IWTE - World editing - (General Discussion)

[AnthoniusII]

Sure

[makanyane]

Thanks Anthonius, the answer is you're overdoing your normal (a lot!)

I did one with setting down to 2.2 and it largely fixes the problem. If you need to have certain bits looking more textured you'll need to create the normal in layers of different intensity but keep it dialled down a lot on the main wall area.

Pic is of a normal I just tried, which still shows a very, very slight lighting change as you zoom in, but nowhere near as bad. Marked in red is where I think your gate arch is for the city. I think the one you changed is probably the one used for the wider gateways in the larger castles.



If you want to experiment you could also try fiddling with the mip-map settings, if you had a lot blander normal on the lower mip-maps that might help.

[AnthoniusII]

Finally ..without renaming any settlement culture or name but modify spesific parts like towerswhat factions of IWTE do i have to use to write walls and twoers in milkshape inorder to modify them and re-put them in existing settlements?
EDIT: By setting the normal maps in 2.2 the lighting issue alomst gone.
But you are wrong about the gate arch. O load the same settlement with the vanilla textures and the stone arch arround the gate is there. I don't know if that is a bug or what.

[makanyane]

erm, I'm not sure I've understand that sentence...

Generally to alter things, figure out which structure it's in, under structures tab, use 'Write ms3d File-incl damaged' edit in milkshape and replace using 'Replace with ms3d File' selecting the same structure.

If you're only just starting doing this I recommend use Blender instead!
Blender is free and can load the whole .world at one time which makes things much easier...

Rules for both are similar, if you leave the names of objects/groups the same and just tweak the shape/uv then you shouldn't need to do much else, and IWTE will retain the existing characteristics like collisions and firing slots - but bear in mind if you change something that has an animation, you'd either need to change that too, or they won't match.

[AnthoniusII]

erm, I'm not sure I've understand that sentence...

Generally to alter things, figure out which structure it's in, under structures tab, use 'Write ms3d File-incl damaged' edit in milkshape and replace using 'Replace with ms3d File' selecting the same structure.

If you're only just starting doing this I recommend use Blender instead!
Blender is free and can load the whole .world at one time which makes things much easier...

Rules for both are similar, if you leave the names of objects/groups the same and just tweak the shape/uv then you shouldn't need to do much else, and IWTE will retain the existing characteristics like collisions and firing slots - but bear in mind if you change something that has an animation, you'd either need to change that too, or they won't match.

iI downloaded the version 21_01_b of the tool. I pressed start and i recieved a message "you can not start this programme because you may nit have the prper rights". After2 second Avast an other nmessage "this threat noved to issolation box and blocked because it contains Win64.mda.class virus"!

[makanyane]

iI downloaded the version 21_01_b of the tool. I pressed start and i recieved a message "you can not start this programme because you may nit have the prper rights"

That sounds like something in your general computer settings not IWTE's

. After2 second Avast an other nmessage "this threat noved to issolation box and blocked because it contains Win64.mda.class virus"!

Avast and a few other anti-virus softwares don't like anything made with PYInstaller (that incorporates the python program into .exe) you'd need to set an exception for it. - I've stuck that latest exe through VirusTotal to double check - Avast and one other say 'win64:MdeClass' issue, three say Heuristic/Malicious the other 50 said it's OK...


EDIT: this issue has been around for a while, we've tried reporting it as a false positive but I don't think they're interested in anything with only a few users.

[makanyane]

@Sauron puppet of Saruman - I've tried figuring out what's up with your ms3d it seems like your version 1.8.4? when it 100% weights something to the first bone, doesn't bother actually putting the 100 in the file... I tried re-saving it as it was and got the same result (dark after IWTE) - going into the .world and out seems to add the 100% bit so when you switch it back to the right bone it works...

Taking your file and changing the weighting to 98% lighter 2% darker for all the verts also seems to force it to write the numbers in, and hence IWTE behaves with it!
That might be an option you could use till we find another fix. If you purely delete the joints you'll get IWTE's default which I think is 92%/8% split.

I'll pass this on to wilddog now to see if he can fix the default behaviour of IWTE when it meets this sort of file.

Pic of comparison of the bits where the weighting is meant to be, before and after the 98/2 weighting.
<a href='https://postimg.cc/gLsrsJYX' target='_blank'><img src='https://i.postimg.cc/gLsrsJYX/milkshape-issue.jpg' border='0' alt='milkshape-issue'/></a>

[AnthoniusII]

IWTE excluded from threats.
Read all three biunaries.
Export world in ,dae format.
Import.dae in to Render.
Allo i watch is a number of blocks .Nothing reminds a form of building or city. How can i chose a tower to re-model when i can not see what is the tower in 5-6 blocks the render shows me?

