Campaign Map Textures

[finefine]

This mod ( still unreleased ), will attempt to improve the visual appeal of the textures used on the M2TW primary campaign map.

The mod began with the following thread in the Modding Workshop/Mapping section: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=78411


I personally find the default textures a bit garish and distracting. The bright busy and faded colors make it difficult to see at-a-glance the relationships between armys, borders, and cities.

It is my feeling that this visual disconnect is caused by a failure of the ground textures to embrace the proper metaphor of scale. Armys appear as massive collosi towering over the landscape, Castles and Cities are citadel icons of geological proportions, and nation spanning forests are represented by a small collection of huge trees that carpet great swaths of land.

And yet the textures still have the appearance of satellite photography. Instead of Bern Castle being nestled into a green meadow amongst the rocky outcroppings of the Swiss Alps, it currently sits atop a grey mishmash of landscape textures that add nothing to the representation of the actual game pieces.

I seek to rectify this issue, towards that end I have begun the process of tinkering with the textures...

Screenshot 1


Screenshot 2


I will update this thread with more screenshots as I make progress. When complete this mod will be made freely available to the community for use as a stand-alone mod or for inclusion into any other mod. It will not conflict with any mod that I currently know of, since I am 'only' modifying the textures images themselves.

Thanks much and enjoy the screens for the time being...

[Rammstein]

looks very good, if it maybe were a little less bright would be perfect. have you already finshed the hole map?

[Hybris./Oster.]

i aggree with rammstein: it looks very nice, alittle bit less bright would be fine

[mkk]

A great idea. Hope it works out when getting it all together for a release.

[finefine]

Thanks for the notes! I'll see about dialing that green down a bit.

have you already finished the whole map?

The way the textures work about 90% of the map is textured by about 12 different 512x512px images that represent different land types, so there's no 'master texture' image of the continent, that's why map modders can create whole new maps without needing to make new textures for the maps.

So yeah, Just a few small changes can change the entire map!

Unless anybody's really rooting for it, I think I'll leave the desert textures alone, since I think the sandy surface actually looks pretty good relative to the game pieces.

[Fallen.Soldier]

the err, grass looks very flat....mountain looks good though.

[jaklei]

you seem to make great progress already , im waiting with anticipation...

[mr.blonde]

will be the farm upgrade visible? keep up the good work mate

[finefine]

will be the farm upgrade visible?

Maybe I haven't played far enough in the game, does the actual landscape change with more advanced farming levels?

As you can see in the screenshot#1 above, I've put in some farms (snatched off of google maps from rural france) for the 'developed' land textures. I also have a middle eastern farm texture that I got from the Nile river valley on google maps.

If it's dynamic and uses different textures for development levels, I'll certainly make each sequentially 'more developed'. I'll look into for sure, thanks!

[Flavius_Maximus]

Here's how to remove the horrible farm fields...

Go to Data>terrain>aerial_map>ground_types and delete the file temperate_grassland_farm.tga

copy the file temperate_grassland.tga and rename it to temperate_grassland_farm.tga

I've edited up the Bigmap Late Era Mod 1.45 with the latest of the Darth battle AI and also the work by Dearmad with his ancillaries mod v1.7. I've already tested the "no farmland" mod and it looks just beautiful!

I think the beauty of the natural greens are so much more enjoyable to look at.
Keep on the great work finefine

[caprera]

Useful modification

What about a new screen to see how u improved colors ?

[finefine]

Sorry 'bout that, unfortunately I'm at work during the day so this is a nights and weekends project for me.

Don't worry though, I'll keep 'em coming...

[finefine]

Ok, so here's a new shot where I've toned down the green a bit, made it a bit darker and less yellow. The mountain textures have been tweaked as well.

I've also tried to get some decent looking grass texture in there, which is pretty hard, since the resolution is so low, let me know if doesn't work for you.

Thanks for the advice folks, and please feel free to keep it coming. I'd really like to make something that will appeal to most players.

New Screenshot

[caprera]

I like mountains textures even if i'd try to make more "brown" their green lower parts. Btw to me the green grass is still too much punch. I think you should try to check the vanilla one and make it less brighter. Dunno how to say it in ENG, in Italian the right word would be "spento" but i'll try to explain me better next time. sorry for my english

[Kushan]

WOW. Will be a definite inclusion in my mod when this come out...with permission of course.

Kushan

[G3N3RAL GR13V0US]

KUSHAN PLS include tis mod pls

[finefine]

Wow, that'd be great Kushan, thanks for the interest. I'll be sure to notify you when I've got a release-ready set of textures.

Don't sweat the language caprera, you come across quite well. I'll push things a bit further with the greens and see what people think. How do folks feel about the look (think colors & textures) found in a game like 'knights of honor'?

SCREENSHOT FROM 'Knights of Honor'

Personally, I think the beauty of the 'knights' campaign map is head and shoulders above the W2TW map. I never really understood why the Total War map was made 3D in the first place, map information is inherently 2 dimensional... Ah well. We've got to work with what we've been given.

[Kushan]

Wow, that'd be great Kushan, thanks for the interest. I'll be sure to notify you when I've got a release-ready set of textures.

OT: Was Knights of Honor a good game? Been tempted to buy that and Crusader Kings.

Kushan

[Teutomatos]

Reims (not H )

[finefine]

Here's the next test screen, I've made the greens a bit less saturated and much lighter, basing it off of the palette used in 'knights of honor'. I've also reworked the texture of the grass itself ( you can only really see it at closer zooms, sorry! )

What do y'all think? I might try to go a bit darker, but keep the color saturation down a bit while still using the new grass texture... I'll keep ya posted.

I've also got to tweak those farms, they're looking a bit weird now.

New Screenshot





[edit: farms tweaked, here's a closer up view giving more detail on the textures, same color as above]

Another New Screenshot