IWTE - World editing - (General Discussion)

[Arkay]

Hey guys, I'm testing the latest version. I was a bit skeptical at the very first glance, but had to change my mind. The painter process is great! Especially the terrain one, just brilliant.
I could easily edit the terrain and it was even funny (well, kind of ). Thank you both for all the efforts and time, truly a fantastic work.

I have a question, how do I create the old pathfinding TGA2?

[wilddog]

Hi Arkay, Thanks for the comments and I agree the terrain bit is quite fun. I'm planning on adding a similar process for the strat map also.

Regarding the TGA2 at the moment its disabled as there didn't seem any point to it anymore given you can view pretty much everything together though the breaches/bridges are slow and need to also be moved to a painter process. Can you explain why you need the TGA2?

In the next version there are a number of new features and I may add the creation of the TGA2 back in (if its really required) but wasn't planning on doing a read back.

Items progressing for the next version are :

1) Ability to open texture, dds, tga, png, BMP, jpg files(and some other formats) to do some simple editing in the painter process. (completed)
2) For some files you will have the option to save as tga, png or other format but not directly as DDS or texture. (i.e. these latter two should be saved as TGA only and then you still need to convert back to DDS and texture). (completed)
3) Allow editing of the alpha channels (completed).
4) allow setting of opacity for TGA and other image editing and the alpha channels. doesn't increase on the drag only the click (completed)
5) Add some specific criteria around certain texture, dds, tga files in terms of sizing (ie for viewing strat map tga's), restrictions, checks. This will include some of the settlement overlays and the basic tga's involved in strat maps (just starting).
6) Add in stratmap scaling options for basic editing (ie scaling them and using TGA editing options). (not started)
7) Add in HGT file editing (not started)
8) show simple 3d view of heights files (tga and hgt) (not started)

Likely items 1-6 will be in next release and 7 and 8 will wait for the following release.
8) Add in stratmap scaling options for basic editing (ie scaling them and using TGA editing options). (not started)

[Arkay]

Great, looking forward to that.

Regarding the TGA2 at the moment its disabled as there didn't seem any point to it anymore given you can view pretty much everything together though the breaches/bridges are slow and need to also be moved to a painter process. Can you explain why you need the TGA2?

I just need it in milkshape as a background image (plus the world tga veg layer on it), to know where I can add/move buildings.

[xHolyCrusader]

Aah seeing all those

(complete)

, great!

[wilddog]

@Arkay - I'll see about adding them in the 'save option' within the painting process so you can simply save as a file type. Thats essentially what I was allowing under option

2) For some files you will have the option to save as tga, png or other format but not directly as DDS or texture. (i.e. these latter two should be saved as TGA only and then you still need to convert back to DDS and texture). (completed)

I'll extend it to the other files you mentioned.

@ xHolyCrusader
- for item 5) first ones I'm adding in is tied to the masks for the overlays. If I can complete by Sunday I'll probably release. item 6 in basic form is trivial. Its just tied around trying to get some DIY bits done around the house and recovering from a friends birthday.

[Arkay]

item 6 in basic form is trivial. Its just tied around trying to get some DIY bits done around the house and recovering from a friends birthday.

Ahah alright then, good to know.

@Arkay - I'll see about adding them in the 'save option' within the painting process so you can simply save as a file type. Thats essentially what I was allowing under option
I'll extend it to the other files you mentioned.

Thanks wd, so at the moment there is no way to get it?

[Falconwatch]

Just some trouble my team's been having, after deleting the custom terrains from maps, there are still some settlements left when loading it onto the campaign map.
Is there anyway to all those settlements?

What I meant are things like vanilla church, windmills, small farms etc. Some of them are outside the map boundary too, how should we go about deleting them so
none of the vanilla structures are left on the map?

[makanyane]

@Arkay - no you can't get that tga at the moment - though taking a screen shot of the 2d window should get you something similar & new version should be coming soon...