[makanyane]

Allo i watch is a number of blocks .Nothing reminds a form of building or city. How can i chose a tower to re-model when i can not see what is the tower in 5-6 blocks the render shows me?

I've added a bit to the wiki page to explain about hiding the boxes for the complexes

(don't do select all and hide, as that will obviously hide everything...)

EDIT: forgot link:
https://wiki.twcenter.net/index.php?...ecting_Objects

[wilddog]

IWTE excluded from threats.
Read all three biunaries.
Export world in ,dae format.
Import.dae in to Render.
Allo i watch is a number of blocks .Nothing reminds a form of building or city. How can i chose a tower to re-model when i can not see what is the tower in 5-6 blocks the render shows me?

Perhaps spending some time to learn a few functions about blender would be useful in the long run. Also settlement changes are nothing like the basic model changes as a lot of things overlap and need to work together.

[AnthoniusII]

Perhaps spending some time to learn a few functions about blender would be useful in the long run. Also settlement changes are nothing like the basic model changes as a lot of things overlap and need to work together.

Indeed that is why for 8 years now i seak for an expert to make few basic changes (not radicaly like TATW) in our settlements.
Replace the tower roofs with rambats , add balista on top of a balista tower, Use existing battlemodels of vanilla to make/rename them as Permant stone forts. Desptite the fact that my first step was to change vanilla southern_european city walls texture i can not make it apear only for Byzantines while another one that already made for southern european cities.
In Blackset/textures/variations/ southern european the byzantine walls apear. If i move them in Blcokset/textures/variations/Romanor Byzantine they don't apear. Not only i am too old to learn such sophisticated tools bgut also i have a "ice burn" in my right hand thanks to the frozen whater i wash my hand and -5c temperature in my room.

[makanyane]

In Blackset/textures/variations/ southern european the byzantine walls apear. If i move them in Blcokset/textures/variations/Romanor Byzantine they don't apear. Not only i am too old to learn such sophisticated tools bgut also i have a "ice burn" in my right hand thanks to the frozen whater i wash my hand and -5c temperature in my room.

Please:
A. put your log file on trace, and when a texture you thought would appear doesn't, look in the log and find the last time that texture was 'found' - you're probably missing putting them into some of the variant folders.

B. read this: https://wiki.twcenter.net/index.php?..._M2TW#Textures
"variations/south_european" DOES NOT apply to southern_european factions or settlements, it applies when the battle is in the Mediterranean climate!

to get your byzantine texture to work everywhere you probably need it in:
mods/mod_name/data/BlockSet/Textures/faction_variations/byzantine/
mods/mod_name/data/BlockSet/Textures/faction_variations/byzantine/variations/south_european/
mods/mod_name/data/BlockSet/Textures/faction_variations/byzantine/variations/middle_eastern/

plus winter versions, plus the same again for any other faction using it...

Replace the tower roofs with rambats

Battlements?

anyway if you remove the tower roofs you'll need to remove the tower animations and just let it jump from intact to damaged.
(it is technically possible to change the animation, but I wouldn't suggest trying that to anyone not already very experienced with animations and buildings and blender...)

add balista on top of a balista tower

You do know that won't be able to have firing animations don't you? You could possibly line up a 'firing slot' so it looks vaguely like the projectiles are coming from it, but that's about it. Leaving pretend one hidden inside would probably look less silly than a non-animated version firing without troops near it.


EDIT: We've wanted to finish the settlements for our mod for the last 10 years+. From our point of view that was the whole point in developing IWTE.

[AnthoniusII]

I don't need new animations. I need easthetic intervations to create realism.
Alien_T was such an IWTE tool master but he quit modding years ago.
See what he had in early stages back then.

Alien_Ts work

Unfortunatly we don't know how to use his material. We sent it to some IWTE modders bt never answered back.
As son i have the milkshape models and know in which part of the texture they go i can make as many textures as it gets.
It may look quite off topic but milkshape is the tool i know best.
Back in years when World of tanks had models that could be modified with milkshape i made unique tanks and textures .'

My moddeling and texturing skills in other games.

When the game requite 3dxmax tool i only made realistic textures (i am a man of details a perfectionist ).

Conclusion i seak help in making minor changes for a start (re-texture same tech tree buildings will not be an issue).
But from Alen_t's work you know now what we are looking for. Simple realism.

[makanyane]

I do like the tanks...


As you're probably going to find out quite soon, adjustments to the shape of battlements / making simple square structures for towers isn't very hard. More difficult is making realistic looking broken versions for the group1 damaged version of the object.

I don't need new animations.

