modding campaign map

[Biggus Splenus]

I don't know. Somebody will.

We can only hope there is someone else as skilled

[spartan_warrior]

We can only hope there is someone else as skilled

I have no problem working on expanding the existing map to Korea, my Eurasia map will just be a personnal project that I will work on over the next year, as I said I am intending to use it for Rome2 if tools are ever released for that, so I am in no real hurry to finish that project. I am willing to work some on another map aswell.

[spartan_warrior]

To give a small update to the files which did not seem to have any tools included with the official set, a solution to each of them has been found. The rigid_splines can be made by sort of tricking the campaign map processing (there maybe a better solution but until I find it this works), the supertextures can be made using crux3D's tool, and for the markers and tree_list files, taw has pointed out to me that the tree_list can be read with his esf2xml converter and the markers with his markers unpacker. There are some problems with the markers unpacker and the newer S2 format so I am posting the files here, as taw said he will look into updating the tool to work with them.

[taw]

Empire has two formats called .markers - one for bridge.markers (for which there's converter) and one for world.markers (for which there's no converter).

All S2 .markers files seem to be in the same (or similar) format as world.markers from Empire.
So it will need a new converter.

I'll see if it's straightforward enough to do right now, or if it will have to wait.

[taw]

OK, so I have some answers about markers format.

There are actually multiple different formats of markersets, and it looks like the format is repository of markersets.
All S2 data has 1 markerset per file (easy), ETW's world.markers has ton of different ones.

Here are some decodings:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

samples/shogun2/campaign_prop_marker.markers

"BASE_MARKER_REPOSITORY"

[0, 0, 0, 645563, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]

[710865409, "CAMPAIGN_PROP_MARKER"]

[0, 0, 0, 710865409, 1]

[[-273.22153, 0.377313107252121, -101.78998, 0.619299113750458, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0, "Trade_Port"],

 [-229.44243, 0.226084291934967, -47.46737, 0.58204984664917, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 112, "Trade_Port"],

 [-91.5718460083008, 0.111903250217438, -44.9615173339844, 0.850688219070435, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 248, "Trade_Port"],

 [-269.68866, 0.207795858383179, -150.6786, 1.91795539855957, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 128, "Trade_Port"],

 [-246.06589, 0.367836236953735, -196.85204, 2.87314605712891, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 8, "Trade_Port"],

 [196.29039, 0.118697226047516, 50.79166, 0.365662693977356, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 144, "Trade_Port"],

 [-89.8754, 0.181756854057312, -134.54245, 4.6935977935791, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 24, "small_land_bridge"],

 [-198.15733, 0.325727254152298, -91.6479339599609, 3.51454186439514, 0.7, 0.7, 0.7, 160, "small_land_bridge"],

 [-270.48419, 0.230474770069122, -150.35695, 0.865644574165344, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 40, "house"],

 [-229.25385, 0.357913255691528, -47.4569244384766, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 176, "house"],

 [-229.93692, 0.498489916324615, -48.03332, 5.48465251922607, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 56, "house"],

 [196.95164, 0.171354934573174, 50.6643447875977, 0.141797348856926, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 192, "house"],

 [195.71065, 0.0812634825706482, 50.4062767028809, 5.79816, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 72, "house"],

 [-246.7739, -0.00897277891635895, -165.23805, 4.60405158996582, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 208, "sea_gate"],

 [-151.53276, 0.00287319719791412, -97.37862, 5.47017574310303, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 88, "sea_gate"],

 [151.78648, -0.0284975804388523, -86.31248, 1.42535579204559, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 224, "sea_gate"],

 [-272.76578, 0.275191247463226, -101.94982, -0.880597114562988, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 104, "house"],

 [-273.93472, 0.334194004535675, -102.37908, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 104, "house"]]

[[1, "Trade_Port", [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]],

 [1, "small_land_bridge", [6, 7]],

 [1, "house", [8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17]],

 [1, "sea_gate", [13, 14, 15]]]

----

samples/shogun2/campaign_display_model_marker.markers

"BASE_MARKER_REPOSITORY"

[0, 0, 0, 645563, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]

[710799874, "CAMPAIGN_DISPLAY_MODEL_MARKER"]

[0, 0, 0, 710799874, 2]

[]

----

samples/shogun2/campaign_display_overlay_marker.markers

"BASE_MARKER_REPOSITORY"

