Modding Cities

Accountant · Post by **Accountant** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 3:58 am

Sounds like an interesting idea! My only concern would be consistent quality across the board (for example, my texturing kinda sucks). But I would definitely be interested to see how this idea plays out. Could make the Evochron universe more dynamic and interesting. Would any other modders be interested in a project of this scale?

If you want to send me the spreadsheet when you are finished I would love to take a look at it!

-Accountant

warsign · Post by **warsign** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 6:07 am

Can't wait to see all cities together in the game.
It would be awesome.
Thanks guys.

Earl · Post by **Earl** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 4:47 pm

Quality is not that big of a deal, this is for fun! If a mod-user doesn't like a model, he/she can replace it easily. If you want texturing help, I could maybe lend a hand, but I'm no pro either...
As I'm going through the universe file I'm really amazed at the diversity of planets Vice has constructed....

Accountant · Post by **Accountant** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 6:38 pm

I have to keep remembering that: that this is all for fun. If I get up-tight or anything throw a shoe or something at me

I know what you mean about the diversity of planets. Just from exploring the known systems alone there is great diversity. Vice has definitely made a masterpiece here.

-Accountant

Wasp89 · Post by **Wasp89** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 8:11 pm

I would be interested in putting something together, though as things go I'm not particularly good at modeling OR texturing. If you like it though, you are welcome to use it.

I have already started work on a dome-like structure which encompasses a city. It will be interesting to see if it works with the new collision system.

Accountant · Post by **Accountant** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 8:29 pm

Sounds like an interesting idea! Whatever you have we would love to take a look at! As Earl said, this is all for fun, so do not worry about what you think the quality is. We (myself especially) are all amateurs and doing this because we enjoy it, not because we're necessarily pros.

-Accountant

Wasp89 · Post by **Wasp89** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:13 pm

I'm running into issues with rotated cities as well. When I load the game, everything is fine. The city is oriented properly and I even managed to line up my landing pad geometry with the correct point in space. The collision system works fine and I can fly in and out of the dome with ease.

As I was cruising around the outside of the dome, admiring my ugly gray untextured handiwork, I flew too fast and blew up. Upon reloading, the city had rotated 90 degrees.

Reloading the game does not fix the problem. Rotating the model with sketchup and then re-exporting it to the .x format DOES fix the problem, until I die and reload again, at which time the city rotates 90 degrees again.

As a side note, I *think* the city is aligning itself along the game's y axis when it appears to rotate 90 degrees.

I hope this helps solve the problem.

Wasp89 · Post by **Wasp89** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:21 pm

Here's a teaser:

It's just a "rough draft," and took me about two hours to build and scale properly, so most of the buildings inside are just blocks and cylinders. More will probably be done to the dome itself, but I thought I would post it here anyways.

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:31 pm

You know, for an "early" or non proliferated settlement, domed buildings are the most likely structures you will find.
I like where you're going with this.
I wish you good luck.

Post by **Vice** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:39 pm

Yes, the current build of the game has a rotation issue with custom cities. With Accountant's help testing some new functions, I've implemented a new custom city system that corrects the rotation bug while also adding an optional light layer. Here is the download link:

http://www.starwraith.com/evochron_legendsb1101.exe

And you will need to use these filenames for custom cities and make sure to texture the objects in the 3D modelling program you are using:

city.x = City object
citylights.x = Lights for city object
or
city[PLANETNAME].x = City object for a specific planet
citylights[PLANETNAME].x = Lights for city object for a specific planet

For planet specific cities, replace [PLANETNAME] with the name of the planet you want the custom city to be applied to.

[Edited on 6-11-2009 by Vice]

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 4:52 am

Looks Great Wasp89, I can imagine that it is going to look great!

Accountant · Post by **Accountant** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 5:08 am

City is looking good Wasp89! Certainly is an interesting concept on a domed city. Are you planning on making the dome transparent, like a glass dome, or will it be a solid wall-type structure?

-Accountant

Buback · Post by **Buback** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 6:48 am

Hey man that look great, i wish i can help, but my skils r limited only for paper and pen

Anyway good luck

warsign · Post by **warsign** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 3:14 pm

I like it Wasp.
Entering in it would be good feeling.

