THE GAHZETTE Spreading News Since 2007
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THE GAHZETTE Spreading News Since 2007 Editor November ‘07 sapi Art Tamur Opinion/Forum Reports The Comfy Chair TinCow page 6 Reporters The Backroom Sigurd Fafnesbane page 12 CountArach King Jan III Sobieski The Throne Room Warmaster Horus page 13 darkrangar KingWarman888 edyzmedieval Martok Frederick I Barbarossa Omanes TW GBB TinCow ModChat - Technical makayane page 2 GeneralHankerchief Warluster Multiplayer KingWarman page 10 IanofSmeg16 Warmaster Horus All images and graphics have been used with Gaming love and respect for their original owners. Europa Barbarourm Warmaster Horus page 14 All articles are the property of the author. (C) 2007 totalwar.org Misc History King Jan III Sobieski page 11 Editor’s note The Gahzette is once again full of all the latest commu- have picked up makayane heard of it. nity and gaming news, with to pen a series of articles thanks to our efficient and, on the technical aspects of Warmaster Horus takes a it seems, eternally patient, modding, and we hope you’ll look at what exactly the mod staff. enjoy the series. Mak is is, and what it aims to do, looking for feedback on it, so in a very interesting article TinCow, Sigurd, and Horus if you’ve got anything to say starting on page 14. are once again around to about the section, drop her take you on a tour around a PM. Give it a read; you won’t their respective forums, regret it. and King Jan III Sobieski has Our feature article this issue, included his usual article on as you’re bound to notice, is historical people and events on a small mod release that sapi of note. happened late last month. It’s called Europa Barba- This month we’re pleased to rourm, and you may have 1 CLIMATE CHANGE No, not global warming, the Gahzette hasn’t Another useful command is toggle_ter- got into green issues just yet. Just some rain tiletype, with that one you may notice notes on refining your Total War campaign when viewing the overlay that it doesn’t and battle environment. seem to have as much detail as the original map_ground_types.tga file. That is because Inspecting the Existing Terrain the campaign map only has co-ordinates cor- SigniferOne posted an interesting discovery responding to the number of pixels on map_ recently. If you open your rome or medieval regions.tga which is half the size (and minus shell (by pressing the ~ ‘ or ` key in campaign one pixel) the size of map_climates/ heights/ depending on game and keyboard) and then ground_types. The ground type colours type in ?toggle_terrain – you get a list of all shown on the overlay are only those that the possible toggle_terrain commands, as fall on the odd, odd co-ordinates in map_cli- an example of one of these toggle_terrain mates, eg 13,153 and not 12,153. The pixels climate shows you the climate colours from falling on the odd/odd co-ordinates in the map_climates.tga overlaid on the campaign larger files are the most important as they map (see below): will determine if a map co-ordinate is acces- sible to armies and what climate will be used for battles at that location. 2 Increasing Bio-Diversity to place your farming areas more artistically. Or just making your campaign map look prettier... The second tga listed per ground type (for You can make more difference with this in those climates that have a different winter RTW than M2TW but the principle for each effect) is the texture which is used on the is the same. The textures used on the cam- campaign map in winter. A quick glance at paign map are set in descr_aerial_map_ the file will show you that the same snow ground_types.txt, in RTW entries aren’t texture is used in every climate. Again if you given for the two temperate_grassland or have new textures it is easy to assign them for the two temperate_forest climates, so to individual climates or ground types to add all four of those use the default settings. You variety. Perhaps adding a little subtly melt- can easily copy and paste one of the exist- ing snow to the warmer climes... (maybe this ing climate sections and rename it say for was about global warming after all!) ‘temperate_grassland_infertile’ and then, if you make some new textures you can assign Inclement Weather them to just that climate, adding more visual Weather events are determined by season variety to your map without affecting the and climate. New weather events can be functioning at all. added with a probability of happening to a particular climate and season or can be as- The textures referred to in the file don’t have signed to a specific historic battle. a file path specified and live in data/ter- rain/aerial_map/ground_types, if