Urban Terrain Expansion

Not finished/ its a lot of Work

Information and discussion for custom maps and mods.
CombineC
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Post by CombineC »

yeah no problem for me! i like it if it makes to the game. :)

Matt
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Post by Matt »

The status on https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/3549 is that for cobble stone roads and houses still need work to pass QA.

eddie
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Post by eddie »

I replaced the grass with black color as I thought black would not be shown in game but replaced by grass instead. The wiki on GitHub tells me to use a black background when creating new shps and some of the original files (i.e. gem01.tem) have a black background as well. However instead of grass the game shows me the black color I added to the files. Is there a way to fix this?

If not, I will replace the repetitive grass tiles with a random selection of clear1.tem. So every single piece of the cobble stone files would have unique grass on it's edges.

Matt
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Post by Matt »

You need to chose the proper black (palette index 0).

eddie
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Post by eddie »

I'm pretty sure this time it's not my fault but a bug.

What I did:
- I used openra.utility.exe --png to convert CombineC's files to .png
- I edited them using Gimp. Therefore I imported temperat.pal and haven't had any problems yet editing and saving the files.
- I used openra.utility.exe --shp to convert the edited files back to .shp

No problems so far. The files appear in the map editor as well as in game.

Now I started filling the grass parts with black color and converted them as always.

The files look right in the preview window of the map editor (red square 1). They even look right while positioning them with the mouse (red square 2). However as soon as I leftclick to place it on the map the black part appears (red square 3).

So I tried something else: I used the XCC Mixer to extract cr1.tem from termperat.mix, copied it to the bits folder and added it to temperat.yaml. Now the same thing happens: It looks right in the preview window, it looks right while moving it around with the mouse. The black parts appear as soon as it is actually placed on the map.
Attachments
cr1.png
cr1.png (48.96 KiB) Viewed 24954 times
black.png
black.png (42.77 KiB) Viewed 24954 times

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Sleipnir
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Post by Sleipnir »

That is the expected behavior: temperat.yaml and the other tileset definitions define the base layer of the map. You aren't drawing the cobbles of craters on top of the grass, but are instead replacing the grass. These tiles have transparent pixels, but there is nothing behind them to draw and so the default black color is drawn instead.

You would need to set this up as an overlay layer like the resources or smudges if you wanted it to render on top of the underlying terrain.

eddie
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Post by eddie »

I see. In that case I go for Plan B and use different grass tiles instead.

eddie
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Post by eddie »

I finished the pixel pixel work and started converting the files to .shp and testing them.
However looking into the discussion at https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/3549 I get the feeling that this is futile work and a waste of time. Don't get me wrong. Criticism and suggestions are always welcome. I will take them into consideration. However it seems to me the climate of opinion is that this doesn't fit at all to red alert.

I really would like to know if there is at all the wish to add those cobblestone streets to ra. If not there's no need for me to put time and effort into this…

Matt
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Post by Matt »

Okay, then let's stop here. However your work is not wasted. You can still create a custom map with the old town house sprites and upload it. Compare http://resource.openra.net/maps/520

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Speedy
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Post by Speedy »

To be honest, the idea is pretty sweet.. but the question is if it is really going to be used.

A bit more variation in maps would be great, but I have a feeling that there won't be many maps with this.

With all the work and effort already put into this, though, I'm more wondering if it isn't more suitable for perhaps an original mod..

eddie
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Post by eddie »

After being disappoint for a couple of days I decided to finish this work despite the fact it won't be part of the official game. Maybe some one else can use those files. Maybe I will create a mod... I don't know yet.

These are the files I've been working on when the plug was pulled. There are still tiles missing that I've already drawn as PNGs but not converted yet (i.e. bridges).

Changes:
- I changed the color of the cobble stone. The new darker color is similar to the color of bridges.
- I massively changed the size of horizontal and vertical roads. The vertical roads are now 1.8 times the size of the horizontal ones. The reasons for this are explained here: http://www.sleipnirstuff.com/forum/view ... 83&t=16500
- In order to get rid of repetitive tiles I created up to 11 different variations of each tile:
Template@602:
Id: 602
Image: cobv2
Size: 1,1
Category: Cobblestone
PickAny: True
Tiles:
0: Road
1: Road
2: Road
3: Road
4: Road
5: Road
6: Road
7: Road
8: Road
9: Road
10: Road
Issues:
- Some of the variations do not show up in game. They look right in the map editor but appear as black tiles in game.
- Due to the fact I resized the roads the houses CombineC created don't fit anymore to the streets. I will fix that in the near future by editing the SHPs of those structures.

What I haven't done:
- At GitHub it was suggested to replace the dirt with the already existing one like bibs or roads. I tried that but it did look ugly. So I rather keep the dirt I created. IMHO the transition between cobblestone and grass looks better with the dark dirt I created.
Attachments
screenshot.png
screenshot.png (124.03 KiB) Viewed 24735 times
cobblev4alpha.zip
(41.67 KiB) Downloaded 814 times

Matt
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Post by Matt »

How about making these not green gras transitions, but just road with pavement?

eddie
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Post by eddie »

I made a huge misstake. I changed the size of the street but forgot to change the size of the sidewalk. I'll fix that.

@Cmd Matt.: I'll add the files you suggested as soon as the missing files are done and the sidewalk of the existing files is fixed.

Matt
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Post by Matt »


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Speedy
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Post by Speedy »

That.. looks amazing.. O_o
Image

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