IWTE - World editing - (General Discussion)

[AnthoniusII]

AnthoniusII,

You would have to first find the texture files of the texture you want (I presume byzantine?)
To my knowledge, there's several ways from there.

Copy the textures you want and put them in the main blockset/textures folder, but with a unique name. You could then try edit the .world file for the settlements and go to "Structures" tab -> find the texture names which reference the vanilla ones, and rename them to the name of the new texture (using "change texture info")
This way should mean those modified techtree buildings will always display the Roman texture you want.

Alternatively, you could copy the textures into a faction or culture specific folder. Either blockset/textures/variations/<culture_name> or blockset/textures/faction_variations/<faction_name>.

No need to assign textures to the models individually, but you just need to get it pointing to the proper texture. There are only 4-5 normally used in vanilla techtree buildings.

The problem is not their textures. The problem is that those buildings you see with different textures are invisible when we load a battle with a modified settlement. There are empty spots where army baracks , town center, market etc should be. All that is visible now are the "new" additions aka the new walls and houses.

[makanyane]

Thanks for the info - I will muster the courage to switch to Blender/3ds on the next settlement I do.

Spent the day properly assigning vertex colours, and I've noticed that none of the other models have that problem (of the original ms3d not going into IWTE properly and ending up dark). Anyhow, I've attached the model I had trouble with in case you want to examine it yourself. Probably an oversight on my end.

Mesh File:
Attachment 363397

P.s. As an aside, would you happen to know what files are needed to bring in a new sound as an effect through the 'collision effects' in IWTE? Have made successful visual effects before; just that new sounds are mute when loaded up in game. Been playing around with descr_campfires_brasiers for the effect_set, descr_structure_effects for effect (I gather effect_set and effect can be done in a number of files), descr_sounds_generic for the event, a .evt file in the sounds/effect_evt made using notepad++, and of course the actual .wave file inside the /sounds folder.

Thanks!

That ms3d looks like it should work. I'll try testing with it tomorrow

Sounds - AFAIK should work the same as other effects for adding to the world - just without using the 'light emitting' setting! If it's not already in the .world list to select from you need to add it to the list by "Amend effect List" button first, that just needs the _set name.

Could you try and separate out the issues, e.g. rename your effect you're experimenting with to replace something you know already turns up in the game triggered from the .world file (doors?). If that works but adding it via IWTE doesn't let us know as there may be a bug in the way we're handling that. (I tend to play with sound off, so haven't gotten into sound effects!)

I didn't look at your .world to see how many effects it's already got, but there is a limit of 69 per complex, and you only have one complex currently . You could run the reset complexes thing... but that will change your structure names, which might be a pain if you're used to which ones are which and are still using milkshape.

[makanyane]

Question: _Tartaros_ tried to import new houses types and new textures. He put all techtree buildings under the name "roman" in a separated folder.
The result was that all those buildings (greek=southern european for game) were not in the battle model of the settlement.
When i renamed that folder. I saw these pictures.

The folder name only matters in that it has to match what the name in the path inside the .worldpkgdesc files to find the .world

If the entire folder including .worldpkgdesc files was outside of the /settlements folder and not listed in pacakagedb.txt then those .worldpkgdesc files wouldn't be read.

Question inorder to re-texture all vanilla buildings in "roman" aka byzantine style what should i do?
Find all buildings one by one?
Retexture them and place them in southern_european folder (we have another set of textures for that culture different from byzantine).

In any case all buildings (random and techtree folder of them ) should be inside each culture's settlements folder?

NO
Please read the wiki article here about how settlements (and techtrees) are selected and also the articles about .worldpkgdesc and techtrees.

The things you need to check are:
A. do your new settlements actually have the techtree slots added? To do that load in IWTE and go to 'Gameobjects' tab and 'View TechTrees'

B. Is there a .worldpkgdesc file for each of the cultures you want to use a certain techtree .world, with the correct path to that .world in it?

Once you've done that and got the vanilla looking buildings appearing on the battlemap. IF you don't want to change the shape. Then just find out which textures they are using, and for every faction you want to use a different texture, place that texture with the SAME NAME as the vanilla one in blockset/textures/faction_variations/faction_name

(obviously for the culture with most factions, just put a changed version of the same-named texture in the mods blockset/textures folder)

[AnthoniusII]

Question: Building textures like the walls must be transformed from .dds to texture by IWTE or the dds2_texture.converter that we use for models suits as well?
Also do building textures need MIP maps like human textures require or not?
This is my first attempt to create Byzantine walls ussing a photo fromn Thessalinica's Theodosian Walls i live near by.

The problem is that when i zoom out some parts of the walls look darker (those that are in greater distance) and those that are closet to camera look brighter.

[wilddog]

Hi,
Yes, world textures are converted DDS files.
yes world textures do contain mipmaps (I just corrected this)
Not sure I can see the darkening issue you mention. it could be one of two (or more things) things :-
1) If you have models with faces which are too close. At a distance they will start to interfere with each other. To get around it any faces need to be approx 40cm or further apart. It tended to show up on roofs and things like that.
2) there is an inbuilt vertex shading in the vanilla models. This is part of a discussion with Sauron above. IWTE resets these but its generally just to a standard value. Unfortunately it can be sometimes too light or dark v other objects or v individual preferences. I need to add more criteria on setting that. As part of that vertex shading the models generally had some corner shading (its part of the same vertex shading). This corner shading can normally be seen on the buttress cornering as it applied to internal corners. Again I need to add some further criteria to that within IWTE but its on my list of amendments.

[AnthoniusII]

The parts with different lighting are ful straight walls of vanilla settlement. It seams tha long line walls are blocks of smaller ones and when zoom out/zoom in there is that difference in lighting the texture. Its strange though because in vanilla textures that lighting issue never apears.

[wilddog]

Can you post a picture of what's happening and if possible the texture and normal you are using and tell us the vanilla model?

[AnthoniusII]

Sure
Also..I based the textures on the vanilla ones. Arround the gate there are stone blocks that in my texture i replaced them with bricks.But despite i haven't tuch the model of the gate those new bricks do not apear. I loaded a similar texture from another mod and the gate issue exists there too , the stone arch does not apear on the model despite the fact that the texture simply replace the same area.

[makanyane]

OK I see what you mean, please could you post your texture and the normal.texture?

Do double check you have supplied a normal.texture with the correct name! I have a vague memory of seeing this before and think it was to do with it not finding the normal??!?? Or maybe not actually having the correct pink/blue directional type normal...


@Sauron puppet of Saruman
I do get the same issue with your ms3d! If I load it into a .world I get the very dark effect (@Anthonius this is not the same as your issue)

If I write it back to ms3d it shows as assigned 100% dark, if I switch that and reload it, it works fine again!! I have no idea why, as I can't visually spot anything wrong with your file, so this will need a bit more research...

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.