you want For M2TW: to add new textures to a mod folder for RTW Sky and weather events in M2TW are con- you can add a file path by using ../ to get trolled by weather_db.xml that contains up to the main data folder level and then both the weather events and the linkages to give the path back down again, for example climate. Unlike RTW you can’t substantially ../../../../bi/mod_folder/data/terrain/aerial_ alter sky colouring by text editing alone, you map/ground_types/grassland_low.tga, do have to edit the .texture files instead. If for M2TW you can simply give a new name you look for Alpaca’s dds/texture converter and include the texture in mod_folder/data/ you can convert existing textures back to dds terrain/aerial_map/ground_types files and change them in any graphics pro- gram capable of using the Nvidia dds plug- In both games the cultivated_low, culti- ins. Even if you can not make new textures vated_medium, and cultivated_high ground you can make new effects using the existing types use the same textures initially. The ones. ‘cultivated’ ground_type isn’t actually a separate ground_type; instead it is what To experiment with what can be done open happens to the fertile ground types once weather_db.xml in Notepad or similar text farming is built in a region. If you want to see editor, search for “france custom” and copy a bit less of the farming texture change the that section from aerial_map... text file so that cultivated_low <pattern id=”france custom” audio_ and medium use the same texture as the un- type=”calm”> to </pattern> cultivated ground type and just leave the cul- and paste it below </pattern>, change the tivated_high using the farming tga. You can “france custom” title to “my_custom” and also then re-arrange the various fertility level open a historic battle file, eg. ground types on the map_ground_types.tga data\world\maps\battle\custom\Hastings\ 3 descr_battle.txt you will see a slot for weather at the start of the battle section change that to: ; >>>> start of battle section <<<< battle 107, 145 battle_time 12.00 24.00 weather my_custom Now if you change the weather and textures associated with your new weather pattern you will see them applied to the historic bat- tle. For example using the below for all the periods in the ‘my_custom’ weather pattern plied to the Hastings historical battle (much gives the result shown above right when ap- more likely for the British climate than the original version!). Other adjustments such <period id=”sunrise”> as increasing fog - by decreasing fog <skydome mesh=”globallighting/Meshes/ value numbers eg: skydome.mesh” texture=”globallighting/sunrise/tex- <fog min=”100” max=”200”/> tures/sunrise_storm.texture”/> start to show how the battlemap dis- <clouds> play mechanics work, changing that <cloud id=”high” on its own without changing sky gives texture=”globallighting/sunrise/textures/sun- the result shown below, which shows rise_storm_tile.texture” speed_x=”0.106” speed_ the effect on the distance view but y=”0.0”/> without the normal corresponding <cloud id=”low” change in the sky texture, thus expos- texture=”globallighting/sunrise/textures/sun- ing the way each section is rendered. rise_storm_tile.texture” speed_x=”0.108” speed_ y=”0.004”/> </clouds> For RTW: <events> Weather events in RTW are controlled <event id=”phase 1 - heavy fog” dura- in descr_daytypes.txt, new ones can tion=”600” transition=”30”> be added to the top section of the file. <precipitation type=”rain” level=”torrential”/> An example of a new weather event <lighting data=”globallighting/morn- could be that shown overleaf: ing_fog.lighting”/> <wind type=”gales”/> <fog min=”-50” max=”2500”/> <bloom red=”255” green=”255” blue=”255” select=”15” intensity=”130”/> <lightning> <frequency min=”10” max=”20”/> <distribution x=”2048” y=”0” ra- dius=”1024”/> </lightning> </event> 4 weatherevent new_storm Coastal Erosion cloud heavy 0.69 0.69 0.69 If you make a new campaign map you precipitate dust torrential might find your coastline looks a little wind gusts blocky and unrealistic. You can make fog heavy 0.004 0.67 0.61 0.56 some very subtle changes to the coast- The three figures after cloud heavy are RGB line by manipulating the ‘depth’ of the sea in values that tint the colour of the clouds, the map_heights.tga. This works for both RTW base colour of the clouds is set in the day- and M2TW maps, if you look for a thread in type below according to the time of day. The TWC’s mapping workshop called ‘Sea Edges’ first number after the fog heavy line is the you’ll see a very long running discussion on density of the fog and the three colours after the technique. that are the colour of the fog or haze itself.