I'm not sure whether or not you understand me. This isn't like units, there's not a tower skeleton you can weight things to and have them move. You can remove the animations (for anything other than gates) and just let towers switch instantly from totally intact, to totally destroyed version, I personally don't mind that option, but some other modders dislike the sudden jump effect. Hence Third Age kept the wall animations in even though some of their walls change shape whilst in the transition stage between damage levels.

And again with that ballista, it will just be sitting there like a statue even if 'tower' is firing sideways at the enemy.

[nadalio]

I do like the tanks...


As you're probably going to find out quite soon, adjustments to the shape of battlements / making simple square structures for towers isn't very hard. More difficult is making realistic looking broken versions for the group1 damaged version of the object.


I'm not sure whether or not you understand me. This isn't like units, there's not a tower skeleton you can weight things to and have them move. You can remove the animations (for anything other than gates) and just let towers switch instantly from totally intact, to totally destroyed version, I personally don't mind that option, but some other modders dislike the sudden jump effect. Hence Third Age kept the wall animations in even though some of their walls change shape whilst in the transition stage between damage levels.

And again with that ballista, it will just be sitting there like a statue even if 'tower' is firing sideways at the enemy.

I don't want to bother with this topic, but still a chance to fool the engine that a "tower" is a part of the walls, so you could get on top a balista/catapult edited unit (must be smaller with a single engine).

In m2tw engine is possible to assign a unit to a specific deployment part of the settlement or something like that?
Because if you add add a terrain cilinder inside a tower model, you can put the unit on the roof.
I attached a horrid draft as example:


Put the unit directly on the top of the tower/terrain and limit the unit movement with the pathfinding so it will stuck there. Obviously with need a unit with only one engine or coluld be any other solution about this?
i belive the player can deploy the unit there before the battle, i'm not sure about the AI.
Could be something realistic or it's only my madness?

P.S
sorry for the drawing, i know it's very bad...

[AnthoniusII]

Making milkshape tower tops is easy for me.
What i need is a IWTE tool expert to put them in game. I don;t mind the instant colapse effect either and i know that balista will be like a statue (vanilla balista towers simply have three) but hanging from the widows look more unrealisting than our "statue".
I realy hope some day someone will help us...in that section too.
Realy enjoyed that you liked my modelingand texturing work in other game. Thanks for the compliment.

[makanyane]

Making milkshape tower tops is easy for me.
What i need is a IWTE tool expert to put them in game.

So to get one tower top in game - in milkshape - identify which structure it's in - write to milkshape, edit it and it's subsidiary groups, bear in mind if it was an upgradeable tower the next two objects may also be part of the tower, representing the upgrade levels. Keep the group names the same and when you replace the structure using IWTE it will keep all the original firing slots and recognise that it's a tower etc. If you've changed the shape a lot create a new collision for all of the objects using the IWTE buttons. If you've changed the positions you want the firing to come from a lot you need to change the firing slots using IWTE buttons.

That gets you one tower changed... same thing applies using Blender.

The point where blender becomes a lot more useful is, because you can load the whole world, you can easily visually identify which similar towers need changing, and do a sort of copy/paste, by duplicating your revised objects and moving/rotating them to the correct locations and deleting the existing objects. To keep the tower attributes using that method you'd need to rename your moved objects to the same as the ones they're replacing.

[AnthoniusII]

Thanks I will give it a try. Now i will focus on completing our unit rosters so players to have all peices on the chess board to play campaigns.

[wilddog]

nadalio the problem with that idea is that the world terrain is based on 8x8m squares which are split into two triangles based on a preset pattern. so you need an 8m steep incline to get you to the tower top you cannot go just vertically on top of another terrain vertex.


AnthoniusII - I like those tank models/textures they look really good. Also, hope your hand heals OK.

[nadalio]

nadalio the problem with that idea is that the world terrain is based on 8x8m squares which are split into two triangles based on a preset pattern. so you need an 8m steep incline to get you to the tower top you cannot go just vertically on top of another terrain vertex.

nadalio the problem with that idea is that the world terrain is based on 8x8m squares which are split into two triangles based on a preset pattern. so you need an 8m steep incline to get you to the tower top you cannot go just vertically on top of another terrain vertex.

Could work a trapezoid under a 8x8 tower? i made some test but i cant place any units on the top even with a correct pathfinding, is it releated to collision?
Once i some that some one was able to put cannons on the wall, if the walls has bastions, so enough space a catapult/trebucht or other artillery can be placed on top?

Nobody have ever tried to make the catapult/trabuchetunit floating at the same level of a tower?
Technically they will go only where the pathfinding allows it. so they can be placed and will stay on the top off the tower/bastion..