Earl · Post by **Earl** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 3:32 am

So far, I'm not getting a texture to work.
Does it need to be in a specific directory, or have a certain filename?

And I'm not to the lighting half, yet, obviously, but do you mean just exporting a file with nothing but lighting objects? That could make for some very cool effects.

My database of the planets is done... I still don't know about attachments, but I can email it to whoever likes, send me an IM.
There isn't really any information in there you can't get from the universe file, apart from it being sorted by territories in addition to star systems. I did a lot of color coding to help my decision process when I do get to sticking things in there

By my count, there are 128 known planets, and they're all very different. Very cool stuff!

Post by **Vice** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 5:02 am

So far, I'm not getting a texture to work.
Does it need to be in a specific directory, or have a certain filename?

Make sure to use bitmaps (BMP) for the textures, then make sure the X file isn't specifying a folder location so the images can be loaded from any folder location where they are placed with the X file.

And I'm not to the lighting half, yet, obviously, but do you mean just exporting a file with nothing but lighting objects? That could make for some very cool effects.

Yes. A separate mesh layer, which can even include different structures. So you could include a holographic banner above or next to your city with glowing letters just floating in the air.

Earl · Post by **Earl** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 6:12 am

Cool, it's working! Mostly...
Somewhere in there it nukes my UVs, but that's probably something I can figure out. Just seeing a texture at all feels pretty good.

I am seeing some of the same rotation issues. For me, only if I visit a second planet.
And, even if I specify the file for a specific planet, it does seem to show up everywhere.

Scratch that, after playing some more, turns out my exporter was flipping my UVS.
We're in business! I'm running a mesh smoothly with 3600 triangles, and a 1024x1024 texture, and my system is far from ideal. It'll be interesting to see how hardcore of a model we can make.
It looks great thus far! This is really exciting stuff

[Edited on 6-13-2009 by Earl]

Post by **Vice** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 6:17 am

Make sure to use build 1.101, otherwise you may encounter intermittent rotation issues. As for planet specific cities, make sure to include a global custom city in addition to planet specific cities if you want to use the planet specific option, otherwise, the game will be left with blanks when it encounters a planet with no defined city and will likely just use the last model it was given information for.

Wasp89 · Post by **Wasp89** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 5:45 pm

Hey, thanks for the encouragement and compliments!

I was originally considering making it a transparent dome, but I am not sure how to do it.

The idea behind the dome was that it would be for "new" colonies on planets near war zones. The roof would be retractable to seal the city off from Vonari attack, and the whole dome structure would be heavily armored. Of course, in game, the roof would really be static.

Accountant · Post by **Accountant** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 6:18 pm

Cool idea!

As for a transparent dome, EL does not, AFAIK, support transparent textures. You would have to find a way to fake it, perhaps by modelling the frame instead of the whole dome, so that the "windows" of the dome are empty space.

-Accountant

Post by **Vice** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 8:23 pm

Or use the light layer for a semi-transparent look (you could even fill in the frames Accountant describes above so it looks like framed glass sections). Using a light blue or gray texture would likely offer a pretty good looking glass effect, or at least some semi-transparent material (ie force field dome).

Earl · Post by **Earl** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:35 pm

Results of a few experiments....
I make a junky model with about 25k triangles to see how high the game could handle. 25k is pretty laggy on my machine, so I tried 10, 15, etc. 15 still runs smoothly on my system, but there's no need to go that high I think.

Also, another test... I used multiple textures and materials to see if they were supported from a single .x file, and they are!

The light layer looks pretty cool! Think I'll use it for sure. It would be easy to make something like snow for a specific planet.
Right now, all I get is transparent geometry. I can't see any of the lights that I add in. Are they supported as well?

[Edited on 6-15-2009 by Earl]

Post by **Vice** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:47 pm

Anything you apply as a texture should show up. If you're applying 'scene' lights in a modelling program, those won't show up. But anything you apply as a texture to the light mesh itself will appear.

Earl · Post by **Earl** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:50 pm

Gotcha! that's still very useful.