Stuck in a Fictional Hell

[+baffmeister 1,205]

"Stuck in a Fictional Hell." To paraphrase Streakeagle a bit. The neverending fictional terrain I started building is only about two years behind schedule and progressing very slowly.  A basic version may see the light of day eventually but for now it is probably best to think about a salvage operation. The terrain is based on the stock Desert tiles but they have been expanded quite a bit with more transitions and some new tiles. Something they don't tell you in terrain builder school; If you make a bunch of new tiles and transition tiles you have to put Tod's on them! I was going for a Thirdworldish look and tried to keep things in scale so it required a lot of tods. Over 1000 on many. The situation is complicated by the terrain editor not saving the Tod inis properly so sometimes you can't go back to edit mistakes. I think the results are better than stock so if anyone is building and or modifying a WW2 or Thirdworldish terrain based on the stock Desert tiles these Tods will be available for free!. They aren't finished yet but if you send a PM I will forward whats been done to date for the stock tiles and will send the unfinished ones as they are completed. The tods use some Stary and ThirdWire textures but the TW textures could probably be improved on to generate a bit more variety. Definitly would have been better to have some additional building designs but it's a done deal now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. Anyone know how to get rid of the white "Halo" around the palm tree? It is most obvious at a distance but gets less noticeable at close range.

Edited December 17, 2013 by baffmeister

[Wrench 9,848]

there is an upper limit to solid and alpha objects in the TE. The Desert (the 1st version) of the TE can take LESS TOD objects than the WoE/V/I version.

Which is why I converted one of the later to Desert only. It's much better (and that ain't saying much!!)

 

the white halo, iirc, may a tga artifcat. Double check the terobject_tree.tga for unpainted sections. You might have to flood the non-tree sections with a dark color (black??)

 

Yup. Terraforming's a frakking nightmare, isn't it???

[+Stary 2,427]

to get rid of white outline on alpha textures make sure the background colour behing the tree part of texture matches the colour of the renderable part like here:

 

on first example from one of my mods the background (black, not-visible part on alpha channel) is close colour-wise to the general tones of the renderable parts (whites in alpha channel) thus won't be noticeable when processed by GPU and rendering engine

 

 

the second example has orangish colour that will give visible annoying outline at ceratain ranges etc

 

 

hope that helps

 

post scriptum: if you're planning to go with default layout I did in 2008 complete tremod/citymod for stock desert tiles, series1 section downloads

 

edit: typos, lots of them

Edited December 16, 2013 by Stary

[Stratos 3,191]

Anyone can see the pics? I'm really interested!

[+baffmeister 1,205]

Thanks for the tips guys. I have been using the later terrain editor but still may have hit a tod limit, even with some ini edits. Typically, the re-loadable Tod ini used by the TE doesn't save properly but the actual in game tod file does save. [fortunately, the city center tods saved OK after an all night 8 hour marathon session.] I am totally blown away by the amount of work required to build a terrain. This one is simple as it uses many stock tiles and has been mainly a copy and paste exercise. Can't imagine doing one from scratch. The worst part is, once you do all the tiles and all the tods it still needs target areas! Geez! 

 

Stratos, You can't see the pics?

[+baffmeister 1,205]

A minor success. I have never understood how TGA's work but with some help from Baltika I got rid of the halo around the palm tree. You would think it would be a minor edit and maybe it is but what I had to do was change the TGA to a BMP, bucket fill the white parts with a dark green and then go to all the trouble of making a new mask.

Here is a link to Baltikas very good description of how things work with Gimp: http://combatace.com/topic/58802-how-to-create-alpha-channel-for-coastal-tile-in-gimp/

 

And here is the result:

 

[+baffmeister 1,205]

For some reason ThirdWire made some river tiles for the stock Desert terrain but never made use of them. The number of river tiles is quite limited and the terrain I am building is too mountainous to place any long rivers so have installed a couple of short "tidal inlets". The downside, more tods to place. [sigh]

 

Edited February 25, 2014 by baffmeister

[Wrench 9,848]

wait until you have to build "specials" to make sea ports, that ACTUALLY look like harbors...and are big enough for the ships (not including our 3rd Party ones)*

 

which is what I'm doing now, using a hybrid stock desert tile set (with some IME imports)

Example below, a new harbor port for Tripoli. Slightly inaccurate, as the northern outer mole is in real life curved, as is the eastern breakwater. Using squared off makes for better alpha channel renditions. And still have to build the TOD

 

 

 

*don't forget the stock 3W oil tanker is a VLCC, and would NOT be in a harbor

[+baffmeister 1,205]

I have spent quite a bit of time looking at your harbours.    Even tried to build a  practice one using Baltikas guide but had some issues getting the water to match the TW sea reflective properties. [ something to do with a grey background color in the TGA?]  All I have installed at the moment are two of the stock harbours but hope to get some new ones built in the future. I have started some targeting on this terrain with stock objects and might even be able to release the basic version in a couple of months. Basic meaning an expanded tileset and better tods than Thirdwires stock desert terrain but no roads, small towns, dried up rivers etc. that are planned for the future. At the present production rate, the future may be a long way away!

