Aquapedia (also the CTP)

[Phelanpt]

The ones I really like: landscape_dark, landscape_desert, and most of the CTP ones.

The only ones I don't like are the two CTP_redwalls. They look very weird, unlike the other walls.

Great work, everyone, and great initiative, TGF!
If I have some free time this weekend, I'll try my hand at this too.

Also: PEERREVIEWBOTS, ROLL OUT!

[The GoldFish]

I'm not sure how Dark and Desert would respond to recolouring. I assume that really they wouldn't. Your thoughts?

Also, TO BE CLEAR, all the CTP ones are ones from me, LLama, xander, jelco, or anyone else who contribs - CTP stands for community texture pack, and all the files I'm putting together will probably be uniformly identifyable from this part of the name. All the landscape_name.bmp ones are from Darwinia or Multiwinia, and are all obviously perfect @_@.

If anyone does want to take part, I think as far as anyone's concerned, feel free to take/modify/adapt any of the existing IV or CTP files. If you don't have the means to test it out with Darwinia (if for example you don't own it, don't have mods enabled, or just don't know how to do this), you can post links to the texture here or you can find me in #multiwinia on the uplinkcorp server and link random terrains to me in there, I'll generate a screenshot for you (maybe not immidietly, I tend to do things in batches to reduce my workload).

Basically I'm trying to keep the CTP textures as free images, ie, anything can do anything with them, so, please don't submit images that you want to get any special credits or heralding for. At the very least there'll be a credits file including all the handles of people who contribute and possibly a list of all the specific files you contributed, but at the end of the day, this is about getting an awesome texture pack together and full credits aren't the point.

[Phelanpt]

I'm not sure how Dark and Desert would respond to recolouring. I assume that really they wouldn't. Your thoughts?

The Desert one probably not, but on the Dark, if instead of using a shift between black and white directly (from what I understood of the texture file), you shifted from black to blue, or black to blue to white, it might look interesting. My idea with that is to keep it dark, and give it a coloured tinge. Not sure if that's possible, though.

[The GoldFish]

Yeah well I'm still amazed it came out that badly!

I'm not sure how Dark and Desert would respond to recolouring. I assume that really they wouldn't. Your thoughts?

The Desert one probably not, but on the Dark, if instead of using a shift between black and white directly (from what I understood of the texture file), you shifted from black to blue, or black to blue to white, it might look interesting. My idea with that is to keep it dark, and give it a coloured tinge. Not sure if that's possible, though.

How's this? Too blue?

[Phelanpt]

Not quite what I was imagining, but still cool.

Also, I'm not so sure you should remove "bad" textures. It's a subjective matter, and I think even jelco's eye watering texture could have its use.

[The GoldFish]

well, what WERE you imagining?

Also the reason to identify and consider removing bad textures is because bad textures probably won't get used, they don't look good, and they just clog up the gaps between all the good ones. They are also representive of bad practice wrt landscape behavoir - for example, landscape_CTP_primary_core.bmp is very much one colour through and through. While it makes a statement about the original level, and therefore not necesserily generically bad, this isn't really the way Darwinia is supposed to look and doesn't really compliment the lighting and landscape systems very much.

Now, that's not to say I think primary_core should be removed, it's just on the outskirts of being varied within what people are probably going to want to use, and what we should be trying to encourage in order to make good use of the engine.

Jelco's crazy mess is way outside of this range, really.

[Phelanpt]

well, what WERE you imagining?

Something like CTP_refinery_e. Was that there before?

[The GoldFish]

well, what WERE you imagining?

Something like CTP_refinery_e. Was that there before?

Any other ideas?

[The GoldFish]

Welcome to our new home in the Mod forums! Woobags.

Also added a bunch more textures to the list.

[Kuth]

So if I understand this correctly, the gradients for textures are generated with a 64x64 pixel image of a gradient? What are the particulars? Does the upper left corner represent a higher altitude or something?

