IWTE - World editing - (General Discussion)

[wilddog]

@xHolyCrusader - Unfortunately I don't use gimp as I have photoshop (before they introduced their subscription). With photoshop there is an nvidia plugin which is needed for generating the dds files. Main thing for the DXT5 is the alpha. Not sure what other Gimp users are using though as this issue must of surfaced before with general modding of units.

You could pm me or Makanyane a link to the file and we can see if it opens in photoshop correctly.

[irishron]

GIMP 2.6 and newer is supposed to have the plug-in included. I have not checked my 2.8 copy.

[makanyane]

@xHolyCrusader
I actually thought the nvidia plug-in worked with GIMP... but I haven't had GIMP on last couple of computers so not sure / may have been an older version.

Anyway apparently trying to save an all black alpha as DXT5 causes photoshop and presumably GIMP to delete the alpha channel in the saved version. The setting you need to get to is
in photoshop language;
"DXT1 ARGB 4bpp | 1 bit alpha"
which is fine for anything with a completely black/white alpha (no greys) and seems to work fine in both IWTE and Alpaca's texture converter.

Not sure if you can get to that in GIMP or not - if not I've attached a totally blank .dds and .texture, that you should just be able to rename.

blank_mask.zip

(wilddog's pm'ing you some thoughts on the GIMP save stuff)

[xHolyCrusader]

Thank you mak and wilddog, things seem to be working now.

Also had a look at the other files inside the overlay folder, how am i supposed to know where to paint black areas that will later be farms on the battle map (hilltop_village_farm1_mask.dds / hilltop_village_farm2_mask.dds)? do i have to guess where to put them?

[makanyane]

The mask is stretched to fit the .worldterrain size by the game.

You can find the size of your .worldterrain by using the 'resize.worldterrain' button to select the file - look in the black dos box and it'll say something like
nrows = 113 ncols = 113
write that down... and just cancel out of the process.

Load the 3 binaries for your city and go to "Views" and "create world TGA -Veg size" put those values in the X and Y boxes.
That'll give you a tga called ****worldobject.tga with a print of all the vertexes in the model and a tga size which extends out to represent the size of the terrain.
Re-size that to the image size of your mask - add it as a layer to the mask and use it as a guide.
Alternatively if you need to see stuff like techtree slots you can achieve something similar by getting everything including terrain up in the 2d window and taking screenshot.
CS2 would probably be a easier to use for this than GIMP.


This isn't a very user friendly aspect - and is actually the thing wilddog is trying to work on at the moment - to get the masks editable in the IWTE 2d window... that isn't finished yet but seems to be progressing well, though it will probably only produce a tga file that needs to be converted to dds (the python modules don't seem to support writing directly to dds)

[Falconwatch]

Hey guys got a question, just wondering how can we set out implementing custom settlements into "field" battle maps, the ones without walls.
What are the different options to do this?

Also editing the amount of troops in a unit, their movement speed to get off walls are really slow, basically getting down one by one like a gentleman,
is there anyway to fix this?

[makanyane]

Hey guys got a question, just wondering how can we set out implementing custom settlements into "field" battle maps, the ones without walls.
What are the different options to do this?

you can only do it by using a 'custom tile' which is made via the m2tw Battle Editor - you can place 'custom settlements' on the tile, but they won't work the same way as normal settlements (the plaza won't appear and the ai won't use them for defense)

Also editing the amount of troops in a unit, their movement speed to get off walls are really slow, basically getting down one by one like a gentleman,
is there anyway to fix this?

you can change numbers of troops either by changing the units EDU entry - or by changing your .cfg/options settings for troop numbers. You can't do anything specific about the getting off wall animation/speed.

[Falconwatch]

you can only do it by using a 'custom tile' which is made via the m2tw Battle Editor - you can place 'custom settlements' on the tile, but they won't work the same way as normal settlements (the plaza won't appear and the ai won't use them for defense)

Ahh okay, none of our team members are actually proficient with Battle Editor, so this is going to take some time to learn.
Sorry for some of the stupid questions I'm going to make.

Firstly the overall map for Battle Editor is still vanilla Europe instead of our modded campaign map, how do we change this?

Also after editing a battle map, how do we save it and implement it it the campaign mode?

Thx for the help, always appreciate it!

[xHolyCrusader]

Hey
Can someone please have a quick look at the worldpathfinding save process if it works correctly? Maybe it's just me that does something wrong...
This is what I'm doing:

Start to make my changes inside the 2d view, in this case nearly all blue areas removed.
Press exit, just to check if it recognizes that i made some changes.
Click "yes" in the prompt

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

this is how the dos window looks like:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

looks like it saved my changes without any errors.
but when opening iwte again and loading the changed .worldpathfinding file it just shows me the unedited version of vanilla "north_european_village_a.worldpathfinding"

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

am i doing something wrong? (it's the same for changes i do in the .worldvegetation files)

edit: Oh, on a side note, seems like all your images in the PKH forum disappeared, would it be possible to maybe repost them?

