IWTE - World editing - (General Discussion)

[leo.civil.uefs]

Thanks makanyane. No I do not want any castle for now, I was just wondering.


I would like to make some note here.

If you have a settlement wich you want to be accessible by only one path, then circle it all with blue pathfinding or edit the heights around it to be high enough to prevent units using it to reach the plaza

Now, I know it has been said lots of times in that thread but I noticed that if you want it to work you cannot have ANY REACHABLE SURFACE AROUND THE SETTLEMENT.

For example, I have a mountain settlement wich is acessible only by one ramp in the front. But the AI was trying to circle it and find another way to reach the plaza, even with the heights beeing too high to walk on. The question is that there was some acessible heights around the mountain. Well, here goes a draw:



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[leo.civil.uefs]

For some reason, my changes in the overlay maps have no effect, I changed the alpha channel, but nothing changes in the game, its probably directing to the original (instead of using the ones I had changed in the folder I'm using (northern European village)).

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Some of 1st post has now been superseded by advances in world modification tools including release of the IWTE editor. This post is to explain to those who are already using new textures for individual settlements how to fix issue with old texture appearing for walls / gates or towers whilst they are in their animation phase.

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The building textures used for static parts of buildings is listed per structure in the .world file, the .world file also specifies which animation set is used for transitions between object damage states. The animations folders contain, .anim .evt and .mesh files. The .mesh files specify which texture is used. Currently (and this isn't AFAIK being worked on) it's not possible to view or alter the structure used in the mesh file, but you can quite easily hex edit the texture name to make them use a different texture.

To set up a 'new' animation to use a different texture for a particular .world first convert the relevant .world file to text using either IWTE or Knight Errant's world editor. Search the text file for 'anim' to find the animstrings section:




It will look a bit like the above, find the relevant animation section in this case I'm changing the wall animation from looking in
BlockSet/North_European/Animations/Wall_Animations/castle_Large_Stone_Wall/
to look in
BlockSet/North_European/Animations/Wall_Animations/zastle_Large_Stone_Wall/
you can make names and paths anything you want - but it's a lot simpler if you KEEP THE PATH LENGTH THE SAME...... Convert your text file back to binary with the same tool you used to extract it, rename the resulting .world file so it's read in place of the previous one.

copy entire /Castle_Large_Stone_Wall/ folder and name the copy zastle_Large_Stone_Wall
or whatever you put in the string

go into your copied folder and ammend all the .mesh files with a hex editor



do this by searching for the text string 'texture' and changing the name of the texture it's looking for to your new texture - again it's advisable to KEEP THE PATH LENGTH THE SAME - I've not experimented with changing it, it's probably possible if you encode the correct path length before the string but much easier not to. Change the name of the normal.texture too if you need that to use new normal.

For my experiment I made a pink version of the existing texture and called it zalls_castle_large_stone.texture. Here you can see the original texture in use while the wall is using the static object model, and appearing pretty in pink whilst in the animation transition phase:






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I cant get it.

First of, when I press "world binary to text", it generates 2 text files, wich one should I edit?
Second, could you please be more specific about editing the file?
The new copied and renamed folder containing the mesh files should be place in the same folder of the original one?

And another NOTE:

I just realizaed something really cool.

You can set the doors/link/ladders path the way you want, since you can edit the heigh point by point, you can move units trough big distances with these pats or even make them cross bridges (nothing to do with setting a bridge path).You can actually link two doors and make you unit cross the entire settlement in aa... imaginay tunnel or whatever your imagination like.



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You can do cool things and the best part is that the AI tottaly handle it.
I have doors that directs for 2 different other doors and the AI uses them all dynamically depending on what they want to do.

LOL. IWTE is the greatest thing in history of otal war games, it makes shogun 2 look like crap with his generic settlements

[makanyane]

For some reason, my changes in the overlay maps have no effect, I changed the alpha channel, but nothing changes in the game, its probably directing to the original (instead of using the ones I had changed in the folder I'm using (northern European village)).

the path to the masks is set inside the .worldterrain file - check that in "Terrain1" "Amend WT Mask TGA paths"

also check that you converted the revised ones back to textures

I cant get it.

First of, when I press "world binary to text", it generates 2 text files, wich one should I edit?
Second, could you please be more specific about editing the file?
The new copied and renamed folder containing the mesh files should be place in the same folder of the original one?

I wrote that for an earlier version of the tool - you shouldn't actually have to use the text file at all now there is an "update animation paths" on "worldfiles" tab that can change the path to the animation - you need to do that for each stage of the animation... and put all the copied anim files wherever you set the path to....

also you don't need to hex edit the mesh files now - there's an "Edit animation tga paths" on the "Collision/Anim" tab - that opens the .mesh file and saves the changes to a new file with _wd added to the file name. You need to rename that new file back to the name stated in the path, keeping the .mesh on the end.

I just realizaed something really cool.

You can set the doors/link/ladders path the way you want, since you can edit the heigh point by point, you can move units trough big distances with these pats or even make them cross bridges (nothing to do with setting a bridge path).You can actually link two doors and make you unit cross the entire settlement in aa... imaginay tunnel or whatever your imagination like.