Someone needs to put together some structures also, hopefully keeping in theme with Darwinia

[xander]

So if I understand this correctly, the gradients for textures are generated with a 64x64 pixel image of a gradient? What are the particulars? Does the upper left corner represent a higher altitude or something?

Someone needs to put together some structures also, hopefully keeping in theme with Darwinia :)

Icepick documented this at thenextgame.co.uk. Basically, the vertical axis is elevation (top is lowlands, bottom is highlands), and the horizontal axis is gradient (left is flat, right is steep).

xander

[The GoldFish]

Someone needs to put together some structures also, hopefully keeping in theme with Darwinia

At current, building shapes aren't defined on a per map basis - this might be good for graphics replacement mods, however it's sort of outside the scope of this project.

Regarding "how these work", I sort of alluded to this a few times (and sort of explained this specifically but whatever). Here's a few examples of landscapes and the results to help understanding








Isn't it clever. Also yeah, read the TNG article.

[Kuth]

Had to do a little looking around before I found it. So for other newbs coming in curious? Here it is, the guide to modding Multiwinia. I'll have to check this out. I like the idea of getting to mod Multiwinia some way, since I love the game for its simplicity.

I had forgotten this was a texture pack :\ Though adding a few structures and combining this texture pack would probably create Multiwinia's first "Content Pack", which for a moment I thought this was, a community pack. Ah well, Land and sea textures are 2/3rds the content of a map anyway

[zach]

I figured I ought to post in this thread.

I approve of this effort. You may continue.

[The GoldFish]

The landscape textures are the most complicated of the 3 terrain textures, but are still fairly simple; they use a (generally?) 64x64 bitmap, which, starting from the top left, determines the color of a particular part of the landscape based on its steepness (X coord) and relative altitude (Y coord), so flat, low altitude triangles use colours from the top left region of a texture, and high, steep triangles use colours from the bottom right. I think the terrain section of the guide on the next game covers it all pretty well.

That link is for Icepicks very old Darwinia modding guide. Some of it applies to Multiwinia, some of it does not.

Because, I'd wager, of your unfamiliarity with Darwinia's map behavoir, I'll clear this up. Textures like this are additional content that can comfortably coexist with all existing content, and all future content, provided that there are no naming conflicts (hence the _CTP_ in all the texture names). A level designer can freely use whichever one of these they like, mix and match it with their own or other people's custom textures, with any map they make now or in the future, with any mod that they may be using. It's defined right in the map file, here's an excerpt from mp_domination_3P_1.txt...

Code: Select all

   landColourFile landscape_default.bmp
   wavesColourFile waves_containmentfield.bmp
   waterColourFile water_default.bmp


Custom buildings, on the other hand, do not function this way - there is no existing way for a level to define which shape files it uses for certain buildings. The means that does exist to specify custom buildings, as used by several Darwinia modders, are ghosted shp replacements via eg a mod folder, which will effect all maps, so this would be very all or nothing, plus very inconfigurable by the map author - only whichever specific buildings are specified by the shape pack modder. (There are ways around this, but it's not very ideal.)

Now I sort of agree, that custom buildings would be nice. The objective of this pack though is to give a metric ton of graphic content that is easily usable, and most of all safe, for all modders to use on their levels, which pretty much excludes custom buildings as things stand. On top of this, custom shape files like this are much harder to make and vary - I don't think we'd have anywhere near the same quantity of content at this point. Anyone in a more advanced position can put together building packs if they'd like to, but it's not something I'm interested in dealing with at this stage.

Also, I'd say that land and sea textures/colours are 2/3rds the LOOK of a level, and the last 1/3d is the physical landscape of the level. The actual buildings really don't give very specific major appearance changes, hey're more of a finishing touch. The level though, really, is all in the design. If people can make their levels look how they like, then I'll feel like I've done my job.

Also, hi zanzer, I'm glad you approve.