having problems using 0.8 and some vegetation modifications....

[iberus_generalis]

hello to you all! long time no see=)
im back, and i loved to see 0.8 is up..installed and started the migration of things from my personal build of 0.74 to 0.8... the first thing i set as an objective was to bring the vegetation i had in 0.74 into 0.8... well i got a problem... even after overwriting the vegetation.db file as well as all the necessary files, i started the game expecting to have the Blue Lotus vegetation in 0.8 like i had in 0.74...well i got sad to see that none of the changes took place, and the vanilla horrid pine trees, and kashyyk mile high trees are still in place... is it that the EB 0.8 vanilla vegetation files are backed up somewhere hidden? is it 1.5 bug? any help? some of the retextures i made for my 0.74 are also not in place...but this i can rework to correct by changing the textures.....

finally i found some bugs already concerning textures... the Ilyrian light spearmen have a bug in the textures.... they have the spear part of the texture texturing a box near the ear and the spear is all brown and sloppy... i also saw that the equites singulares/consulares misplacement is also in place...=(

[Foot]

Hehe, this is one of the great problems of the -mod build; getting vegetations into the build is bloody difficult. I think the basic process is that the vegetation.db is not recreated using the -mod build files. To get the new vegetation in you have to put the files into the vanilla data folder, create the new vegetation.db from a vanilla game and then put that new vanilla vegetation.db into the mod folder, along with the vegetation data files as well.

Foot

[iberus_generalis]

putting things in the vanilla data folder was exactly what i did.... i wonder if i reverse the process im gonna get some result...

is there a way to convert this -mod build into a mod build similar to 0.74? is it just copying the contents of EB file into the vanilla data folder?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Yep. I hope we don't ever have to touch those files again. Our palms are a bit tall, but otherwise I think we probably will be leaving them alone. That aspect is the single most frustrating thing I've done modding RTW.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

a lot of files refer to things specifically that are in eb subfolders IG. I really can't give much advice otherwise. We just barely were able to get what we have now, and although we aren't 100% happy with it all, it is enough for me (the person who actually had to do the work), so I would be surprised if anyone else was able to push things further.

[iberus_generalis]

i found altering vegetation in 0.74 one of the easiest aspects i've encountered in RTW... at least in the work it gave me... but at least you made one great job by letting us get the palm tree cas.... the BL ppl only gave us the .db file...no actual model for us to regenerate the vegetation database...but this time and with the models from EB, and NTW2 im gonna be able to make a new +perfect .db file...

and concerning the conversion of the -mod build into a normal build... how could i do it? cuz i prefer various dedicated installs to this -mod process... i do have big disc....

Edit... ok i understand...so in the future we shouldn't expect a non -mod build version? it's sad..=/... well we can't have all in life....

[blacksnail]

Although if some enterprising person manages to do so, by all means share it here! (Preferably with step-by-step instructions! )

[Foot]

putting things in the vanilla data folder was exactly what i did.... i wonder if i reverse the process im gonna get some result...

is there a way to convert this -mod build into a mod build similar to 0.74? is it just copying the contents of EB file into the vanilla data folder?

To convert to a non -mod build is quite simple really, with a little bit of perseverance when things go wrong.

I use textpad, so I assume that is being used.

In textpad go to tools -> find in files

search for "eb/data" in all .txt files in the eb/data folder (including subfolders). This will bring up a lot of files with this phrase in it.

You then need to go to each and everyone of those files and do a search and replace. Replace "eb/data/" with "data/". Some phrases will look like "../eb/data/" rather than "eb/data/", either change these instances to "../data/" or delete "../eb/data/" entirely from the line, as the "../" tells the game to look up one directory, and is used when the file doesn't start looking in the base RTW folder (ie the one with RomeTW.exe in it), but instead starts looking in the vanilla data folder.

Once all these changes have been made you can then copy and paste the entire contents of eb/data into the vanilla folder.

However you will need to do some .pak stuff to get it all to work I believe, but that is not something I am fully familiar with and you will need to work that out on your own. But that should only affect graphical problems (though sprites may be affected I am not sure).

Foot

[iberus_generalis]

Xpacking was the first thing i've done as soon as i got 0.8 installed... now my pack folder is non existent.... and the game still works 100%...=)

personally i prefer non -mod build compliant versions, as they make modding easier and less worky... i guess im gonna loose some hours converting.... thanks for the advice....

and trust me... i have preserverence...if you see my screens and some of the things i've done to my build you would know how preserverent i can be when im motivated and decided.... after the migration is over im going back to my little personal project of retexturing every building in RTW, and making it a small texture overhaul for EB... and if possible to RTW vanilla...=) right now i have retextured all the barbaric buildings in RTW... except some fences.. i have some screens in my personall Blog...http://generalwarzone.blogspot.com/

[Foot]

personally i prefer non -mod build compliant versions, as they make modding easier and less worky... i guess im gonna loose some hours converting.... thanks for the advice....

Actually I would severely disagree with you, in my opinion the -mod build really allows much more freedom for modding, as it bypasses all .pak files completely: the game is told to look in the mod folder for all files before even considering the rather unwieldy .pak files.

The only downside is the vegetation.db, but considering that is all I hardly think it much of a downside compared to all the pro's the -mod build brings, not least of which is that we can with supreme ease patch all our releases far faster and with far smaller files than before.

The -mod system is something that should be supported, and there is only one case where I think that a normal build for a mod is to be considered better. When you have mods for EB, for example a multiplayer mod, or a mod that puts in a new faction in place of another one, the -mod build can be used for these mods of EB quite easily if the main EB mod overwrites the vanilla files. We may convert back to a traditional build for EB at 1.0 when there are no more patches needed, and people can mod to their hearts content if they so wish, but until then I believe we are firmly behind this new -mod build for all beta versions of EB.

Foot

[iberus_generalis]

then i guess you are right... it's just that i never gave too much effort into trying to figure out this system works, as i normally play non -mod build mods... the only one that i play that uses this system is Chivalry TW, and i never tried modding it...

[Geoffrey S]

So if the -mod thing makes vegetation so hard to edit we shouldn't expect all-new vegetation, among which new trees, in a later build? That's one of the very few things I miss in EB, it'd be the finishing touch to complement the beautifully modelled units.

[iberus_generalis]

it seems to be working ok... adding new trees now...

Edit...bugger... no go... i really can't get this to work this way either... gonna try and make a new vegetation file and retry in vanilla again... i shall not be defeated=)

[iberus_generalis]

beem trying to regenerate de .db file through the vanilla version with the models and textures in model_vegetation, and textures in Vegetation folder after deleting the old .db, and .vege files... but RTW isn't regenerating nothing... do i have to unisntall 0.8 and retry?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

It has to generate a db file if you have put the new files into vanilla and then start up vanilla. If it's not doing that, then something is quite wrong.

[iberus_generalis]

tell me about it=)... something is dead wrong alright... gonna try and sanitize this install... keep the needed files and restart....

BTW i think i found an error in the vegetation.txt file...in the palms department...you have at least 8 variants for a palm tree, when according to the tutorials of lordz you can only get 4 variants tops... at least this is true in 1.2... i experienced it first hand... i got ctds whenever i tried to get more...
im gonna read the .txt entrie by entrie and see if the non regenerating .db and .vege files issue is coming from some error i might have introduced, or some that is in the actual .txt...

[Teleklos Archelaou]

We have 8 variants, but we only use four - the other four were optional and commented out. Now, we actually don't use those at all now - just CB's palms.

[iberus_generalis]

tnx for the explanation=) ganna keep trying