Pink on Map?

[Roman_Man#3]

Ok. So I did work on the climates and ground types for my mods map, but now on the campaign map there is pink stuff on the map. Any idea why? I will upload my stuff when I get a chance.

[Makanyane]

Two possibilities:
one I knew about before; your colours on map_ground_types or map_climates don't tie up with the recognised RGB values - watch out for using brush / non opaque setting and getting merged colours on your tga's.

one Dol Guldur recently pointed out to me; for some other reason it is not finding your terrain/aerial_map/ground_types/texture, which could be:
name doesn't tie up with descr_aerial_map_ground_types.txt / doesn't exist / you're trying to read it from mod folder and haven't got right amount of ../../ in text file path to make it read from there etc...

[Roman_Man#3]

Its fixed, thanks.

[Whacker]

Two possibilities:
one I knew about before; your colours on map_ground_types or map_climates don't tie up with the recognised RGB values - watch out for using brush / non opaque setting and getting merged colours on your tga's.

one Dol Guldur recently pointed out to me; for some other reason it is not finding your terrain/aerial_map/ground_types/texture, which could be:
name doesn't tie up with descr_aerial_map_ground_types.txt / doesn't exist / you're trying to read it from mod folder and haven't got right amount of ../../ in text file path to make it read from there etc...

Pardon the thread necromancy here, but I could use some help.

My situation is as described, I'm using the -mod: switch for RTW v1.5. My personal mod is called "WhackerMod" (heh) and is located in a named subdir. I've edited my descr_aerial_map_ground_types.txt file located in my mod's data folder, and here's an example of the code:

climate default
{
    cultivated_low        WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\temperate_grassland_farm.tga    WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\arctic.tga
    cultivated_medium    WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\temperate_grassland_farm.tga    WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\arctic.tga
    cultivated_high        WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\temperate_grassland_farm.tga    WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\arctic.tga
    fertility_low        WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\texture2.tga                    WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\arctic.tga
    fertility_medium    WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\temperate_grassland.tga            WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\arctic.tga
    fertility_high        WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\temperate_grassland.tga            WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\arctic.tga
    forest_dense        WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\texture1.tga                    WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\arctic.tga
    forest_sparse        WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\texture1.tga                    WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\arctic.tga    
    hills                WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\texture1_hilly.tga                WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\arctic.tga
    mountains_high        WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\temperate_mountain_small.tga    WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\arctic.tga
    mountains_low        WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\temperate_hills_small.tga        WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\arctic.tga
    swamp                WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\swamp.tga                        WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\arctic.tga
    beach                WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\beach.tga
    scorched            WhackerMod\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\scorched.tga
}

The entire campaign map shows up in that ugly pink/purple. I've got a properly named and pathed \terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\ folder in my WhackerMod\data\ folder, and the files are definitely there. I've also tried copying the new textures into the based RTW\data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types folder, and it works fine and they all show up fine, so I know it's not bad files... Have also repeatedly deleted map.rwm in my campaign folder, but that hasn't made any difference.

Any ideas guys?

Thanks in advance



Edit - Interesting. I just tried removing the Whackermod\ from the front of all of the data entries in the descr_...txt file, and it still shows up as all purple. That should work as the file would be pointing at the normal textures... Yet it doesn't work.

[Dol Guldur]

I work in BI and not RTW but you need to jump out of the default path and up several levels and then back down into your own folder...

Try ../../../../ as a prefix to your MyModFolder/data blah blah blah

A RTW coder can correct that if I have it wrong.

[Makanyane]

^ agreeing with Dol Guldur - mainly because I pinched idea off his mod!

If you add descr_aerial_map_ground_types.txt to BI which it isn't normally in, or to a mod folder it needs paths changed relative to its position

also as also advised by DG, for BI at least if you put anything in mod folder packed within mod_0.pak it reads it as being under RTW/data. I had to do that with some sea textures that don't have file path specified at all, so also put terrain textures in that as well and they worked from there without inclusion of the text file in the mod folder, that obviously only works for straight swaps of one tga file for one of same name.

[Whacker]

I shall definitely try this out guys, thanks. Question though, you are using forward slashes / instead of backslashes. Should I be using forward slashes inside the descr_blah.txt file?

[Dol Guldur]

I believe the 'idea' was mentioned a long time ago on the forums by someone: there's a thread on it somewhere. There's always a thread on everything if you look! It's not mine - I think Chivalry uses it too and has done for some time (?) :)

Yes, / not \ which I now see you had wrong. lol. I must remember to be more observant :(

Back to tedious coding....

[Dol Guldur]

I believe the 'idea' was mentioned a long time ago on the forums by someone: there's a thread on it somewhere. There's always a thread on everything if you look! It's not mine - I think Chivalry uses it too and has done for some time (?) :)

Yes, / not \ which I now see you had wrong. lol. I must remember to be more observant :(

Back to tedious coding....

EDIT: This was my 1000th post!!! :)

[Dol Guldur]

OK, I really messed that up - obviously the edit somehow changed into a new post and then I could not edit it because for some reason Opera never allows the save button to work after editing - and it always tells me I have an invalid session when I try to use filefront - and it is such a memory hog; gah, I hate Opera - why do I use it??? The tabs, the tabs...

End tirade.

[Makanyane]

Never mind, you now have 1002th post - and Firefox is actually quite good

hope some of our random spam helped...

[Whacker]

Badda bing badda bang! Success! The key was adding those four ../ dereferencers before my WhackerMod/data/... etc bit, and also using forwardslashes instead of backslashes, which is bass ackwards... Also Dol, forgive me, in my defence I did spend at least an hour googling this and searching the Org and TWC forums, but found nothing concrete.

Thank you both very much for your help!

