty.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Teleklos, do you have it working now from in a rome -mod folder?

I have been away from this issue for a while, working constantly on other things, but unfortunately we still don't have the palms in EB. It's not just the sprites that aren't working, but it's the palms entirely. We can get them to work on the base build, but not in the -mod folder version.

Can I ask you what the vegetations files that you have brought into your mod folders are exactly? Maybe we have something else that is conflicting with it. I wanted to tear my hair out before dealing with this, and I don't know that this time around will be any different, but we desperately need these in our mod.

[Duke John]

If you use R:TW 1.5 then you could send me the files (send the link through PM) and I'll have a look. I'll need the contents of the models_vegetation folder, descr_climates.txt and descr_vegetation.txt.

[Dol Guldur]

Welcome back, Teleklos.

I've PM'd you my files. They are for a BI mod folder but maybe they will help you see something you've missed.

Dol Guldur

[Ticu]

How do you put in the shadow?

[caius britannicus]

Great tutorial, worked great sprites everything worked (i used Duke Johns tutorial sorta did a combination of the both). ANyways. IT was working great as this screenshot shows.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b...lm_forests.jpg

So I then added the following folders (including all thats in them) and files to my mod install folder (which just overwrites the necessary files not a -mod folder:

models_vegetation
vegetation

descr_vegetation.db
descr_vegetation.txt

Anyways I tested then installing my mod folder (overwriting again) and played my mod. Problem was now the palms were using different sprites. A combination of pines and my palm trees.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b...s/palm_bug.jpg

Anyone have any idea what could be wrong?

[Dol Guldur]

This is the same problem I had I believe. The solution is above.

[caius britannicus]

I thought that it was the same. But you were using a mod folder. I have directly overwriten the files in the rome folder. the only semi_arid_dense_forest_0.tga is the one that contains my palm sprites.


EDIT: SHOOT missed the tgd.dds. Thats why they blend. Okay issue resolved

[Dol Guldur]

Ah, I see. And there is not two files of the same name but one with tga and one with the tga.dds extension? I'm sure you checked that.

I've sort of lost touch with RTW modding, being in bi and a modfolder thereof for so long now.

EDIT: Glad you found it :) At least it did not take you the many weeks it took me to locate my problem ;)

[caius britannicus]

The reason I didn't spot it earlier was I was looking at my back up folder instead of the actually rtw folder. I feel like an idiot.

[Dol Guldur]

Don't worry, I spent ages trying to work out why my edu changes weren't having any effect..it was quite some time before I realised I had not deleted the name of an old backup edu file and had been editing "export_descr_unit_.txt" :(

You seem to be progressing very well!

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Having some problems. I'd like to ask a question or two though:

-is it necessary to install all of your palm files onto a regular 1.5 build, then copy that vegetation.db file, start over on your -mod format build, and insert that vegetation.db file there? If it is... gah

I'm getting ctd's when trying this new vegetation method, but my old way was getting a mix of those palm and conifer sprites (as CB mentioned) still which was bad.
I assume the ctd is because (1) there is no vegetation.db file inside my -mod files, and (2) the new vegetation type isn't present in the "base" files which is where the vegetation.db is based off of.

This was so simple with a non - mod build. Grrrrr. (but changing UI images and such was such a pain back then)

[Dol Guldur]

Not quite sure what you mean but I generated the db file in vanilla 1.5 and then copied it over to my bi modfolder (bi itself drawing on the rome data folder db file in the normal course of events). Then all in 1.5 can be restored to vanilla once copied over to the modfolder. Did you look at the files I sent you? Did you copy over the .vege files? Leaving those out causes a CTD when you go into the battlemap for the climate modded.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

So, putting all your new vege files, palm textures, and sprites into the main 1.5 build, then generating the db file there, copying it, and putting it into your mod folder, and reverting the 1.5 base to vanilla is the way you have to go? I keep trying but getting ctd's even in vanilla now. Pretty sad that I seem to be totally incapable of getting them into the mod after submitting this tutorial in the first place. DAMN THIS -MOD FORMAT DB MESS. Gah. Going back to having conifer sprites but real palms up close is at least better than ctds though. This is the single most frustrating thing I've dealt with in all my work on this game.

[Dol Guldur]

It's been a while since I did it, but as best as I can rememeber you follow your (great) tutorial but edit in Adherbal's bit:

In CI's case the 2 text file excerpts look like this:

descr_vegetation.txt (part 1)

;4a palm forest trees - thx to Shifty and Teleklos of EB

model sa_tree_01
{
    level ../bi/ci/data/models_vegetation/palm_1.CAS
}

model sa_tree_02
{
    level ../bi/ci/data/models_vegetation/palm_2.CAS
}

model sa_tree_03
{
    level ../bi/ci/data/models_vegetation/palm_3.CAS
}

model sa_tree_04
{
    level ../bi/ci/data/models_vegetation/palm_4.CAS
}

model sa_tree_05
{
    level ../bi/ci/data/models_vegetation/palm_5.CAS
}

model sa_tree_06
{
    level ../bi/ci/data/models_vegetation/palm_6.CAS
}

model sa_tree_07
{
    level ../bi/ci/data/models_vegetation/palm_swamp_shrub.CAS
}

model sa_tree_08
{
    level ../bi/ci/data/models_vegetation/palm_shrub.CAS
}

descr_vegetation.txt (part 2)

vegetation 4a_near_harad_forest
{
    layout 120 palm_layout.tga
    radius 2
    height_range 0.4 0.8
    aspect_range 0.7 1.3
    lod trees
    model sa_tree_02
    model sa_tree_03
    model sa_tree_04
    model sa_tree_05
}

;4a
vegetation 4a_near_harad_dense_forest modifies 4a_near_harad_forest
{
}

and descr_climates.txt as:

climate semi_arid
{
	colour	0 114 188
	heat	2

	strategy	summer	sparse_tree	olive_a.cas				10
	strategy	summer	dense_tree	olive_a_impassable.cas	10
	strategy	summer	canopy		olive_a_canopy.cas		12

	battle_vegetation
	dense_forest	4a_near_harad_dense_forest
	dense_scrub		semi_arid_dense_scrub

	battle_winter_vegetation
	dense_forest	4a_near_harad_dense_forest
	dense_scrub		semi_arid_dense_scrub
	env_map			data/battlefield/envmaps/grass.dds
}

Then, when all is generated (.vege files, tgas and db), simply copy the veg db file, desc_vegetation.txt, descr_climates.txt into your mod folder's data folder; and then make a vegetation folder in your data folder and copy the *new* sprites into the sprites subfolder, and the *new* textures into a new textures folder, and the *new* generated .vege files (I had 41 of them) direct into the new vegetation folder.

Restore all rtw data files (which should have all been backed up) to vanilla (not least to test your modfolder is working and not drawing from above!)

Does this help?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Third try on your instructions seemed to have gotten it for me Dol. I'll see if this is just on my machine or if others can now replicate it. Thanks for being patient and helping out.

Glad to see CB got his sprites problem fixed too. I must say that his palm trees are simply gorgeous too, btw.

[Dol Guldur]

That's great Teleklos! Glad to repay what your persistence first brought about.

And yes, caius britannicus's palms are superb - as one of those modders who cannot model I'm especially jealous