Special Effects Enhancement Mod v. 1.6 Insane Edition (Update 10.02.2014 for Patch 9.1)

[Mech_Donald]

Hi Rome Fans!

Special Effects Enhancement Mod v. 1.6 Insane Edition! (For high performant PC's!)

No more sterile battles. The Insane Edition adds dust to marching, running and fighting units. The floor will be covered with dust when units fighting each other. In addition to that i increased the time that blood stays on the floor. These changes needs much more performance, so please be sure you use a powerful machine!

Special Effects Enhancement Mod v. 1.5 Blood & More Blood (for Blood & Gore DLC)

plus SEEM v1.3 with vanilla flaming arrow effect working with blood-dlc

All versions has been updated to work with the current version of the game (Patch 9.1)


(Important note: For long lasting ground splatter it is necessary to set terrain quality to extreme. Otherwise you'll see no blood on ground!!!)
Thanks to DogSoldierSPQR for the tip!

Here is a very nice video by DogSoldierSPQR showcasing the blood part of my mod in action (Thanks for that)! If you want see much more of this i recommend to watch his entertaining Rome 2 Let's Plays using his own mod: the "DogSoldier's Combatus Maximus Mod Battle Overhaul" (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...dogsoldierspqr).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSV9AW0c19o

Enjoy!


Changelog:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Version 1.6 Insane Edition

- blood stays now much longer
- added dust when units move

Version 1.5

- added a "more blood" version wich provides more blood on bodies - many thanks to LuciferHawk for testing!!
- Changed blood splatter texture on bodies

Version 1.4 Blood (only for blood-dlc!)

- blood on ground texture changed
- blood on ground stays almost forever
- spraying blood is a little darker now
- added ground blood splatter to spear-hits
- ground blood splatter also for slingshot hits
- made the ground blood a little smaller

Version 1.3
- reworked flaming arrows and javelins, more Medieval2 style, looks a litlle crappy, but more is not possible yet without destroying other effects. If you don't like the effect there is an alternative mod version with slightly changed vanilla effect to download.
- reworked torches (see screenshot for comparison)

Version 1.2
- deletes now dust effects and change it to blood puffs .

Description
Here is a quick SFX Mod for Rome 2. Aim was to enhance a little that awful (sorry to say, CA ) special effects. Especially in comparison with Shogun 2 the SFX are very bad. So i try to enhance smoke, fire and explosion effects on my own - and i failed hard.
All i can is just alter existing effects, but not add some new. Unfortunatly many projectiles, etc uses the same effects library. To add a new library ends up in awful texture glitches and errors. Same happens when i try to add new effects to a existing library. I don't figured out how to succeed. Also db files doesn't help in this case. Sorry.
Also adding new nice textures is harder than in Shogun 2. I failed in getting textures aligned in position. I haven't found a string to fix a texture in alignment or better in orientation. So i have to work with the exististing bad textures.

But with this limited posibilities i made a small GFX-mod wich alters the smoke and fire trails of artillery, explosions and adds a little blood plume effect. This mod is not comaptible with Radious dust mod.

For me it is nevertheless a little enhancement.


What does this mod do?

- it enhances all smoke columns in cities and change the smoke color to black
- improves all the smoke trails from Onager projectiles and make the flames more fiery
- improves the explosion effects from onagers a little bit and make it bigger and more fiery
- deletes all the annoying greyish hit dust effects
- adds a little blood puff when units are beeing hit by projectiles
- rimproves flaming arrows and javelins, more Medieval2 style
- improves torches with better performance as well

Screenshots SEEM 1.3:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Trails Vanilla:




Trails with SEEM-mod:




Explosions Vanilla:




Explosions SEEM-mod:





Smoke Columns in cities Vanilla. (Capua Prologue in this case):




Smoke Columns in cities with SEEM. (Capua Prologue in this case):





Siege torches Vanilla:




Siege torches SEEM v1.3:

Screenshots for my Blood Enhancements:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Screenshots from the Insane Edition showcasing dust effects:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- SEEM 1.5 BLOOD with Vanilla flaming arrow effect (only for Blood-DLC): http://www.mediafire.com/download/46...od_afa_P9_1.7z
- SEEM 1.5 MORE BLOOD with Vanilla flaming arrow effect (only for Blood-DLC): http://www.mediafire.com/download/9h...od_afa_P9_1.7z

- SEEM 1.6 Insane Edition: http://www.mediafire.com/download/rr...Insane_P9_1.7z
- SEEM 1.6 Insane Edition with less blood on bodies (may look more realistic in someones opinion): http://www.mediafire.com/download/nh...Insane_P9_1.7z
- SEEM 1.6 Insane Edition with Vanilla flaming arrow effect: http://www.mediafire.com/download/uy...ne_afa_P9_1.7z
- SEEM 1.6 Insane Edition with Vanilla flaming arrow effect and less blood on bodies (may look more realistic in someones opinion): http://www.mediafire.com/download/uy...ne_afa_P9_1.7z


To install just extract the file to your Rome2\data\ directory and you are good to go.

