2D Graphics Requests

[TC01]

While there is a thread for 3D graphics stuff, so I thought I'd create one for 2D. So, I thought I'd open a new thread for them.

Anything here needs to be done... by someone. Since I am horrible with graphics, I'm going to ask for community help. If someone browsing sees an item here that they think they could do, please feel free to help out with this mod by working on it.

• Leather Yield: Leather, at the moment, uses the same graphics as Coats do. Since Coats are still a yield in the game, this is a bit of a problem.

The thread will be updated as I find more needed 2D art.

 

[TC01]

Here's a screenshot of the main menu screen I've created for v0.4. Due to my limited graphics skills, I didn't add very much to the image, which comes from here.

 

[KJ Jansson]

Here's a screenshot of the main menu screen I've created for v0.4. Due to my limited graphics skills, I didn't add very much to the image, which comes from here.

Hi, TC01!

My graphic skills are also rather low, but I could use your screen as background in Mare Nostrum 0.5.

As I see, your Wild West Mod 0.3 + 0.33 patch has two backgrounds, the first one in ...Screens/Europe directory, the second one inside the WHPack0.FRK file. At the moment I have no ideas which background is in use. I guess you now exactly.

 

[TC01]

The actual Home City (Europe) screen should be in the FPK. But for 0.33 I had received bug reports that at certain times, the Europe Screen would go pink. I guessed this was due to the fact that I didn't have all of koma13's city screen files included, so I copied everything I could find into the same folder, just not FPKed. This seemed to fix the issue. (I don't update the FPK during a patch, so all the art currently in the Assets\Art folder will be in the FPK for the next version, along with all new art I'm adding). So the files are in different places. I think the .nif and several .dds files are in the FPK, and the rest are in the Art\Interface\Screens\Europe folder.


I'd prefer to keep the main menu background and home city screen background different. Main Menu one is a landscape of the Grand Canyon. Home City screen should look like an actual city, not just a landscape.

 

[KJ Jansson]

I'd prefer to keep the main menu background and home city screen background different. Main Menu one is a landscape of the Grand Canyon. Home City screen should look like an actual city, not just a landscape.

I have no possibility to remove homecity background from the FPK file. Therefore I continue my tests with MareNostrum. Here the second variant for Homecity.

P.S. And first background is absolutely perfectly working as a main menu.

 

[TC01]

You can unpack the file using PakBuild, a Firaxis program that lets you unpack and pack fpk files. There's a tutorial somewhere by Kael on how exactly to pack art files, but unpacking is pretty easy- open up the program, select "PAK", "Unpack", and then select the FPK in question and then where you want the art to go.

I like the home city! The only few things that are off about it is that the crab is still there, and the units are being placed in the middle of the air.

And it would be perfect if the transports appeared on the trail in the image, but I don't know how complicated it would be to do that.

It's much better than what we have now. Thanks!

 

[KJ Jansson]

You can unpack the file using PakBuild, a Firaxis program that lets you unpack and pack fpk files. There's a tutorial somewhere by Kael on how exactly to pack art files, but unpacking is pretty easy- open up the program, select "PAK", "Unpack", and then select the FPK in question and then where you want the art to go.

I know how to unpack the FPK file. I don't know how to delete some files from the FPK file. Now, however, this is unnecessary at all.

I used much easier way. I unpack your FPK file in ART directory, then delete the FPK file. Now I can edit your Screen files.

I like the home city! The only few things that are off about it is that the crab is still there, and the units are being placed in the middle of the air.

And it would be perfect if the transports appeared on the trail in the image, but I don't know how complicated it would be to do that.

Both problems are pure Python things.

To remove "crab" just open in Notepad++ and close (the symbol #) line 180 in the CvEuropeScreen.py file.
To place units and the transport on the trail are also possible. I will fix today.

And one additional proposal. You can use the dds file with Grand Canyon not only as Main screen, but also as the Loading screen. Looks much better than original image. To do this
1. Create in Interface/Screens/Loading directory,
2. copy dds file with Grand Canyon in this directory,
3. rename the file from "background.dds" to "LoadingScreenBGBeyondtheSword.dds".

Today evening I will collect all changes in one pack and upload on file-exchange server.

 

[KJ Jansson]

Here I collected all changes.

Main screen:



Loading screen:



Homecity, 1 day before the Transport arrive in the city:



Homecity:



As you see, I changed a little bit Homecity background. Now you have enough place for units waiting in your Homecity.

You can adjust more precisely the location of all units on the Homecity screen.

Here I summarized some "critical points" in CvEuropeScreen.py:

Transport in Homecity

Horizontal shift

line 269		xLocation_InPort = self.XResolution / 3 - self.SHIP_ICON_SIZE * 11 / 8

Units waiting in Homecity

Horizontal shift

line 482		iStartX = self.XResolution * 61 / 112

Vertical shift

line 486		iY = self.YResolution * 64 / 80 - iUnitHeight

Waiting units will stay along the trail

line 491 	iX = i * self.X_RECRUIT_PANE * 3 / 51

I fixed also Cow icon in the Civ4YieldInfos.xml file.

P.S. I will remove all previous attachments in this section. All images and changed dds files are included in this message.

 

[TC01]

Thanks again, KJ Jansson! I'll add this to v0.4.

 

[KJ Jansson]

Good luck in your mod development!

You have very interesting details in your mod that I probably will include in my "1492: Global Colonization" some of them. For instance land Homecity. I have Mongol civilization in my mod and they will have only land starting units. Of course, they will have only land Homecity, too. Some of civilizations in "1492: GC" like Russian or Chinese will have both Homecity entrance for Naval and Land units.

I probably also will ask the community help to modify CvEuropeScreen.py such way, that each arriving unit will call a required type of Homecity screen. That is Land unit (wagon train) will arrive in Land-Homecity, Naval unit (caravel) will arrive in coast located city (usual Europe screen). To my opinion such changes could be done in Python and require only very professional correction of CvEuropeScreen.py.