(WIP) environment and weather mod + extra blood

[Admiral Nelson]

Nice, can't wait for a release!

[HorseArcher]

This is one mod i will have to keep watching for.
Sometimes its the small details like these that can really help with the immersion factor.

I agree with Honor that night is too bright, hopefully you'll be addressing that.

yes. Since it looks like the lighting is derived from env_maps , I can change the env maps in a way that the game lighting changes as well.

I'm planning to make some very dark nights mixed with lighter ones to keep the random look.

I'm still playing/learning with many settings what would work, but as some said before, It is hard to change a lot in this game, the vanilla skyes indeed very nice and i can't make them a lot better......maybe a few.

[Kscott]

I was sold at the increase of special events like rain and blizzards

[CALIUS]

This is looking great. I was looking for a mod that added changes of eye-candy. Weather plays a massive part in the ambience of a battle so as soon as this is ready its in my game for deffo

[HorseArcher]

This is looking great. I was looking for a mod that added changes of eye-candy. Weather plays a massive part in the ambience of a battle so as soon as this is ready its in my game for deffo

CA planned to have a changing weather and they did so with the snow/rain/storm/blizzard settings, but they didn't really go into it too far.

Basically they started out with - for example - the storm as "drizzling" and ends up raining, but I can make it, so it just starts out being cloudy, then drizzle - then rain, then pour, ...and then reverse the process back to calm again. Of course all that with changing fog levels and lightning and the slow increase of lightning, simulating how a storm approaches and leaves, (less lightning in the beginning and the end and more lightning in the middle, when the storm is the most intense.

[CALIUS]

CA planned to have a changing weather and they did so with the snow/rain/storm/blizzard settings, but they didn't really go into it too far.

Basically they started out with - for example - the storm as "drizzling" and ends up raining, but I can make it, so it just starts out being cloudy, then drizzle - then rain, then pour, ...and then reverse the process back to calm again. Of course all that with changing fog levels and lightning and the slow increase of lightning, simulating how a storm approaches and leaves, (less lightning in the beginning and the end and more lightning in the middle, when the storm is the most intense.

Maybe my battles dont last as I havent realy seen much dynamic changes .. it seems to be the weather state at the start of the battle to the end for me?

I do love murky poor weather conditions in custom battles so more dynamic variations of that will be superb.

Well anywho if your making it more dynamic and more obvious within that then keep it going I am sitting waiting for the release

[Garnier]

I love the idea of weather changing during battles. Remember MTW 1? Sometimes I would wait around for the rain to clear up before sending my longbow army forward..

[Richard the Lionheart]

I love the idea of weather changing during battles. Remember MTW 1? Sometimes I would wait around for the rain to clear up before sending my longbow army forward..

You can still do that in M2TW as well. You just have to press the "wait" button once or twice.

[HorseArcher]

Alright boys and girls, ladies and gents...

I told you, I'm doing this by small steps in painstaking detail, down to the last code line.

I just made the first custom blizzard.

This event/look/feel is only for the sunrise-blizzard.

What that means? Each day events (sunrise/morning/midday/afternoon/sunset/night) will have a custom look and custom feel.

So sunrise is not that common, and neither the best looking and I don't like it, but it has to be done.

Note the reddish/purple-ish fog, which I cannot change yet, because I got no access to the .lighting files and I would refrain of editing texture files anyway, for the sake of easy installation by simply dropping in 1 - file and 1 xml file only, into the entire game.

It is possible to do this, because I search and search for the best available skies,lightings, weather to make this mod work with the already present texture files.

So, this sunrise-blizzard has been under the modding scissors for a good 3hrs now, and I semi-satisfied, but since it's one of those daytypes which we don't really fight often, I think this will do fine for first release.

So what's different?

-In the game, the vanilla blizzard uses the same sky used by the regular snow fall, which I have changed and remixed the sky.

-In the game the vanilla blizzard is basically 2 events, (blizzard to clear up), but since the settings almost disable the "clearup" event I added 3 additional steps to go from gusty wind and snow drift to start snowing , then to increase fog, reduce visibility and then slowly returning to the clear up , but wind stays gusty and the clearup stays until you exit the battlefield.

So what is like fighthing in the new blizzard?

hard as hell. Just like in real world, blizzard reduces visibility to nothing and units cannot see each other and neither easy to navigate around. So You will need to avoid fighthing in the blizzard, because you will have to pay attention what is going on, and it's not easy.