[makanyane]

Are you looking in the right place for the saved file? New version puts those ones edited in the new 'paint' process in a folder called "IWTEsave" in same folder as the .exe (not necessarily where your original pathfinding file is)
(there is some debate about whether to keep that system or go back to old way of doing it...)

PKH forum - erm probably imageshack type problem - not sure if I've still got them will look.

[xHolyCrusader]

Are you looking in the right place for the saved file? New version puts those ones edited in the new 'paint' process in a folder called "IWTEsave" in same folder as the .exe (not necessarily where your original pathfinding file is)

Hehe, thank you, should have checked that one *sweating*

(there is some debate about whether to keep that system or go back to old way of doing it...)

Since i never used the old process i prefer the current one :p would it be possible to keep both? To me the new one is more welcome cause I don't have to use Photoshop

[makanyane]

Since i never used the old process i prefer the current one :p would it be possible to keep both? To me the new one is more welcome cause I don't have to use Photoshop

ah, the paint process is definitely staying (and getting extended) - it was only the where files get saved bit that was under debate.

[makanyane]

see here for some details - if you need more info about the editor/tiles maybe ask there as it'll be more use to others than lost in this thread...

Firstly the overall map for Battle Editor is still vanilla Europe instead of our modded campaign map, how do we change this?

If your map is in world/maps/base and /imperial_campaign then it will actually be your map that you get - it's just the picture in the editor start menu screen that's wrong.
(you can only use the map that's there, you can't get a provincial campaign map to load in the editor)
Find the co-ordinates you want in the campaign by using show_cursorstat in the cheat console, and then navigate to those co-ordinates in the editor start window.

[xHolyCrusader]

I have a little question regarding collisions,
In case I load a vanilla m2tw structure into my settlement and want to assign collisions on it, do i have to go through "create object collision" for all objects that come with it??

And how do I know which directions the objects face, KK's tutorial says it can be done roughly, but where do i get at least an idea from how its rotated?

[leo.civil.uefs]

I have a little question regarding collisions,
In case I load a vanilla m2tw structure into my settlement and want to assign collisions on it, do i have to go through "create object collision" for all objects that come with it??

Yes you do, you can take 3d models from other settlements but not their collisions so you must assign new ones, but remember you only really need the collision for objects that could be hit by projectiles or if you want the camera to not pass thriugh it. My esgaroth has a lot of houses but most of them have no collision as they are in places where projectiles like arrows and rocks never hits.

This is particularly impportant in settlments with too many objects as too many collisions will cause LAG. So avoid collisions as much as you can.

And how do I know which directions the objects face, KK's tutorial says it can be done roughly, but where do i get at least an idea from how its rotated?

It does not matter at all, the direction will not determine the surface of the collision or something like that, if you have a box and you add a collision to it, all surfaces will be unpassable by projetiles and camera, no amtter wich direction you choose to the collision.

[wilddog]

And how do I know which directions the objects face, KK's tutorial says it can be done roughly, but where do i get at least an idea from how its rotated?

If you open up a settlement under the tab Collisions you can view view an objects 'created' collision. So for example looking at a wall will normally show as being positioned horizontally and facing down. If you were to assign a wall collision and its animation you do need to get the direction correct. So simply look at your wall (in this example) and set the dial to point in the way it faces and the setting should set it correctly. You can check the setting by using the views ab and looking at the collisions transposed which should then be the same as the actual object.

If you create your own object for then you can just create a new collision or re-use an existing one (if the same object is being used). The algorithm assigns the collision based on the direction you tell it your object is facing and then sets the collision based on that as though it is again facing downwards. You should reuse collisions but its not a necessity although your files will then be bigger. Any collision to be reused should be laid out on a side if possible as the algorithm basically looks to minimize the rectangle it creates.

If you get walls wrong then animations would jump or ladders would be wrongly positioned.

Anyway that's the correct way to do things.

[leo.civil.uefs]

yes yes yes... I forgot about walls/gates, the collisions must point correctly.

as for other generic objects without animation, you can do as I said before, at least I did like that and never got any problem.

[makanyane]

the only other advantage to re-using collisions is if you want lots of something like a brazier or chimney which has an effect associated with it, then if you share the one collision you only have to set/change the effect bit once, and not for each object individually

but anyway whatever works



& it's very large objects with collisions that cause the biggest problem with lag... as they mess up the bounding box stuff in game

[Falconwatch]

Hey Mak, thx for the help that's a great idea u posted above!

Encountered an issue with importing models ingame. Basically after importing the models with IWTE, and opening it ingame,
the model/textures looks really dark for some reason.

What did we do wrong can can it be fixed?

[wilddog]

Encountered an issue with importing models ingame. Basically after importing the models with IWTE, and opening it ingame,
the model/textures looks really dark for some reason.

Not sure if its model normal or texture normal related (I used to know but it was a long time ago). However, just in case its not can you try the specials tab reset world shading button.otherwise mak may need some files to take a look.