Command & Conquer and Red Alert Civ2 & ToT scenarios development

[Thorvald of Lym]

I just need to know the answer to the above question on whether the MGE 'multi sound system' got removed in ToT so I can prepare my sound files now accordingly to save myself the trouble later.

To check, I believe sound is similar to mge ones until file name in the rules section is different from none ?

SL tips

Basically, units using <none> fall back to the original MGE scheme, and any custom sound overrides default/special audio (except NUKEXPLO). Note that all "custom" units (after Explorer) do not use the default fallbacks, apart from JETCRASH/JETSPUTR for air.

 

[Blake00]

Thanks guys.. much appreciated! Armed with that knowledge I can setup sound files for both versions now to save myself the work later heh.

 

[Knighttime]

@Blake00 It's been awhile since I worked on sounds for Medieval Millennium, and even then I admit I didn't dig too deeply. As others have said, in ToT you can't specify more than one custom sound per unit (I never even realized that the MGE unit editor let you do that!). But units can still play more than one sound, especially for events other than combat. I'm not too familiar with how the "fallback" sounds work if you specify a sound of <none>, so I can't really comment on that, but even if you do provide a unit with a specific named sound file in @ SOUNDS, additional sound files will still play as well in some cases.

For example, I had to override Jetcrash.wav and Jetsputr.wav with tiny silent files because those sounds (from the Original/Sound folder) were sometimes playing, even though I hadn't assigned them to any units and every unit had its own sound file specified. There are other files like this as well, that I didn't override because they worked for my scenario -- for example the one that plays when a Trireme sinks (I believe this is Boatsink.wav in the Sound folder directly beneath the main game installation folder, rather than the folder within Original).

Unlike MGE, where sounds were apparently slot-dependent, I think in TOT these extra sounds are purely dependent on the properties of the unit type -- as I recollect, any domain 2 unit with the "trireme" flag will play Boatsink.wav if it's lost due to ending its turn away from shore, regardless of the unit slot it occupies. (In MM, my ships with the Trireme flag have IDs 82 and higher, vs. 32 for Trireme in the base game). Pretty sure the same is true for the Jet sounds, and maybe other things as well, although I've never seen or developed a comprehensive list.

So my conclusion is that if you're able to avoid <none> and provide actual sound files for every unit, then "fallback" sounds wouldn't matter and you don't have to worry about slot assignments. If I'm understanding the capabilities of the MGE unit editor correctly, then I guess the main changes in TOT would be: (1) the sound filenames for these other events are hardcoded into the game itself, so any custom versions you provide have to use the existing names; and (2) all units with a given set of properties will trigger the same file(s), so you can't customize them uniquely per unit.

Hope this is helpful, and good luck with your project!

 

[Blake00]

EDIT: Nevermind, was being a dumbass and forgetting I needed to switch the player control to that faction first hahaha. *facepalm*

Spoiler :

Another question.. Wonx wrote Alexandria as Alexander but Civ2 is not letting me rename the city. When I click rename on the city screen nothing happens, which I haven't experienced before.

I'm guessing it might have something to do with special objectives as I've never messed with that stuff and I can see Wonx set some stuff up. Sure enough I can see the city is set as a Major objective but when I try to turn it off the same thing happens.. absolutely nothing and it stays set to 1=on. So presumably somewhere else needs to be changed or it has nothing to do with that and there's some other cause. So any suggestions from the gurus on what I need to temporarily turn off so I can rename the city and fix this bloody typo?

 

[Blake00]

OMG I can't believe it's been 5 years since I started this thread.. what happened lol.. Oh well I guess I better get these projects finished hey?

So let's talk about the Civ2 Command & Conquer Africa scenario which I've been working hard on finishing and am pretty happy where things are at! All that's left is play testing and writing documentation and this baby will be finally ready to go soon!

One of the advantages of me taking so darn long to get these scenarios done is that I've learned a hell of a lot over the last 5 years working on other scenarios and was able to apply those new skills into making these ones much better! Here's some of the things I've done..