[Wrench 9,848]

for sea/land transitions, there's this (unfortunately, the images are gone. I'll have to make new ones)

 

http://combatace.com/topic/50042-simplified-sealand-transition-tile-creation/

 

wadi's should be fairly easy to create; again, using a multi layered psd. It's just what should the "river bed" be colored??? In real life, without water, both the pictures I've seen and those dried watercourses I've seen here in the California deserts, match the surrounding countryside. More like a gully.

Depending on which base desert is used ... the stock Desert ones have always been a bit too 'orange' (good for Barsoom, maybe?)

maybe a slightly lightened IsrealME desert?

(one wonders if using the desert-river tiles, but with the land painted in and the 'water' section of the alpha intact, one could simulate a mud/marsh effect?? Must experiment!! Northwest Africa has a lot of 'salt marshes' -so to speak-

 

as to port tiles, for stock desert, if you want the set, I'll be glad to send the psds, tga and bmps. Some have new TODs, some don't.

I dislike #7 a lot, because the curved breakwaters are a bitch to get the alpha right -- what with the actual pixels being a 'square'- is why I go with linier (or straight) lines

The 'cityport1' is designed as a direct replacement for the stock, crappy-way-to-small harbor basin

Edited February 25, 2014 by Wrench

[+baffmeister 1,205]

YES! I would like to use those harbours but will use my own building tods. I will send a PM shortly. Regarding the stock desert tiles, I have never been very happy with them but used them to minimize the amount of copy and pasting required to make new transitions. I don't really like the farm tiles either but wanted to keep the ThirdWire city tiles because they have a good Thirdworld look. As the terrain gets developed some things will probably get changed but thats down the road.

[Wrench 9,848]

the Israel farm tiles can be adapted to the stock desert city2farm, but it'd take some doing. I'd seriously considered that with the WW2 Tunisia rebuild I'm doing. But discarded it cause I'm lazy. 30-40 tiles would need rebuilding

 

they really do have a much better look for north Africa, but the Israel city tiles really and truly suck a$$.

OTH, the IME farm tiles would probably be more correct for Sicily/Italy than the desert ones. The desert ones have that 'parched and washed out' look.

But, then we're back to them crappy IME cites; unless one makes a special set just for use in Italy. Again, the usual quandry!! (to say nothing of dumping the targets ini, to make things re-fit into the tiles. PIA!!!

Edited February 26, 2014 by Wrench

[+baffmeister 1,205]

At last! Started working on this port tile a long time ago but could never get the TGA thing figured out. Finally had some success with Gimp and got this one finished. The main problem was trying to match the reflective properties of the new tile to the stock TW water tiles. Took awhile but managed to dismantle a TW tile in Gimp then copy and paste the grey [textured] "reflecto" layer into my new port tile. Voila: 

 

 

 

[Wrench 9,848]

did you copy/paste the alps off the sea1 tile, then paint in the black parts? That's the easiest way to do it! That leave the "sea" sections to match the open ocean, and neighboring transition tiles

 

here's another desert sc25 port tile, and the 2 impounded docks are those in Calcutta (Kidderpur and King George's), in VNSEA for the ww2 east asia map (still very much on The Factory Floor at Magrethea)

 

 

[+baffmeister 1,205]

did you copy/paste the alps off the sea1 tile, then paint in the black parts? That's the easiest way to do it! That leave the "sea" sections to match the open ocean, and neighboring transition tiles

 

here's another desert sc25 port tile, and the 2 impounded docks are those in Calcutta (Kidderpur and King George's), in VNSEA for the ww2 east asia map (still very much on The Factory Floor at Magrethea)

The copy/paste for the transparency was from the TW Sea2City25 tile[iirc], the one I used to build the harbour from. To capture the shore line transparancy texturing I extended the copy quite far into the black non transparent section of the tile. It involved a bit of 1 pixel micro surgery to get it to work. Your way would work fine I think but I had some problems at the shoreline interface when using a somewhat similar approach.

 

I like the look of those Calcutta tiles. Like TW Desert city tiles but a bit different? Here's your direct replacement CityPort1 tile added in. Only 4 more to go!

 

 

And, thanks to Gerwins terrain tool, a map for the new terrain:

 

 

[Wrench 9,848]

the Calcutta docks use the Vietnam SC50 and SC75 tiles (based on those 2 from Stary's GH3