PLEASE I really need some help with TeD!

**Ataeus** · August 08, 2018, 02:22 PM

With the eventual release of Causeless' (legend) tool that allows for custom siege maps in the campaign (as seen in ancient empires) I have decided to get into map modding because I'd love to see some custom maps in the grand campaign (I always hated the WRE siege maps, they just aren't roman enough). I have so far been using Doomon's guide (shout out to him and his prefabs too) which is very useful but incomplete. I have run into a couple of snags though where I am unsure of how to proceed and I'm struggling to find any real useful documentation on how the software works.
So far I've managed to transform the terrain and place objects and create and place prefabs with no issues but I have some questions, some of which might sound really stupid:

1) I cannot find a way to change the graphics settings! TeD seems to be even less well optimised that Atilla itself. An empty maps is only running at around 50 fps and when I load CA's maps I only get like 5-10. My map which so far only has the terrain and around 10-20% of the objects placed is already dipping down to the 20s on occasion. I can tell that in not too long the fps will be too low to allow me to work on my map properly. I have looked in all the menus to find a way to change the graphics settings but I haven't been able to find anything yet.....Which brings me to

2) I have lost the property editor window!!! (which I'm not 100% sure, but may contain the graphics settings). When I first started up the program the windows where scaled really weirdly so I adjusted them by putting the property editor into another window and full screening the 3D window. At some point I think I may have moved the property editor window off screen, or closed it. Since then everytime I have loaded up TeD the property editor window has not been opened simultaneously (I have checked if the window is simply offscreen by cascading my windows) and I cannot find any way to toggle it. I thought that the absence of the property editor window could be due to the program remembering my previous choices so I have re-installed it multiple times, including deleting Steam and the game and the roaming App data and still, TeD always opens with the fullscreen 3D window and no property editor.

3) Decals are really pissing me off. For one, I cant find how to place them myself from the menu ( I have tried create/projected decal), so I have taken to harvesting them from CA's maps and saving them as prefabs. Secondly when I use these prefab decals, for example a road, every object I place on top of it in contact is also then covered in that decal. So when I try to put some market stalls on top of a plaza made of plaza decals, all of the objects get covered in the decal texture unless they hover off the ground. This obviously not an issue in CA's maps because they place objects on top of roads all over the shop. Why is this happening to me and how can I place decals from the create menu rather than use prefabs? Is there another way to place roads other than decals?

4) How do I scale objects? There is an option for it but when I click and drag on the arrows to scale nothing happens. Interestingly I've noticed that there are no scaled objects in CA's maps so maybe this feature is broken?

5) I have placed loads of fort walls, towers, artillery positions. Other than adding capture areas is there anything that I need to do to make sure they work? That units can stand on them and that the towers fire?

6) I have placed rivers and shallow crossings. Is there anything that I need to do to make sure the rivers function or the crossing point works? (I have currently set the crossing point to be -1 height). I ask this because CA's maps seem to have some form of purple polygons that cover the river space.

7) How do I texture the ground? I've tried a couple of options, paint/ground type doesn't seem to change anything and the paint/blendmap just seems to slightly change the tone of the ground.

8) How do I place vegetation? After placing vegetation when I save the map, it prompts me to delete the vegetation because its outside of the correct zone so I guess I need to create vegetation zones but I have no idea how to do this.

Frankly I could ask questions forever but these are the main issues I'm trying to overcome right now, but I don't know anything about half the options in the create or paint menus so if anyone knows of any complete documentation that would be great!. I'm really proud of the work I've done so far and I'm really eager to continue to finish it and then tackle some other cities when I'm done, but man this editor is so unsupported by CA that it is ridiculous, it's getting me down

. Unless I manage to fix this graphics issue especially then it isn't going to be possible to continue.

Thanks for getting to the end and any help at all would be much appreciated. I've added a couple of pics of my work so far, what do ya think? Prizes for guessing the city (I'ts not 100% accurate for limitations and gameplay purposes but you should be able to tell). An extra question actually, do you think that the roads are too narrow for the AI to properly navigate through them?