Development Thread

Alright, I'll hold off on the changes on units. And I was thinking would probably be better to have 8 instead of 10 because transports hold 8.

But then isn't 9 best (1 for transport, 8 for its cargo)?

Another option would be to move the popup text down 5 pixels, but I don't know where that's located, while I do know where the GP bar is.

The code to draw the messages is in the heart of the game code -- not in the C++ DLL or Python.
 
I usually build my stacks outside of cities, and when I get enough for a transport I move it into the transport. Hardly ever do I build stacks in cities for fear of taking a defender by mistake.

And already solved the GP bar problem, and commited it.
 
I'm moving the text up with the bar so it's centered again.

In looking at the changes, when you did the city cycle arrows, you also shifted the position of the culture and great people (in the city screen) bars -- but not their text either. I'm going to revert those changes for now assuming it was an error.

Edit: Committed the fix and optionality.
 
All I really need for that is for someone to take the current left/right arrows for cycling through cities and rotate them for me as DDS files (or whatever they are now). Anyone up for the challenge?
I put my hand up for this and now I cannot find the actual DDS files. Can someone give me a file name?
 
As I have no idea what arrow buttons we're talking about, I'll just note that there's a very limited number of files with name containing "arrow" with extension ".dds" in the art folder of assets..

The only right/left arrows I found quickly were in Interface\Buttons named LeftArrow.dds and RightArrow.dds. There were also down/up arrows in same directory. The only arrow found in BUG install was in UnitUpgradeGraph, was only right (no left), and didn't seem to match description to begin with.

These of any help?
 
There are up/down arrows in the Art/interface/buttons directory. They're labeled Up_arrow.dds and down_arrow.dds.

@EF - No I wanted to make those changes. It allows for the text not to run over when you have a long city name which will take a long time to expand, especially in the late game, when you have low culture cities get into 100's of turns. I'll recommit them in tonight, and make changes to the text to center it better.

BTW - When I'm working with python the game says it loaded the new changes, but the changes don't seem to be put in unless I reload the save. Am I doing something wrong there?

@Cam - No more complimenting the MOD. You commited your first code change last night, so you can't say you're just Docs manager anymore.;)
 
I'm talking about the city cycle arrows that I thought were on the main interface which for some reason aren't on my screen (?) ...



That said ... as alerum68 says, there are some inbuilt up and down arrows ...

C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Assets\XML\Art\CIV4ArtDefines_Interface.xml said:
- <InterfaceArtInfo>
<Type>INTERFACE_GENERAL_DOWNARROW</Type>
<Path>Art/Interface/Buttons/General/DOWNARROW.dds</Path>
</InterfaceArtInfo>
- <InterfaceArtInfo>
<Type>INTERFACE_GENERAL_UPARROW</Type>
<Path>Art/Interface/Buttons/General/UPARROW.dds</Path>
</InterfaceArtInfo>
 
@Ruff - The city cycle arrows are now optional. They should be on by default though, so maybe you haven't sync'd?

I see up/down_arrow DDS, TGA and XCF files. I assume TGA is a font like the game font, but what's XCF? In any case, I'm guessing they are for the trade table in the Foreign Advisor. If so, they are too heavy (blue square). However, the left/right arrows are kinda big. I'd like something that would fit on a single line of the scoreboard -- around 20 pixels high.

@Alerum - Okay, I wasn't sure if that's what you were doing. The Main Interface mod shifted those bars to allow for more room (and the Specialist Stacker) IIRC, so maybe steal their code. Just make sure to search for the name of the bar with "Text" appended (e.g. "GreatPeopleBarText") to find where the text is positioned.
 
@Ruff - The city cycle arrows are now optional. They should be on by default though, so maybe you haven't sync'd?

I see up/down_arrow DDS, TGA and XCF files. I assume TGA is a font like the game font, but what's XCF? In any case, I'm guessing they are for the trade table in the Foreign Advisor. If so, they are too heavy (blue square). However, the left/right arrows are kinda big. I'd like something that would fit on a single line of the scoreboard -- around 20 pixels high.
I'll take a look. Off for a few days vacation so it'll be end of the week before I can get to this.
 
@Cam - No more complimenting the MOD. You commited your first code change last night, so you can't say you're just Docs manager anymore.;)

You are right... :eek:
Wait, just a minute... I can say something like: "What a wonderful mod! It's a real pity that it's ruined by those ugly and stupid changes to the CDA headers!" :cool:
 
@Ruff - The city cycle arrows are now optional. They should be on by default though, so maybe you haven't sync'd?

I see up/down_arrow DDS, TGA and XCF files. I assume TGA is a font like the game font, but what's XCF? In any case, I'm guessing they are for the trade table in the Foreign Advisor. If so, they are too heavy (blue square). However, the left/right arrows are kinda big. I'd like something that would fit on a single line of the scoreboard -- around 20 pixels high.

@Alerum - Okay, I wasn't sure if that's what you were doing. The Main Interface mod shifted those bars to allow for more room (and the Specialist Stacker) IIRC, so maybe steal their code. Just make sure to search for the name of the bar with "Text" appended (e.g. "GreatPeopleBarText") to find where the text is positioned.