@Falconwatch
try this
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-reduction-mod

[Arkay]

@Arkay - no you can't get that tga at the moment - though taking a screen shot of the 2d window should get you something similar & new version should be coming soon...

Oh good idea, I'll see what can be done. Thanks.

[Falconwatch]

Ahh that's an awesome resource to use, hats off to you and leo, just incredible!

[wilddog]

Just realized I needed to add in another 'brush style' to make the mask editing easier so need to work that out but hopefully will get new version out next week. Scaling of the settlement for mask textures was trivial so that's done its only a question of whether to simply restrict people to only editing the alpha channel. If I don't make that for this version it will be added later.

@Arkay - I'll see about adding the TGA saves you wanted. It's fairly straight forward. The newer features do add quite a bit to the existing ones. As mak said though getting everything you need shown and screen printing and then rescaling to match your editor scale is the easy way to set a plan for your settlements. For historical ones that's the way we were doing it. Simply using the plan as the background and then lining the buildings to match. Editing fantasy stuff to match the TV pictures/fantasy details is a different perspective on that which we were struggling to understand.

[Arkay]

@wilddog Oh nono, I do not want anything. But I'm grateful you're taking it into consideration.

[leo.civil.uefs]

@wilddog Oh nono, I do not want anything. But I'm grateful you're taking it into consideration.

Never talk about "ideas" with wilddog, he does not understand people like us who throw words through the air... everything for him is a techincal matter, Im starting to think he is actually not a person but a machine...

[wilddog]

Won't be releasing yet as I need to add in some more brush characteristics into the painting process and then do some testing.

[Falconwatch]

Hey would it be possible to put all the culture files within one folder? We're able to do so with eastern_european but not the others, like northern, southern and middle eastern.
Is there anyway to modify those cultural file paths?

Also how can we increase the size of our battlemap?

@leo
Oh my god he's sooooo cute haha!

[makanyane]

Hey would it be possible to put all the culture files within one folder? We're able to do so with eastern_european but not the others, like northern, southern and middle eastern.
Is there anyway to modify those cultural file paths?

all the file paths are in the .worldpkgdesc files if you have new named cultures like 'culture_1', 'dwarven' etc you can make new .worldpkgdesc
files (which can be anywhere in data/settlements) and direct those cultures to use buildings in data/settlements/freds_buildings... if you want to. The folders don't actually have to be named after the cultures - and CA's actually aren't, if you look closely they're spelt differently!
But it can help you keep things organised if you use a similar system.

Exceptions; if you're using the existing culture names, then the game still also reads the original pkg's in M2/data or the .packs - so if you want to avoid vanilla stuff turning up in custom battle, you need to either put the modded files at the same path & name in the mod-folder OR make new .worldpkgdesc files for every faction in a culture in which case you can re-direct to anywhere you want. (and because of the default look-ups if you're doing that for an eastern_european / greek faction you actually need to make the pkg for northern_european / southern_european and then the faction)

Also how can we increase the size of our battlemap?

you can't change the playable area - sorry, we discussed that a few pages back - changing stuff inside the .world files doesn't help. You can expand the terrain and veg files so they control more of what you see beyond the playable area, but that's it.

@leo
Oh my god he's sooooo cute haha!

doesn't look like wilddog though...

[wilddog]

doesn't look like wilddog though...

OK that's a weird thing to say.

GED might still think its a mini Alsatian though..

[leo.civil.uefs]

oh my god... wilddog making jokes... times are changing...

[Falconwatch]

Haha u guys are funny, thanks again for the help, always appreciate it!

[wilddog]

Hi
Finally think I have the paint 'brush' processes working as Mak wanted so just need to tidy things up. Definitely will have a new release this month but just need to finish some other DIY bits as a priority.

Brush settings were to allow a hardness (i.e. fading from centre outwards) and a density (ie random on off) for the brush which we figured was needed particularly for the alpha amendments for the overlays.