OpenRA Tilesets
Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 10:00 am
Hello
I would like to make maps for OpenRA, and I want to add few custom tiles to, shell we say, cnc desert tileset.
I've gone through
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/E ... ut-modding
and studied OpenRA dirs a little.
It's not that I've got it all (especially part with reversed engineering) but I've understood that you can mod with fairly simple tools.
However before I will be able to start implementing my bigger plans, I need to clarify few things, because it seems that I'm missing something important. I hope you guys can help me. All my questions based on my experience with latest playtest files and utilities.
1) .sno, .des, .tem etc. files have the same structure as shp files, but they were given different extension to link them to corresponding snow, desert, etc. tilesets and palettes. Is this correct?
2) If the previous is true, how come I can't open most of .des files with shp builder? E.g. I can open cliffs1.des, but I can't open bridge*.{des,jun} basically any bridge file? Is that shp builder's issue?
3) If I convert any animated landscape graphic(e.g bridge3.des) file to png via OpenRa.Utility all (water) animation is lost. On github the palette cycling animation was mentioned, but not explained in OpenRa context. Is there any way to extract this animation from shp? How do you do landscape animation after all, via shp frames or via palette cycling?
4) Let's say I've already done custom tilesets, or units - generally any custom graphics and want to share it. Is it possible to share custom graphics with just maps without creating new mod (cause I don't know how to do it yet)?
5) Do yaml files for tilesets referencing graphics in bits directories of corresponding mod?
Why a lot of files that mentioned in tileset's yaml are absent in bits directory (and btw anywhere and openRA directory too). For instance, in desert.yaml tileset of cnc for one of the bridge tiles there is:
-Template@169:
Id: 169
Images: bridge3.des
Size: 6,5
Categories: Bridge
Tiles:
......
But there is no bridge3.des in openRA directory, unless I do:
​OpenRa.Utility cnc --extract bridge3.des
From where I've just extracted it? (the same question goes about palettes)
6) There is also one thing about OpenRa utility that is not very comfortable and transparent to me: sometimes it throws output files to it's home directory, sometimes to <User>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\OpenRA (playtest) (which is more comfortable) I guess it depends of do I run it as admin or user. Is there anyway to set utilitie's extract/import dir? Or redirect output with smth. like ">" n linux command line utilities?
I would appreciate a lot If you help me to figure at least some of the answers.
I would like to make maps for OpenRA, and I want to add few custom tiles to, shell we say, cnc desert tileset.
I've gone through
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/E ... ut-modding
and studied OpenRA dirs a little.
It's not that I've got it all (especially part with reversed engineering) but I've understood that you can mod with fairly simple tools.
However before I will be able to start implementing my bigger plans, I need to clarify few things, because it seems that I'm missing something important. I hope you guys can help me. All my questions based on my experience with latest playtest files and utilities.
1) .sno, .des, .tem etc. files have the same structure as shp files, but they were given different extension to link them to corresponding snow, desert, etc. tilesets and palettes. Is this correct?
2) If the previous is true, how come I can't open most of .des files with shp builder? E.g. I can open cliffs1.des, but I can't open bridge*.{des,jun} basically any bridge file? Is that shp builder's issue?
3) If I convert any animated landscape graphic(e.g bridge3.des) file to png via OpenRa.Utility all (water) animation is lost. On github the palette cycling animation was mentioned, but not explained in OpenRa context. Is there any way to extract this animation from shp? How do you do landscape animation after all, via shp frames or via palette cycling?
4) Let's say I've already done custom tilesets, or units - generally any custom graphics and want to share it. Is it possible to share custom graphics with just maps without creating new mod (cause I don't know how to do it yet)?
5) Do yaml files for tilesets referencing graphics in bits directories of corresponding mod?
Why a lot of files that mentioned in tileset's yaml are absent in bits directory (and btw anywhere and openRA directory too). For instance, in desert.yaml tileset of cnc for one of the bridge tiles there is:
-Template@169:
Id: 169
Images: bridge3.des
Size: 6,5
Categories: Bridge
Tiles:
......
But there is no bridge3.des in openRA directory, unless I do:
​OpenRa.Utility cnc --extract bridge3.des
From where I've just extracted it? (the same question goes about palettes)
6) There is also one thing about OpenRa utility that is not very comfortable and transparent to me: sometimes it throws output files to it's home directory, sometimes to <User>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\OpenRA (playtest) (which is more comfortable) I guess it depends of do I run it as admin or user. Is there anyway to set utilitie's extract/import dir? Or redirect output with smth. like ">" n linux command line utilities?
I would appreciate a lot If you help me to figure at least some of the answers.