• I previously posted about working on all the sound effects (with some examples attached) which are now finished and I'm very proud of.
• I've also hunted around the net to find and add more classic C&C midi music tracks as well.
• Added a new unit to the roster, a NOD Devils Tongue! This unit that could tunnel underground and reappear anywhere on the map was added for balancing as the GDI had a paradropping unit but NOD did not, until now!
• I've heavily overhauled the GUI graphics utilizing images taken from the original C&C2 game and the custom font colours trick to create a more immersive green Tiberium font theme.
• Most players are not fans of MGE's big unit shields and Wonx's 2 shields per unit was even worse lol, so I've utilized the old popular 'put the flag in the shield' MGE trick to improve that one and also shrunk them down to a smaller size.

To demonstrate the later 3 let's compare my old marketing shot from earlier in the thread and show you my new one.

Here's the OLD marketing shot with the old GUI and big double unit shields..
(Click to expand)


And here's the NEW marketing shot with the new GUI and mini single unit shields.. (note the new Devils Tongue near Tripoli to the north too)
(Click to expand)

Naturally I couldn't resist designing a nice big and colourful 1080P CnC1&2 themed Civ2 main menu replacement similar to what I did for the Civ2 HoMM2 mod.
(Click to expand)

I've also created an intro video (plus a death video) that flows into the custom main menu screen, which were quite fun to make since this is C&C we're talking about here so I was spoiled for choice with so many cool FMV videos to pick from lol! Using video editors I even put in a sneaky "Civilization II" into the C&C title sequence heh.

Of course if I'm going to do a custom GUI and replace the intro DLL images then I'm obviously going to replace all the advisor DLL images too. Once again I was very spoiled for choice due to CnC 1&2 having so many amazing cutscenes to snap pictures from, so I was mostly able to make backgrounds that suited the theme of the advisor. I probably should have darkened them a bit more for readability but man I love these images haha.
(Click to expand)


Some you may have seen that I recently developed a new glowing transparent scifi holographic style diplomacy screen template for my Dune 2 scenario project. I took that template, inserted an appropriate C&C background image and recoloured the holo display edges and stat icons to make them both match the green of the custom font used in the scenario too. Naturally I've replaced all leaders in the scenario too.. all hail Kane!

Lastly for those wondering if I plan to do a Test of Time conversion then fear not, while my priority at the moment is to finish and release the last of my planned MGE mods and videos first, I do indeed plan to do a ToT version of this scenario and have done some preliminary work. No GUI work yet but I recently converted the city buildings across. This was quite a bit of work as I did the original city buildings in 2020 so I had to find all the source images again or make my own new ones and there were a number of other challenges too. Eg the original C&C building icons are very low res and yes maybe I could have used an AI upscaler, but that's not really my thing so I stuck with conventional old fashioned upsizing & smoothing out to get them to ToT building resolution size. The original icons were also wide & rectangular whereas ToTs big higher res Civilopedia building images are not wide and are more square like, so in almost every image I had to paint/fake new top and bottom areas (usually clouds and dirt)! Far from perfect but am pretty happy with the results. (Note: As previously discussed in the thread there's a mix of C&C and Red Alert buildings to fill gaps created by Civ2 having way more buildings!)

Original MGE building icons:

New ToT building icons:

And some of the big ToT Civilopedia building images:

Well I think that's everything for now. Like I said earlier this baby is nearly ready to go out and I'll post about my Civ2 Red Alert 2 Siege of New York scenario updates soon too!

.

 

[Patine]

OMG I can't believe it's been 5 years since I started this thread.. what happened lol.. Oh well I guess I better get these projects finished hey?

So let's talk about the Civ2 Command & Conquer Africa scenario which I've been working hard on finishing and am pretty happy where things are at! All that's left is play testing and writing documentation and this baby will be finally ready to go soon!

One of the advantages of me taking so darn long to get these scenarios done is that I've learned a hell of a lot over the last 5 years working on other scenarios and was able to apply those new skills into making these ones much better! Here's some of the things I've done..