Actually, looking at the .DDS for it, it seems to be the up arrow that's used in the city to scroll up and down on the build section. It's white, and fairly small. It's not the heavy blue ones used on the Foreign Advisor though.

And... umm... i did steal their code for the bars.:p I didn't see any text adjustments in the file though. I'll go through it again and see what I can find out.

@Cam - Nope, sorry. Not even that.:p Going to have to deal with being a full member now.

@Nik, I read yesterday that there was some problems with EDU and a couple of the units being incomplete.. Did you by chance already catch this, or should we go through it and make the changes?
 
Does anyone else like the idea of merging BlueMarble directly into the Flavor Mod? I don't think there are any coprights on it, so it should be good in that regard.

And would it be better to keep the city buttons so it goes to the closest city to the center of your screen, as it is now, or to take the time and code it to go to the last city visited?

@Cam - Would you mind if I made some changes to the domestic advisor to get some of the screens to be "justified" instead of "Left"? ie - Spacing and shrinking things to fill up the complete screen. I think it looks cleaner.
 
... also see about changing the number of units listed per a row from 9 to 10.
The number of units that you see per row is also dependent upon your screen resolution. I see a lot more units on my wide screen computer than on my laptop.
 
Does anyone else like the idea of merging BlueMarble directly into the Flavor Mod? I don't think there are any coprights on it, so it should be good in that regard.

No, because it would a) bloat our download, b) inconvenience anyone that doesn't want BM and c) require downloading BM to uninstall it -- double download!

And would it be better to keep the city buttons so it goes to the closest city to the center of your screen, as it is now, or to take the time and code it to go to the last city visited?

Perhaps, but this is done in the C++ code (probably the game and not the DLL). I dunno how you'd do it.

@Cam - Would you mind if I made some changes to the domestic advisor to get some of the screens to be "justified" instead of "Left"? ie - Spacing and shrinking things to fill up the complete screen. I think it looks cleaner.

I would recommend against this in case people want to add columns to his pages. If they do, they'll have to undo the changes you make and figure out the minimum space a column needs (I think Cam is doing this last part). Just my thoughts though. If you do, please provide his original version as well. :)

Edit: Sorry to be a party pooper. If my message seemed curt, it's because I wrote it quickly at work. Everyone's doing a kick-ass job with this mod, so please don't ever feel that I feel differently. I will try to call it like I see it, though, which may include bursting a few bubbles here and there (including my own). :D
 
Actually, looking at the .DDS for it, it seems to be the up arrow that's used in the city to scroll up and down on the build section. It's white, and fairly small. It's not the heavy blue ones used on the Foreign Advisor though.

Okay perfect. Could you please tell me what dimensions it is? Alternatively, what graphics program can I d/l to work with DDS files myself on Windows?

And... umm... i did steal their code for the bars.:p I didn't see any text adjustments in the file though. I'll go through it again and see what I can find out.

The text placement is far removed from the stacked bar creation. They are, thankfully, named as I said with "Text" appended, making search easier. Sorry to undo your work.

Note also that the hiding of the help and menu buttons was moved. I moved it back because I couldn't think of a reason this would be needed for the city cycle buttons. I'm leery of making any changes to such a critical file as CvMainInterface without knowing exactly why and what it does.

On a semi-related note, my Civ4 seems to be acting up lately. I was playing last night and the Sevopedia was occassionally not drawing correctly. The list of techs wouldn't be drawn, or the tech I clicked on (top research bar on main screen) wouldn't be selected, etc. This is the first I've seen of this, and I use the Sevopedia quite a bit. Maybe it's just bad timing, or maybe it's caused because I did the 3.03 update (it said I had to to do a multiplayer game).

Anyone else seen tweaky behavior?
 
Okay perfect. Could you please tell me what dimensions it is? Alternatively, what graphics program can I d/l to work with DDS files myself on Windows?
GIMP. To work with DDS files you might need to d/l an additional item. There is also a DDS viewer so that you can see thumbnails of them (don't know name).
 
I found IrfanView which allows you to view DDS images, but it won't save as DDS. I found two perfect arrows (16x16) in "Art/Interface/Civ4 Main Menu", but they're left/right. :( Bah!

The ones you pointed me to do indeed look like the blocky buttons: they're single white chevrons (^ and v) on a dark gray rounded square. Are there different images I'm missing? They are in the BtS Assets dir because they were added with ExForAdv's IconGrid. I guess they'll work in a pinch -- I just wanted smaller images. I can certainly shrink them in-game from 32x32 to 16x16.

@Ruff - I've heard of GIMP but didn't expect it to do DDS files. I forgot it's pluggable, so I'll grab it and see what I can find. THanks!.
 
@Cam - Would you mind if I made some changes to the domestic advisor to get some of the screens to be "justified" instead of "Left"? ie - Spacing and shrinking things to fill up the complete screen. I think it looks cleaner.

Not sure what you are saying here... if you are speaking of changes to my old 30-pages CustomDomAdv.txt, I'm completely redoing it, adding in the new columns and reorganizing the whole thing. It will be available before the weekend.

As you have probably seen in the repo, I've completed and committed the Italian translation of ActualQuotes for WL and BtS, I've started the huge translation of the vanilla file (it's about 6500 lines!), but suspended it to work on CDA personalization.
 
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