Caveman 2 Cosmos

I'm much happier to back them out until after the release. In fact, as it stands now, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't really change anything of a critical nature. At the moment, the old ocean and coast tiles are being placed and those are still defined properly for the old methods. So unless anyone can point to anything that's been done that commits us to using the new terrains then I'm quite happy to stop where we are and release. The unit movement rules are additive and don't replace or make units incompatible with the current/old terrain systems. I don't know of what else may have been done that could create any incompatibilities.

We can then begin to work out the rest of the details which... I'm pretty sure would take up the majority of a release cycle itself. Between that and some plans for units I'm working on here.

I'd much rather release where we're at now. I'm very tired of delaying working on real progress.
 
I'd much rather release where we're at now. I'm very tired of delaying working on real progress.
Shall I make Coast and Ocean use old graphics until afte V36?

Other than that I have made 1 somewhat risky xml change when I lowered the height of the ocean from 59 (Edit: perhaps I remember wrong; vanilla has 49) to 50.
I would then revert this too of course.

PS: About map heights:
Spoiler :
Range 0-255 (8 bit accuracy)
Ocean floor 28
Flatland avarage 64
Hill top: 230 (<fHillScale>0.13</fHillScale> scaled down on Z-axis makes it lower than the height map indicates. From eyesight evaluation I would say the number is closer to 80)
Peak top: 255 (<fPeakScale>0.33</fPeakScale> --||-- Number is probably closer to 120 due to the downscaling)
 
From what I've seen it did look like the water level had lowered. This wouldn't be terribly favorable in general unless you really NEED to do this because with the submersing units I was hoping to be able to program that submerging would lower them and that's going to need room. Is this the key for you getting the graphic effect you were looking for with the continental shelves?

I'm neutral on whether we need the old or new graphics... I just feel we need whatever we publish v36 with in a compatible state with the old systems as the maps still use them and it would be nice not to get stuck here before release.
 
1. From what I've seen it did look like the water level had lowered. This wouldn't be terribly favorable in general unless you really NEED to do this because with the submersing units I was hoping to be able to program that submerging would lower them and that's going to need room.
2. Is this the key for you getting the graphic effect you were looking for with the continental shelves?
1. The ocean floor is currently at 28 which leaves much room for the graphic to lower down from 50. In my height maps I'm going for the ocean floor at 20; since the scale is logarithmic this is almost twice as deep as what C2C currently have compared to the water plane. I realize I would have to lower down the model of most bonuses, water units and water improvements, but I wanted there to be a bigger height difference between flatland and sea level.

2. Since all water terrain that is not connected to land use the same height map texture I wouldn't know how to use this in any interesting way for the continental shelf or other terrains. If there is anything about height map delegation for terrain in the dll I would really like to know.

What would be cool would be the capability of adding even more water planes at different depths with custom transparencies, and use that in conjunction with more height map variations. this could create a realistic visibility change of for example the ocean floor and submarines at different depths. Currently a submarine right below the surface is just as visible as one that is at the bottom.
 
1. Sounds like we have even more room if we drop the ocean floor further. (if that can be done) I'll have to work it out with you how much each submersion level would adjust the graphic on the unit.

2) I doubt I could add that capability but can we not give the one water plane at least a little opacity so that it would really show what's underwater as being underwater?

I'll have to look into the height issues as they are laid out in the dll. I fear too much of it may be locked away in the exe and what isn't may be tough for me to decipher... I'm only guessing at the moment that I could even manipulate the final base height of the submerging and elevating unit directly in the dll... might take some tricky animation effects to really enable it. Don't know yet.
 
1. Sounds like we have even more room if we drop the ocean floor further. (if that can be done) I'll have to work it out with you how much each submersion level would adjust the graphic on the unit.
I think it can be dropped to 0 without any graphical complications other than coast having a very sharp downward hill that can be seen through the water; I can test it out and show you a picture of how it looks.

2) I doubt I could add that capability but can we not give the one water plane at least a little opacity so that it would really show what's underwater as being underwater?
It is already 50% opaque I adjusted it to 70% opaque but the sub would be equally visible no matter how far under the water plane it goes.
If you ever have time to investigate the water planes in the dll, this xml contains the important tags and really most of the technical stuff about the water plane:
XML\Misc\CIV4WaterPlaneInfos.xml

I can see traces of fireaxis wanting to add multiple planes in that xml; but seems they didn't get the time to finish it.