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You can do cool things and the best part is that the AI tottaly handle it.
I have doors that directs for 2 different other doors and the AI uses them all dynamically depending on what they want to do.

LOL. IWTE is the greatest thing in history of otal war games, it makes shogun 2 look like crap with his generic settlements

I know you can do that - the reason we haven't been shouting about it is it has a couple of undesirable side effects. a. if you have the green unit highlights on, the disappear whilst the unit is on the link/ladder path but more importantly B. the normal unit spacing system isn't applied whilst the units are on the link/ladder, so if you have two units going in different directions on the same path the individual soldier models actually pass completely through each other which looks very very silly

.....but we are using that system in a few places ourselves, i.e. for exposed staircases up to walls - but we've put a roof and a bit of framework around the stairs so you can't zoom in too close to see the silliness!

(your model is looking cool )

[leo.civil.uefs]

I did everything for changing the texture of walls during the animation.

Edited the mesh files directing to my textures.
Copied them all (renaming to look like the originals) and then copied the entire wall animation folder from data, now with the new mesh files, placed in some new place, and edited the path in "update animation paths".

Now, after a change of damage level, my texture appears but, during the seconds of the animation, when the wall is moving, the texture completly changes, not to the original vanilla one but to my complete uv map texture. So during the wall animation the wall is fit with all the UV map, it shows windows and all, tottally different parts of the entire settlement texture.
Resuming, during the animation the wall is fit with my uv texture map without assotiating to the wall texture parts.

PS: I did a new texture for the vanilla wall, the same texture map also contains textures for all the objects in the settlement. So I moved the vertexes of the wall model in that new UV map. it seems the animation is reading the uv map like if the vertexes of the wall were still in the same place of the orignal vanilla map.

DURING ANIMATION:



AFTER ANIMATION:



My animation paths are now directing to settlements\north_european\settlements\village\anim\town_huge_stone_straight_animation_a.anim, b... c .. etc.

I guess I must keep one separated uv map for my vanilla wall like it comes in orginal and edit just the textures, not the map. Is that?

Also, when I click "edit animation tga parts" There is "type of texture" and 2 boxes to fill with the texture paths. then I click ok but it shows a new menu containing the same boxes from the other one but one new "texture ref No". What should i do with this ones?

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For some reason i Im getting a CTD when I add brazier effect for my torch model, It was ok when I was doing it using large_city but now Im using village and getting this.

[wilddog]

I guess I must keep one separated uv map for my vanilla wall like it comes in original and edit just the textures, not the map. Is that?

Yes, unfortunately as you can't change the models tied with the animation (via IWTE) you have to leave its UV's positions alone and consequently you have to use a vanilla style object for the wall in the world file and can only change the UV's there also.

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I haven't uploaded a new version of the tool yet. Mak found a bug (which actually self corrected on the next load) and I've addressed some bugs that Wolfslayer found. However I also decided to add in some fairly primitive 3D views (eg the world and an individual object) to complement the 2D views. They are really so you can better see what the models look like but aren't going to be updateable.

I also need to amend the ms3d view of the world terrain (which I want to also add to the 3D view) as the triangles it creates assumed a standard pattern which was obviously wrong. The pattern I intend to use will be the standard (revised) pattern only. By that I mean its also affected by rivers and reflective planes but as you can't tell just from the world files where a river is its impossible to recreate as a separate model (so I won't)

[leo.civil.uefs]

Thanks for the answer about wall textues.

Guess you did not saw my other question, so here it goes again:

For some reason i Im getting a CTD when I add brazier effect for my torch model, It was ok when I was doing it using large_city but now Im using village and getting this.
What is the text file so I an post it here in the forum to show you?

[makanyane]

Thanks for the answer about wall textues.

Guess you did not saw my other question, so here it goes again:

For some reason i Im getting a CTD when I add brazier effect for my torch model, It was ok when I was doing it using large_city but now Im using village and getting this.
What is the text file so I an post it here in the forum to show you?

Text file isn't likely to help - could you send me please All the files via link on pm for;
.world
plus the collision/ animinstances/ pathfinding/terrain/veg/+maps and textures that are linked to it....
and with a note about how/where you were trying to add the brazier.



btw there is a quite common problem when .world's are switched from having no effects to having the first one.... in certain circumstances (e.g. if the don't have another type 4 object like a tower) then the easiest fix to the problem is adding another type 4 object like a road marker.... if your village doesn't currently have a 'road marker' could you try adding one?

[wilddog]

oh and if you want to see an example of a shot of the IWTE 3d view of the world map (without terrain) you may want to look at this :-

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...4#post10587974

(at the moment connected also with this sig)

[Devils_Advocate]

oh and if you want to see an example of a shot of the IWTE 3d view of the world map (without terrain) you may want to look at this :-

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...4#post10587974

(at the moment connected also with this sig)

Looks like a cool feature!

[leo.civil.uefs]

btw there is a quite common problem when .world's are switched from having no effects to having the first one.... in certain circumstances (e.g. if the don't have another type 4 object like a tower) then the easiest fix to the problem is adding another type 4 object like a road marker.... if your village doesn't currently have a 'road marker' could you try adding one?

