Tile Editing Help

[ShrikeHawk 384]

I have a terrain with tiles I want to edit to match another set of tiles. I've already edited a few and saved them.

 

But I'm not seeing the changed tiles in-game. What gives?

 

I've saved the edited tiles as 24-bit .bmps. I used GIMP2 to make the changes. I've verified there are no copies of the tiles I edited.

 

I even did this very obvious test to see if I could see the changed tile in-game:

 

 

This should be very easy to see and find while flying in the game. Strangely, this huge red square isn't showing up.

 

So why can't I see my changes?

[+russouk2004 6,958]

cant see pic......

[ShrikeHawk 384]

I made that gallery public. Can you see the pic now?

[Wrench 9,807]

I can see the pic -- with the red square (is this a commie city?? lol!!)

 

make sure the names stays the same (like VietnamSC50C.tga)   -- remember, all sea/land transition tiles are tgas, as are all river tiles. Only "dry land" is in bmp format (or jpg)

 

are you using a test mission, that puts you directly over the target area in question? (bestest way to do it!)

 

I'm completely unfamiliar with GIMP (I only use photoshop); how does it handle 32-bit tgas? Does the alpha channel remain intact after saving?

[ShrikeHawk 384]

Hehe. It turns commie later on. ;)

 

The name is the same. This is a .bmp file I found in the terrain folder. I only want to change the land part of it, so I need to change this .bmp, right? I looked at the .tgas and it seems they only include the water part. Am I doing this wrong? I note the river tiles I changed aren't showing a difference either. And yes, I saved a mission where I can find my test tile every time.

 

GIMP works great. I do all skins, decals, and clouds with it. It handles .tgas just fine.

Edited December 28, 2015 by ShrikeHawk

[+russouk2004 6,958]

Heightmap bmp....you need edit the tga

VIETNAMSC50C.Tga....as kev says

[ShrikeHawk 384]

Hmmm. I'm not sure how editing the .tga changes things. It's just the water. I want to change what the "land" looks like. Here's what VIETNAMSC50C.Tga looks like to me. (gray checkerboard indicates transparency)

 

 

Here's another example:

 

This is what the original tile, that I want to change, looks like:

 

 

I need to change the appearance of the city portion, not the water. I have already edited it, and it looks like what I want. Here it is:

 

 

Now, the original .bmp isn't in the terrain folder any longer. The edited one above has the same file name and has replaced the original. But I'm not seeing the new tile in the game. I don't understand why. Here's what it looks like in the game:

 

 

[Wrench 9,807]

it's seems that the "water" part of the tga is working (ie: the alpha...but not the land part.. Did you flatten the RGB layers?

 

also the, C-RIVS tile is a tga, not a bmp.

 

The alpha channel, on anything BUT water, should be solidly opaque -- 100% black (see below) with the RGB channels turned OFF

 

with the RGB channels visible, it should cast a "red" look  (2nd shot)

 

make sure you have the "channels" showing, which I didn't see on the gimp shots (of course, not being familiar with it....I don't know where to look exactly!)

 

 

(btw, I HATE those "photo-real" tiles. they look completely wrong 99.99% of the time, expecially for the ww2 timeframe. The terrain would be better served by just changing the city/farm transitions (GC**) to match the GH 3.5 look, and leave the cities alone. And the fact that the TODs won't match, and look really crappy is another thing too. Remember, it's 1943, NOT 2003. It's not a modern, "clean" city. It's a dirty, dusty crappy place)

[+Stary 2,427]

pretty much what Wrench said, all the water-related tiles must be targa (.tga) ones as the stupid engine uses alpha channel value to overlay "water" graphics on and compute if the ie. impact happened on water or shore/land.

 

The simplest way is to keep the channel intact as 90% of the tilesets try to do so to avoid some placement innacuracies when say new tileset is used to replace older ot stock one

[ShrikeHawk 384]

Okay, I figured this out. Obviously, GIMP2 operates differently from Photoshop so it took some finagling to make it work. Alpha channels are the key, but how GIMP handles them is weird.

 

The bottom line in this issue is I wanted different looking city images where water is in the tile. I had to edit the corresponding .tga file but in the .tga I couldn't see the city image. So I put it in and saved the .tga. Here's what I got:

 

 

The new city image appears, but the whole tile is treated like water! Obviously, alpha channel defines what is water and what isn't. This is what Wrench was saying. Unfortunately, adding the city part as a separate layer wipes out the alpha channel in the .tga. Adding the .tga as a layer to the .bmp produces the same result. Lost alpha. I recreated the alpha channel, but in-game I just get a black square (everything invisible). 

 

The trick with GIMP2 is to use a "layer mask." The "mask" duplicates the function of the alpha channel exactly. With the mask applied everything works perfectly! See below:

 

 

Booyeah! Here's a screenshot from GIMP2 that may explain better:

 

 

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys. You gave me the clues I needed to figure this out. I knew GIMP2 could do it. It was just a matter of figuring out how.

 

Wrench: The tiles I'm trying to match come from Green Hell 3.5 representing Vietnam. For now, I just want everything to look like it goes together. I do agree with you that the cities in 1930s China would look nothing like 1970s Vietnam. Once I have this tileset under control I'll go back and see about updating the cities so they're more believable for the time period. I may dig up sat pics of out-of-the-way towns in Asia to get a better feel for that. 

[Wrench 9,807]

so, basicly, what you're saying is GIMP sucks for making tgas. WAY to many steps, and too many chances to get it wrong!! :)

 

if I can find them, do you want the psds I used the make the "specials" with?? It'll probably save you some time

[ShrikeHawk 384]

I don't think it's so bad. Part of the finagling is because I'm trying hard not to disturb the structure of the tiling, just the appearance. Making decals with GIMP, for instance is astoundingly simple. I read a tutorial here at CA on how to make decals. It takes many many more steps than what are needed in GIMP. To each his own, though. I don't think I need the .psds. Thanks for asking. The .tgas give me all I need. 

 

I've been thinking about what you said about the cities. Below is a picture of a Barangay (neighborhood) in Dumaguete City, Philippines. A city of about 125,000. Do think this would pass for a "large" Chinese city in the 1930s?

 

Edited December 28, 2015 by ShrikeHawk

[Wrench 9,807]

closer, but then again, you're going to run into the TOD building issues...they're not going to match. I built the city tods to match the existing 3w tile patterns. To say nothing of the placements of target objects within the city tiles. They're placed to fit with certain boundries and "open spaces". Using different tiles means the entirety of the target areas will need to be rebuilt. I'd not reccomend that.

trust me on this ... I've doing this since 2005!! When I build a terrain, I have a very specific "look" in mind, a really clear vision. Everything is done for a reason. :)