[Dol Guldur]

That's OK, Whacker; I'm glad you searched first before asking. Many do not.

And glad it worked.

Maybe we can blame Makanyane as she has power to organize both the forums and control the content of the Wiki....

Just Kidding! Oh I'm dead...I'm going to be in EoDII* at this rate.



* You do realise, Mak, that this really stands for Elves, Orcs and Dwarves and that you've missed your true modding vocation? :)



p.s. mak has actually done a *marvellous* job with the wiki!

[Whacker]

Extra mega super happy bonus time. descr_climates.txt works the exact same way:

climate test_climate
{
    colour    236 0 140
    heat    1

    strategy    summer    sparse_tree    ../../../../WhackerMod/data/terrain/aerial_map/tree_models/cypress_a.cas            11
    strategy    summer    sparse_tree    ../../../../WhackerMod/data/terrain/aerial_map/tree_models/olive_a.cas                10
    strategy    summer    dense_tree    ../../../../WhackerMod/data/terrain/aerial_map/tree_models/olive_a_impassable.cas    10
    strategy    summer    canopy        ../../../../WhackerMod/data/terrain/aerial_map/tree_models/olive_a_canopy.cas        12

    battle_vegetation
    dense_forest        medi_dense_forest
    dense_scrub        medi_dense_scrub

    battle_winter_vegetation
    dense_forest        medi_dense_forest
    dense_scrub        medi_dense_scrub
    env_map            data/battlefield/envmaps/grass.dds
}

Basically I copied the entire aerial_map folder over from M2TW into my mod folder, and am using all of those ground texes and tree models.

Also I would like to offer some great words of praise for her Makness. I remember reading these forums over the years, and seeing guys like Myrddral and Ep. Rich. being insanely helpful and polite to others, she's doing the same thing exactly. Her threads and posts are engaging, polite, and extremely informative. Definitely the kind of person that makes these modding forums so worthwhile, you as well Dol.

Cheers guys

[Dol Guldur]

She is ;)

And, yes, you can do the same thing in that file. :)

[Makanyane]

Apparently the only thing I'm missing on my quest for world domination is the ability to delete spam from the Modding Questions forum...

(thanks anyway guys)

Basically I copied the entire aerial_map folder over from M2TW into my mod folder, and am using all of those ground texes and tree models.

I had a fiddle with that as well, found some of the tree textures needed changing or they had a strange highlight effect that flickered quite annoyingly when they swayed on strat map. Did you have that?

[Whacker]

Apparently the only thing I'm missing on my quest for world domination is the ability to delete spam from the Modding Questions forum...

Oh come on, my posts may be bad, but they aren't spam...

I had a fiddle with that as well, found some of the tree textures needed changing or they had a strange highlight effect that flickered quite annoyingly when they swayed on strat map. Did you have that?

OK, gotta explain in detail what you mean here? All of the M2TW campmap trees work fine in my RTW mod using my modified files. Some of the mediterranian trees do seem to have a bit more white content than the others, is that what you mean? I don't remember if that looks normal or not. How'd you fix it, so I can try and see if it looks more natural?

[Makanyane]

Oh come on, my posts may be bad, but they aren't spam...

not you the rest of us....

OK, gotta explain in detail what you mean here? All of the M2TW campmap trees work fine in my RTW mod using my modified files. Some of the mediterranian trees do seem to have a bit more white content than the others, is that what you mean? I don't remember if that looks normal or not. How'd you fix it, so I can try and see if it looks more natural?

M2 texture used in RTW - its not so much the colour thats annoying but when it moves 'in wind' it gives a flickering effect (that might depend on computer display / options or something else I did to map lighting though) EDIT: just realised if you're using the M2TW ground type textures that probably doesn't clash as much as they have more white in them as well...


revised texture - fairly flat green.

Revised tree textures:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=X1BVA5MF
easier to send than explain, basically selected the lightest areas of the relevant bits of texture and painted them a bit darker green. It's only the bits of sort of distant general leafy looking texture that seem relevant not the bits that actually look like trees. A small difference to the textures seemed to make a bigger than expected difference on the map!

[Whacker]

M2 texture used in RTW - its not so much the colour thats annoying but when it moves 'in wind' it gives a flickering effect (that might depend on computer display / options or something else I did to map lighting though) EDIT: just realised if you're using the M2TW ground type textures that probably doesn't clash as much as they have more white in them as well...

That's the kicker right there. Tried all 4 variations (M2TW camp tex with M2TW tree tex, M2TW camp text with RTW tree tex, and the other two combos). I completely agree with your assessment, for the following reason;

Using the stock RTW campmap texes with the stock M2TW tree texes, I *really* noticed the flickering then. Almost seizure inducing. Methinks the game and drivers are trying to render the texes and probably some AF/AA filtering, because if you zoom in close, it's pretty damn messy. For the record I have two 6800's SLI'd using 2xAA (low) and forcing 16xAF through drivers.

With the M2TW campmap, it's far less noticeable, but after you mentioned it, I've started to be more concious of it and it's annoying, just not RTW camptex/M2TW treetex annoying. Going to stick with your revised textures in the future.

revised texture - fairly flat green.

Revised tree textures:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=X1BVA5MF
easier to send than explain, basically selected the lightest areas of the relevant bits of texture and painted them a bit darker green. It's only the bits of sort of distant general leafy looking texture that seem relevant not the bits that actually look like trees. A small difference to the textures seemed to make a bigger than expected difference on the map!

My feedback. While I like these better than the old RTW texes and new M2TW texes, perhaps a *little* white to add some variation would be good. In other words, enough to not make them too flat of green, but not enough to elicit the seizure-inducing flickering the current M2TW texes elicit.

Cheers