• I previously posted about working on all the sound effects (with some examples attached) which are now finished and I'm very proud of.
• I've also hunted around the net to find and add more classic C&C midi music tracks as well.
• Added a new unit to the roster, a NOD Devils Tongue! This unit that could tunnel underground and reappear anywhere on the map was added for balancing as the GDI had a paradropping unit but NOD did not, until now!
• I've heavily overhauled the GUI graphics utilizing images taken from the original C&C2 game and the custom font colours trick to create a more immersive green Tiberium font theme.
• Most players are not fans of MGE's big unit shields and Wonx's 2 shields per unit was even worse lol, so I've utilized the old popular 'put the flag in the shield' MGE trick to improve that one and also shrunk them down to a smaller size.

To demonstrate the later 3 let's compare my old marketing shot from earlier in the thread and show you my new one.

Here's the OLD marketing shot with the old GUI and big double unit shields..
(Click to expand)


And here's the NEW marketing shot the new GUI and mini single unit shields.. (note the new Devils Tongue near Tripoli to the north too)
(Click to expand)
View attachment 698375

Naturally I could't resist designing a nice big and colourful 1080P CnC1&2 themed Civ2 main menu replacement similar to what I did for the Civ2 HoMM2 mod.
(Click to expand)
View attachment 698371

I've also created an intro video (plus a death video) that flows into the custom main menu screen, which were quite fun to make since this is C&C we're talking about here so I was spoiled for choice with so many cool FMV videos to pick from lol! Using video editors I even put in a sneaky "Civilization II" into the C&C title sequence heh.

View attachment 698374

Of course if I'm going to do a custom GUI and replace the intro DLL images then I'm obviously going to replace all the advisor DLL images too. Once again I was very spoiled for choice due to CnC 1&2 having so many amazing cutscenes to snap pictures from, so I was mostly able to make backgrounds that suited the theme of the advisor. I probably should have darkened them a bit more for readability but man I love these images haha.
(Click to expand)
View attachment 698377 View attachment 698378

Some you may have seen that I recently developed a new glowing transparent scifi holographic style diplomacy screen template for my Dune 2 scenario project. I took that template, inserted an appropriate C&C background image and recoloured the holo display edges and stat icons to make them both match the green of the custom font used in the scenario too. Naturally I've replaced all leaders in the scenario too.. all hail Kane!

View attachment 698380

Lastly for those wondering if I plan to do a Test of Time conversion then fear not, while my priority at the moment is to finish and release the last of my planned MGE mods and videos first, I do indeed plan to do a ToT version of this scenario and have done some preliminary work. No GUI work yet but I recently converted the city buildings across. This was quite a bit of work as I did the original city buildings in 2020 so I had to find all the source images again or make my own new ones and there were a number of other challenges too. Eg the original C&C building icons are very low res and yes maybe I could have used an AI upscaler, but that's not really my thing so I stuck with conventional old fashioned upsizing & smoothing out to get them to ToT building resolution size. The original icons were also wide & rectangular whereas ToTs big higher res Civilopedia building images are not wide and are more square like, so in almost every image I had to paint/fake new top and bottom areas (usually clouds and dirt)! Far from perfect but am pretty happy with the results. (Note: As previously discussed in the thread there's a mix of C&C and Red Alert buildings to fill gaps created by Civ2 having way more buildings!)

Original MGE building icons:
View attachment 698383

New ToT building icons:
View attachment 698384

And some of the big ToT Civilopedia building images:
View attachment 698387

Well I think that's everything for now. Like I said earlier this baby is nearly ready to go out and I'll post about my Civ2 Red Alert 2 Siege of New York scenario updates soon too!

.

Ah, the return of the SMACfrica map!

Looking good!

 

[Blake00]

Ah, the return of the SMACfrica map!

Looking good!

Cheers! Funny you should say that as I've been working away these last few weeks on actual SMAC terrain for Civ2 if you haven't seen it already.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...tot-scenarios-development.25759/post-16635128
.