[0, 0, 0, 645563, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]

[710799875, "CAMPAIGN_DISPLAY_OVERLAY_MARKER"]

[0, 0, 0, 710799875, 5]

[]

----

samples/shogun2/campaign_display_emitter_marker.markers

"BASE_MARKER_REPOSITORY"

[0, 0, 0, 645563, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]

[710799873, "CAMPAIGN_DISPLAY_EMITTER_MARKER"]

[0, 0, 0, 710799873, 3]

[[13691920, -44.7349433898926, 0.568339824676514, -115.40048, 1.00003039836884],

 [13691920, -148.63734, 1.30317735671997, -148.04543, -0.244258865714073],

 [13691920, -123.09784, 0.849490165710449, -141.27509, 1.00003039836884],

 [13691920, -121.16157, 1.20789074897766, -146.91148, 1.00003039836884],

 [13691920, -120.430755615234, 0.853174448013306, -142.36998, -59.2783164978027],

 [13691920, -131.56992, 0.691713809967041, -133.68062, 1.00003039836884],

 [13691920, -132.39128, 0.581311225891113, -129.48447, 1.00003039836884],

 [13691920, -140.30293, 0.451642990112305, -121.72011, 70.6445236206055],

 [13691920, -164.76645, 1.32368230819702, -129.10556, 1.00003039836884],

 [13691920, -164.55283, 1.18437480926514, -131.69788, 0.30000302195549],

 [13691920, -168.09706, 1.35804986953735, -126.61345, -0.192806228995323],

 [13691920, -170.67726, 1.61310625076294, -126.47745513916, 0.30000302195549],

 [13691920, -97.55923, 0.709219455718994, -142.06276, 70.6445236206055],

...

 [13691920, 36.60443, 1.68900203704834, -140.03423, 255],

 [13691920, 23.35399, 1.35957968235016, -152.02625, 255],

 [13691920, 111.43686, 0.525501430034637, -134.30037, 255],

 [13691920, 25.34326171875, 4.70304, -56.8467826843262, 255],

 [13691920, -63.5155830383301, 0.665486514568329, -122.11919, 255],

 [13691920, -149.70451, 1.0561056137085, -131.9239, 255],

 [13691920, 146.93399, 1.2930223941803, -43.6351432800293, 255],

 [13691920, 205.62257, 0.978608667850494, 32.0786819458008, 255],

 [13691920, -251.7868, 0.58725917339325, -165.04163, 255],

 [13691920, -219.32881, 0.579312086105347, -98.5429, 255]]

[[1,

  "Local_cherry_blossom",

  [0,

   1,

   2,

   3,

   4,

   5,

   6,

   7,

   8,

   9,

   10,

   11,

   12,

   13,

   14,

   15,

   16,

   17,

   18,

   19,

   20,

   21,

   22,

   23,

   24,

   25,

   26,

   27,

  [...]

 [1,

  "campaign_waterfall_rainbow",

  [1459,

   1460,

   1461,

   1462,

   1463,

   1464,

   1465,

   1466,

   1467,

   1468,

   1469,

   1470,

   1471,

   1472,

   1473]],

 [1,

  "campaign_waterfall_bottom",

  [1474, 1475, 1476, 1477, 1478, 1479, 1480, 1481, 1482, 1483]],

 [1, "campaign_waterfall", [1484]],

 [1,

  "campaign_ambient_god_rays",

  [1485, 1486, 1487, 1488, 1489, 1490, 1491, 1492, 1493]]]

So it looks like some header, list of markers (in one of two formats), and then index table of strings-to-marker-indexes.

Files without any markers in them do not have index table at all.

I still haven't decoded Empire's world.markers, but that's probably of least interest to everyone.

And yes - that's either 4 floats or 3 floats, then "255" (not a float, uint32 as NULL placeholder probably) in that last markers format. No idea why.

Does it make sense so far?

[taw]

OK, there's packer and unpacker now. Usage:

jruby world_markers_unpack file.markers file.txt
jruby world_markers_pack file.txt file.markers

It might be fragile. It's up to you to ensure second array points to correct entries of the first array.

Have fun.