I'll have to look into the height issues as they are laid out in the dll. I fear too much of it may be locked away in the exe and what isn't may be tough for me to decipher... I'm only guessing at the moment that I could even manipulate the final base height of the submerging and elevating unit directly in the dll... might take some tricky animation effects to really enable it. Don't know yet.
I could make the unit itself less opaque through animations; which could look like it is is deeper underwater. Though, we would need to be able to manipulate the animation flow to get this working unless we were to use the fortify animation flow to submerge; having it stay less visible while in the fortify state. This would of course force us to make subs unable to either fortify or sleep (uses same animations as fortify) while in shallow water.

Edit: Pictures of deeper ocean (as low as it can go)
2015-10-06_00003.jpg2015-10-06_00004.jpg

Yeah; thats how water terrain looks like without the water plane.
 
Is it possible to get the coast, sea and continental shelf base higher than the ocean so it shows the dropoff if you look closely but doesn't make for such a strong transition from land to sea?

Interesting option of working with animations for submersion but the problem would then be all the other types of animations needing their own mirror and as you say there's need for some interesting coding manipulation. Should be easier to just create an overall adjustment to depth based on how submerged the unit is if we've got to go to that length.

As for more or less opaque... I'm not sure it really matters all that much. Is opacity of the unit something we set in the xml? I ask because its possible that when depth is adjusted, opacity may be something that can also be adjusted...

I'll definitely be looking into all of this very soon.
 
As for more or less opaque... I'm not sure it really matters all that much. Is opacity of the unit something we set in the xml? I ask because its possible that when depth is adjusted, opacity may be something that can also be adjusted...

I think opacity is set in alpha channel of DDS textures or in NIF file.
 
Is it possible to get the coast, sea and continental shelf base higher than the ocean so it shows the dropoff if you look closely but doesn't make for such a strong transition from land to sea?

As I said two post ago, all water terrain that is not connected to land use the same height map texture: "Ocean1_1.tga", "ocean1_2.tga", etc. is used for sea, trench, ocean and cont shelf. This is not something I can manipulate in xml, as far as I know. Another thing for you to investigate in the dll.

Interesting option of working with animations for submersion but the problem would then be all the other types of animations needing their own mirror and as you say there's need for some interesting coding manipulation. Should be easier to just create an overall adjustment to depth based on how submerged the unit is if we've got to go to that length.
True

As for more or less opaque... I'm not sure it really matters all that much. Is opacity of the unit something we set in the xml? I ask because its possible that when depth is adjusted, opacity may be something that can also be adjusted...
As sparth said, the DDS can set the maximum opacity while the NIF can adjust between that and fully transparent through animations.
 
Is this mod still ongoing?
Last time i checked, some Galactic techs were empty.
 
Good to know. I'll join the hype train :)
 
Last time i checked, some Galactic techs were empty.

The Galactic Era is virtually non-existent, but you're unlikely to ever reach it in normal play anyway.
 
The Galactic Era is virtually non-existent, but you're unlikely to ever reach it in normal play anyway.

Hah! Now that you mention it, I've actually reached it once last year in diety and eternity speed.

It was quite fun and memorable, played that save for about 2 years on and off until I researched ascension and "won" the game (besides the fact I had the map completely controlled since the industrial age).

Sadly I forgot to take screenshots.

Keep up the good work!
 
Hello everyone!
We're playing hotseat latest C2C version on a smartmap and for some reason, autosave files don't load, while normal save files load no problem. Any tips on how to fix it? It's very annoying to save every turn and easily forgotten. Earlier versions' autosaves loaded fine for us...
Any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
 
Hello everyone!
We're playing hotseat latest C2C version on a smartmap and for some reason, autosave files don't load, while normal save files load no problem. Any tips on how to fix it? It's very annoying to save every turn and easily forgotten. Earlier versions' autosaves loaded fine for us...
Any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Known bug on hotseat. No idea how to fix it unfortunately.
 
The problem is, theoretically there should be no difference between an autosave, particularly one on any game type, and a normal save and how there IS a difference here is a mystery in the first place. Shouldn't depend on map type but who knows.
 
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