In future i will completely rework every effect, when it's possible. At the moment there are no decent changes possible. Sorry.

Best regards
Mech_Donald

[tech99]

Great job Mech_Donald, I have always enjoyed your mods ! I noticed how atrocious the special effects were in my first siege battle when I burned down the enemy's gate. The fire and smoke effects are pathetic for a 2013 game to say the least.

[Mech_Donald]

Great job Mech_Donald, I have always enjoyed your mods ! I noticed how atrocious the special effects were in my first siege battle when I burned down the enemy's gate. The fire and smoke effects are pathetic for a 2013 game to say the least.

Thanks and agree. I was shocked when i first saw the minimalistic explosion effect from heavy onagers. Though my mod is ugly too, it's still better than vanilla.

[Livebyte]

Could you add some screenshots?

[Livebyte]

Could you add some screenshots?

[tech99]

Thanks and agree. I was shocked when i first saw the minimalistic explosion effect from heavy onagers. Though my mod is ugly too, it's still better than vanilla.

Yeah, it is appalling how bad the SFX are in this game. The developers put so much effort into detailed soldiers with facial expressions that can only be seen zoomed in, but this game is played from a distance and the game will downscale the soldiers into models with less polygons and detail anyways. Things that are more obvious from a distance like fire and explosions are just a flat orange blob texture like games used 10 years ago. Siege weapons, flaming arrows and artillery are capable of tremendous destruction, and they are represented very poorly in this game.

[Mech_Donald]

Could you add some screenshots?

I've added some screens for comparison in the OP. But it's better to witness this in motion.

Yeah, it is appalling how bad the SFX are in this game. The developers put so much effort into detailed soldiers with facial expressions that can only be seen zoomed in, but this game is played from a distance and the game will downscale the soldiers into models with less polygons and detail anyways. Things that are more obvious from a distance like fire and explosions are just a flat orange blob texture like games used 10 years ago. Siege weapons, flaming arrows and artillery are capable of tremendous destruction, and they are represented very poorly in this game.

100 % agree, tech99. What i don't understand is the fact how it was possible to get so worse in this matter than the previous game Shogun 2. It's just incomprehensible! They had just to take the existing effects, change them a bit and build them into Rome 2. That would not so bad if it would be possible to mod the effects simply like in previous games. In this case i would it do - with pleasure!

[tech99]

I've added some screens for comparison in the OP. But it's better to witness this in motion.



100 % agree, tech99. What i don't understand is the fact how it was possible to get so worse in this matter than the previous game Shogun 2. It's just incomprehensible! They had just to take the existing effects, change them a bit and build them into Rome 2. That would not so bad if it would be possible to mod the effects simply like in previous games. In this case i would it do - with pleasure!

Lol, I don't think any Total War fans understand what went wrong with this game ! Either SEGA rushed the release of this game, or too much funding was spent on advertising instead of development. There really is no other explanation for this disaster.

[ToonTotalWar]

Nice mod mate! Request permission to use in my "all in one" mod please + rep

[willyum3249]

looks great, nice work. does it effect performance at all?

[Mech_Donald]

looks great, nice work. does it effect performance at all?

I made the improvements with aim in similar performance. So no performance hit for me.

Nice mod mate! Request permission to use in my "all in one" mod please + rep

Thanks for your rep, Toon!
Feel free to add my mod to your compilation.
Have fun!

best regards
Mech_Donald

[SandraDevilGirl]

awesome work! :-)

[Chris79]

Ah wonderful works as always.
Alway's look forward to your mod when a new TW game is released.

[Baleur]

Absolutely love this. But imo there needs to be a Radious compatible version, as i simply can't live without his special effects removal mod (removing campaign selection glow, arrow dust etc).
A merged version of your and his mod would be the best thing since sliced bread.

[Noif de Bodemloze]

I really love this mod and all these fire and smoke like in S2, NTW and ETW. Sad it is conflict with Radious no dust mod, so hard to pick.

[Mech_Donald]

Thank you all for the praise!

I really love this mod and all these fire and smoke like in S2, NTW and ETW. Sad it is conflict with Radious no dust mod, so hard to pick.

I could simply delete all the annoying dust within the next version of my mod.

[Baleur]

I suggest either asking Radious if he's ok with you including his changes, or if you two open a joint new thread for a "Mech_Donald & Radious Merged Graphics Mod" or something.

[Mech_Donald]

I suggest either asking Radious if he's ok with you including his changes, or if you two open a joint new thread for a "Mech_Donald & Radious Merged Graphics Mod" or something.

Ah too late. I updated my mod with dust removal already. The other mods by Radious are fully compatible with SEEM.

[tech99]

Awesome work, love the changes in the new version ! I am having no problems running this with the Radious combat BTW.

[ImperatorGregus]

Wunderbar ! (loves german version !)Thanks, and same for me, no problem with Radious !