[spartan_warrior]

Great work taw. These markers are an extremely minor aspect of the campaign maps, but atleast now we have the option to edit them. +rep when I can

EDIT: So judging from this, I believe that every file needed to make the campaign map is indeed editable. There should be nothing to stop us from making new maps, the only limiting factors now are any hardcoded limits we will encounter, such as maximum map dimensions and/or region limits. I can't wait to start seeing what is possible now, however I don't expect I will have much time to work tampering with the maps until after this week, as I am quite busy with midterms currently.

[Biggus Splenus]

spartan_warrior, I have a request.

Would you be able to keep documentation on the processes your using to create a map? Just so that you can create a tutorial out of it and release to the community.

It will definitely revolutionise a whole heap of mods.

I hope you consider

[spartan_warrior]

spartan_warrior, I have a request.

Would you be able to keep documentation on the processes your using to create a map? Just so that you can create a tutorial out of it and release to the community.

It will definitely revolutionise a whole heap of mods.

I hope you consider

I will try to do definitely try to do that, but right now I still don't have a definite process yet. A lot of what I am doing now has been trial and error to figure out what works and what does not.

[GeneralWolfe]

I will try to do definitely try to do that, but right now I still don't have a definite process yet. A lot of what I am doing now has been trial and error to figure out what works and what does not.

A youtube video or text instructions with pictures would be really helpful. For some reason I feel like making a fictional Japanese invasion of New Zealand (probably set during the Sengoku period).

[Giorgios]

Some excellent progress here- I can't comment other than to say, good luck!

[spartan_warrior]

Well it seems that I was wrong about having everything sorted out for working with all the mapping files. It seems that the supertexture tool which exists currently will not work, as there is a difference between the old Empire/Napoleon format and the Shogun ones. The old format is an alpha and a colour bitmap layer, while the new format is a normal and a colour layer. So when a new texture is packed with the tool for Shogun it reads wrong. Also the tool doesn't allow for creating files of different dimensions, so it won't be good for any new size maps.

[88HaZZarD88]

sorry if i post here but i see is the thread with more progression results
i would like to know if create/modify new mesh/model for soldiers in already possible

[Biggus Splenus]

sorry if i post here but i see is the thread with more progression results
i would like to know if create/modify new mesh/model for soldiers in already possible

Yes sir, that has been possible for a while in the warscape engine I'm currently working on some Seven Years War models for the Shogun 2 engine, but that's off topic

[spartan_warrior]

Some sad news, but without being able to edit the supertextures there is no reason to edit the map, as we will always be stuck with the existing normal map, and the map of Japan for the FOW. It's a shame that we have all the tools to edit everything else but now we are held up by what is essentially just a compressed texture file. The existing tool won't work for the Shogun 2 maps, and since its creator Crux3D isn't around anymore it doesn't look like it will be updated. Unless of course someone feels like tackling this file format, but since we don't have any info about Crux3D's tool or documentation about the file format, it would be starting from scratch again. I have spoken to taw about the supertextures and he says that they are quite complex, I know nothing about programming so I can't do it or else I would, and someone comes along wanting to do this it seems that I won't bother with this project anymore.

The only other hope is that if CA would update the assembly kit to convert the supertextures into something editable such as a TIFF or PSB. I don't know how likely that is though.

[Dynamo11]

I wish I could help spartan_warrior, you could ask the CA guys in the Documentation thread

[MathiasOfAthens]

So your positive you cant add or edit regions?

[spartan_warrior]

So your positive you cant add or edit regions?

No, editing the regions can easily be done. Of all things now its this texture, there is no point in creating new maps if we are stuck with a supertexture of Japan. You will definitely be able to add regions to the map, but I won't be bothering to work on any maps as without the supertexture it won't look right. So even if you wanted to add Korea to the existing map it will look really odd to the rest as it will be missing the normal texture.

[88HaZZarD88]

Yes sir, that has been possible for a while in the warscape engine I'm currently working on some Seven Years War models for the Shogun 2 engine, but that's off topic

OT

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

can you show us some new model/mesh you made for shogunII ?(i cheked all the forum and i have not seen yet a new model only recoloured .. maybe is early idk uhm) just curious too see how a 1700/1800 soldier looks in shougun 2 engine compared to the ones from napoleon and empire total war

[Jack Lusted]

Hi guys,

We are looking into the supertexture stuff, see what we can do.

Another thing I would like to say is that the way campaign mpas are made is changing completely for Rome II. Anything you make using Shogun 2 will not work in Rome II. There is no point starting campaign map projects now for it.