Tundra Forests

Has anybody updated the existing forests or jungles in the game with anything, like new colors or graphics?

I dug this up regarding terrain graphics:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=438352

As far as I know, there aren't any CSV files for forest or jungle. (I think those have more to do with height maps, instead of simple 2D graphics applied to terrain.)

I've edited the forest_europe_2.dds file, since that had the most conifers. For each new tree, I utilized the exact same alpha mask as the existing three, so they look exactly as they do in game. I also really desaturated the colors for a colder, more grayish green look to them to match the tundra terrain. Also, I transformed a few of them to widen or shrink them and then resharpened them if any blurring occurred.

existing:


new:


I also found the new GR2 file (which I was looking all over for) at:
...\Sid Meier's Civilization V\assets\DLC\Shared\Terrain\Forest

My plan to get this working was to sort of "hack" it in.

I was planning on using the function, DetermineContinents(), to set the world to a single art style only. But, during the loop, it would check for a latitude value, and if the current latitude is higher than the value, it would use a different continent art style. This other style would have its forest graphics overridden with a new file named exactly the same as the old one but containing the tundra forest graphics.

Along with the latitude check would be an additional tundra check for any tundra that was "blended" past its original latitude value during terrain generation.

I was also thinking of utilizing another existing continent art style to be used solely for snow-capped forests which would be even further north and for tundra next to snow terrain. Most likely the American continent art style since its bare tundra has lots of snow mixed in it (or the Europe one, and I'll change the one above to override the American one, since the Euro style not only has the snowy tundra, but also has the gray snow-capped mountains which would like nice in snow areas.)

In a test mod, I thought I had it solved after finding the GR2 and updating the dds file associated with it. I imported both of them into the mod, set VFS=true, and tried it out. No luck. I then desperately tried it with "Reload Landmark System" checked on and still no luck. Also, this mod had nothing else in it. I just wanted to override the existing graphics and kept regenerating maps until it used the European continent art style so I could see what it looked like before proceeding with coding the rest of what was needed.

I tried looking for an FXSXML file for the forests, since that is usually paired with the GR2 file in mods, but I couldn't find anything. I kept all of the file names the same as the default game, so I initially thought having the mod override the GR2 and DDS files would do the trick, but it's certainly not the case.

Does anybody know what's missing, or do you know where the FXSXML file is for the new forests (if one exists, and it doesn't use some other method)?

- - - - - -

EDIT:

Also, here's my similar thread from just over a year ago which I just glanced at again (yeah, those trees have too much snow on them and would just look white if they worked!):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=470452

In it, there was mention of this:

plot:SetFeatureDummyTexture(string dummyTag, string textureTag)

But, I'm not sure how to utilize that to try it out.

Does anybody know what's missing, or do you know where the FXSXML file is for the new forests (if one exists, and it doesn't use some other method)?

Click to expand...

If its not in the base game or the fpk files then I think you are out of luck and that its handled within the graphic.dll

There's a forest_europe_2.gr2 in the folder you mentioned, but there's also forest_europe.gr2 in the fpks. I'm not sure when the DLC one would be used instead of the original, but have you tried adding it to VFS without the _2?

Horem said:

If its not in the base game or the fpk files then I think you are out of luck and that its handled within the graphic.dll

Click to expand...

Darn... I hope that doesn't become the case.

Nutty said:

There's a forest_europe_2.gr2 in the folder you mentioned, but there's also forest_europe.gr2 in the fpks. I'm not sure when the DLC one would be used instead of the original, but have you tried adding it to VFS without the _2?

Click to expand...

Yeah, I have all those unpacked. I initially found the one without the _2, and was stumped because when you open it, it doesn't have a dds file associated with it. As far as I can tell, anyway.

Using lemmy's and CaptainBinky's Nexus Buddy tool, I didn't see a material object with the forest_europe.gr2. Though, I don't really know exactly what I'm doing and just follow the normal procedure of searching through the material objects and checking the right side panel for the DDS files I need to replace.

The forest_europe_2.gr2 file had this within the DLC Shared folder. Though, now that I remember, it pointed towards a dds file named forest_europe.dds instead of forest_europe_2.dds. I didn't think that mattered though, since whoever worked on it at Firaxis probably just kept the name the same in their expansion2 folder (you can see the old path within the app) during development, and then only renamed the file when they moved it in with the rest of the DDS files.

I'll give it a try, though. I'll rename the GR2 without the _2!

I don't think renaming the DDS file without the _2, and then reassociating it with the GR2, will make a difference, but I guess I'll try that out too.


Thanks for the help, guys.

If anybody wants to tinker with this on their own, here are the dds files of both the normal forest and the snowy one!

Preview:

I don't know if this will be helpful, but I did a bunch of work trying to get custom feature art to work before. Most of my issues were with changing features while the game was loaded though, otherwise it was quite successful. I think you may have intersecting issues with the ones I encountered when trying to replace an existing feature though. The behavior for changing features at runtime is hardcoded in the graphics DLL as far as I can tell (though that was a few patches ago, so worth trying again).