THANKS! It works, but I must keep the roadmarker or it crashes.My settlement is a fort so i dont want a roadmarker, anyway i think that if it is set as a fort in the strat map, then you cant build a road, soit will make no difference at all.

oh and if you want to see an example of a shot of the IWTE 3d view of the world map (without terrain) you may want to look at this :-

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...4#post10587974

(at the moment connected also with this sig)

Goooood.

And here goes a preview: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=494054
Have a feelling makanyane will like Cirith ungol, its like a small medieval castle, fights between tight walls are cool.

[wolfslayer]

Very interesting posts and pics guys: I've been offline a few days..thanks for explaining the issue w the muddy fields.
Just a quick note battlemap related, I discovered the lack of debris effects ( this has been bugging me for YEARS!) in certain terrains is related to the water_height_modifier in geography_new.txt being a positive value, I just remixed mine, it fixed the particle effects, but yet to to test how negatives -1.0 and -1.5 effect rivers and seashores. One terrain type was even missing the value in the vanilla txt!

Another note, if you only have a one 3 block minimum path to a plaza you will notice a huge pause when placing units and when ai is defending, a very long (30sec) pause before battle starts. A lot of pathfinding node calculations going on related to the pathfinding. db. Once the battle starts the ai has no prob making its way to the plaza and and I didnt notice any lag either during the battle.

[leo.civil.uefs]

Objects with collision effect does not prevent rain or snow from passing through them but create a shadow, so "solar rays" dont pass on it.

There is some way how to make objects a barrier for rain and snow?

[makanyane]

Objects with collision effect does not prevent rain or snow from passing through them but create a shadow, so "solar rays" dont pass on it.

There is some way how to make objects a barrier for rain and snow?

if CA's vanilla collisions stopped rain and ours don't then we could investigate the difference.... if as I suspect the collisions never did that, then no we can't change it

[leo.civil.uefs]

I tought about making settlements with roofs.

However... Can we edit something for making it to never rain or never snow in a specific settlement?

[wilddog]

Hi Version 6_3 is now released (November 12th). It was mostly tied around an upgrade in software I was doing and the following features

New with version 6_3
1) Option to toggle a 3D view of object, structure, complex, world. This does throw out a warning message depending on graphics board. If it causes a problem don't use it but the standard message is just a warning and can be ignored.
2) Option to toggle adding terrain to the 3d view if its been loaded up (you have to press the appropriate 2D view again).
3) Tidied up the world pathfinding editing options.
4) Option to toggle on a view of the Terrain triangles. This has also been corrected in the milkshape file. Note the triangle layouts are set assuming no water (as I have no means of identifying effect from strat map)
5) Option to split a structure after a particular selected object (select both the object and the structure).
6) option to recombine similar structures within a complex - select the structure.
7) Fixed some bugs from older versions.

Example 3D view (this is an Irish castle from PKH Mod).


Next priority is to improve the processes for editing doors and paths.

[wilddog]

Next version items :-
1) Tidy up on the collision assignments - Makanyane found some awkward shapes which at certain angles didn't assign collision correctly (only applied if reusing a collision)
2) strat map residence model editor for milkshape (we decided we needed this now to correct some older models).

[wolfslayer]

"Hi Version 6_3 is now released" Thanks for alll your hard work! Am going to check out the new features on the modded me_huge_city..

[wolfslayer]

The 3d view is very nice! I do have to say, having to go to the drop down menu to change between add or remove for a single pathfinding block in 6.3 is quite awkward; the previous point method, a simple left mouse click for add/remove, was very handy when dealing with individual blocks.

EDIT : after getting used to new interface..the point drag "paint" feature is excellent. The optimum interface would have left mouse for add, right for delete, etc..I think I can get used to new method ;-)

[wilddog]

The 3d view is very nice! I do have to say, having to go to the drop down menu to change between add or remove for a single pathfinding block in 6.3 is quite awkward; the previous point method, a simple left mouse click for add/remove, was very handy when dealing with individual blocks.

EDIT : after getting used to new interface..the point drag "paint" feature is excellent. The optimum interface would have left mouse for add, right for delete, etc..I think I can get used to new method ;-)

I could add a right click option. I guess the options are :
A) Using right click to switch modes (rather than selecting the option from the screen).
B) Using right mode to be the opposite to the selected mode (this would allow people to choose whether to use or not).
C) Making one button the add and the other option the delete and removing the select option for it. This would then leave the how to select the drag delete which is only possible for delete?

Which do you think would work best? A and B are the simplest. C depends on how to handle the delete drag (which is the quickest delete option).

Glad you like the 3D version it was a bit of fun and to support a quick way of viewing "world" and "terrain" matching. I will likely amend next to differentiate the textures used on the "world" bits (ie not the terrain) or toggle an option to see that.

[leo.civil.uefs]

wilddog

3d view already helped me a lot. I just stole some 3d models from vanilla cities and that would took much more time without that new 3d view feature. Seeing it in 2d really does not allow you to be right if what you are seeing is actually the model you want.

Good work!

However I must say that the best new feature in this new version is the dog image on the icon.