So here some screens about the sunrise-blizzard:

gamestart. snow drifting and fog and strong wind:


game progresses, begins to snow:



the blizzard kicks in, reducing visibility to very low, you gonna have to keep zoomed in or you will loose direction and your units:


It starts to clear up after like 10-15 min of fighthing (it was a bloody fight):


the snow storm passes by, the light and visibility increases and stays:


It's almost kinda sunny when i exit the battle:



This is just an appetizer, I probably won't post the rest of the blizzard settings I'm gonna do for the rest of the daytypes (morning to night), let that be a suprise.

Once I'm done with all, I'll move to the rain/storm settings and do the same and so on...

[Admiral Nelson]

Once I'm done with all, I'll move to the rain/storm settings and do the same and so on...

Spectacular work Horsearcher, how long do you guess this would take? I loved your skymod from RTW, this looks even better!

[HorseArcher]

Spectacular work Horsearcher, how long do you guess this would take? I loved your skymod from RTW, this looks even better!

well, thanks! It will take me a few more days, but since I'm gonna be on vacation, I will have more time to work on this now. Probably a few days from now, I should have a beta-to test.

Again, super easy installation. 1 file (weather.db.xml) to drop into your mod folder.

I'm still experimenting with many things beside having the idea already set for the entire thing and see if i can do something really cool.

[Feldspar]

RTW = bad.. but if you add archers skymod... good
M2TW = good... but if you add archers skymod... well I can't describe it without alot a curses used as adjectives. yup...

[Cymera]

Archer, i love ur Skymod for RTW it works great with XGM, and combining ur M2TW Skymod with Lusted's LTC..... (Vincent price laughter)

[HorseArcher]

for night battle fanatics. Unfortunately I cannot make the sky darker, neither the torches brighter (I did it for myself but...), unless I edit the texture, but then you would need to unpack your game and use the --io files_first switch , and I'm not favor of that.

so this is as dark as it gets without doing the --io - switch:

[HorseArcher]

......and what it looks like if you would use the --io switch and my modded texture/modded light effect files + added extra blood.


(I can even make these darker If desireable, but only with the --io switch option+unpacking - for whoever want to install this mod)






...so It's up to you how you want this.

only "mymod" mod switch with only one file to add, but bright vanilla nights, vanilla torch effects /no blood

or --io file_first switch + the whole nine yard of unpacking and installing a larger mod= real dark nights, brighter torch effect , + blood.

hmm? :hmmm:

[CALIUS]

Choice is the key, so have it so we can take our fancy if thats cool with you?

Im loving this mate. This will be one of the mods that everyone has installed as a must have - I can "see it" (no pun intended) now.

So are you saying that more blood is moddable? I notice in the main forum someone asking about this. Any chance that the blood part could be a spin off as a "more blood" mod?

Either way keep it going as I think this will be a standard mod for the game thats for damn sure.

[Ludicus]

CALIUS wrote:

Im loving this mate. This will be one of the mods that everyone has installed as a must have -

Seconded

[HorseArcher]

Choice is the key, so have it so we can take our fancy if thats cool with you?

Im loving this mate. This will be one of the mods that everyone has installed as a must have - I can "see it" (no pun intended) now.

So are you saying that more blood is moddable? I notice in the main forum someone asking about this. Any chance that the blood part could be a spin off as a "more blood" mod?

Either way keep it going as I think this will be a standard mod for the game thats for damn sure.

I can add as much blood as you want. Right now, it's too much, because I was doing a test run. Since I'm developing the blood mod parallel with my weathermod, I am also experimenting of having blood staying on the ground. That, I haven't really looked into it all the way, but I as I was looking through the files and codes, It might be possible. I'm also trying to get those blood stains more visible on units....

[HorseArcher]

experimenting with the blood stains



This guy running there, must have lost a gallon of blood and still fighthing...lol, he should be like the hero of the soviet union!




It's a little too glowy and maybe too much but sometimes it just looks so cool, especially in a meele, one of my imperial knights smashed the enemy on the head, and the guy turned red, like his head got splattered..


this picture is only for the cool factor.

[shifty157]

Awesome work! I will definitely be keeping my eye on this. I was hoping someone would do a weather mod and this is turning out great.