Graphical Quibbles...

[Pickly]

Hmm. Isn't emitting (water?) vapour the opposite of what Condensers are supposed to do?

The name "condenser" would argue against that, but in terms of what the condenser does, and the fact the the atmospherics tech makes it available, it could kind of make sense (In that it moistens the the terrain by adding water to the air. the other sensible option would seem to be condensing water, than adding it to the ground in nearby terrain to moisten it.)

Which animation should be used is up for grabs for me personally, though.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Finished the hovertank! You can find it here! I'm fairly happy with it now, I think it's pretty close to the original model, but I tried to make the profile slightly more aerodynamic to make it a little bit sleeker. I've also changed the teamcolour a bit - the armour has a little rim without teamcolour, works better, I think. And it explodes spectacularly with faint little shockwaves!

@Lord Tirian:
I have a request on your solar collector model. Would it be possible to create .dds files for this model without the sun reflecting of the mirror? The idea is that the texture with the sun reflected is used when a base works the collector, and the texture without when the collector isn't worked.

Yep, done... and attached. Since the solar collector texture was a bit cheated (it's actually not a photograph of a solar collector, it's just the sky with higher contrast and LENS FLARE and some lines), it might not match perfectly. Try it out and see how it looks.

Btw, are you happy with a smoke column coming out of the condenser when worked? It seems appropriate, and I have an animation for that one.

For the condenser, I sort of have the image of fine mist surrounding it instead of a column. Sort of a mega-scale sprinkler working with fog clouds...

By the way, expect less graphics stuff until the end of January (perhaps the occasional button or something, but nothing 3D), because I'm going to be fairly busy with uni and stuff.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Maniac]

Thanks for the Hovertank!

 

[GeoModder]

And here's the result after some tinkering with the scales and axis of the smoke.
Looks quite foggy to me, doesn't it? The outer parts of the smoke seem to hover over neighbouring plots, and are not so dense as in the center above the condenser. Improvements behind the condenser are quite obscured after a while.
Good enough? If so, I'll prepare an upload with the necessary files. I can even attach what's finished sofar for the solar collector and the greenhouses.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Improvements behind the condenser are quite obscured after a while.

Huh, not sure whether that's good... the screenshot looks pretty cool, but I think it'd be better it the fog would sort of surround the condenser instead of hovering above it. I think that makes it clearer that the fog belongs to the condenser.

Cheers, LT.

 

[GeoModder]

I figured out how to let greenhouses (or whatever improvement) keep in the centre of a plot at all times. It was simply a missing reference of Planetfall improvements in PlotLSystem in LandImprovementProd root.

It's late now, tomorrow I'll finalize things here and upload an attachment for the Condenser, Solar Collector and Greenhouse. One more thing: I see you already used my "double greenhouse" model as an Algae improvement. Do you still want to use these double greenhouses on the algae resource, or should I link a single greenhouse in the algae improvement and let it choose a semi-random spot ingame on an algae plot so it avoids in most circumstances the resource? Same can be done with 2 semi-random greenhouses on an algae plot, fyi...
And as last remark, I played a bit with scales and saw that on scale 0.5 the greenhouses stayed entirely within the top part of high-altitude plot like ridges and highlands. With their present scale (0.8) they always have overhanging parts on ridges. Same for the mines, but on scale 0.65 then.
For the greenhouses, another solution is to create a so-called improvement_ridgegreenhouse and let only that use a scale small enough to fit in the top entirely, while high -and lowland greenhouses still use a bigger scale.

Huh, not sure whether that's good... the screenshot looks pretty cool, but I think it'd be better it the fog would sort of surround the condenser instead of hovering above it. I think that makes it clearer that the fog belongs to the condenser.

Should be possible by simply lowering the smoke's ninode in the .nif file, but I'll test tomorrow. It's getting too late now.

Edit: Oh, and thanks for the darkened solar collector texture, LT.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Do you still want to use these double greenhouses on the algae resource, or should I link a single greenhouse in the algae improvement and let it choose a semi-random spot ingame on an algae plot so it avoids in most circumstances the resource?

For what it's worth, I believe a semi-random greenhouse would look better than two - it's clearer that it's a single improvement (but that's probably just me).

On another note, if you're going through all that already, could you take a look at the scale of the farm buildings (the yellow buildings), nowadays I feel that my initial choices for the sizes were a bit too small, I think they could be a bit bigger... and you definitely have a good eye for these things, so I think you could find a better scale for them than me!

Cheers, LT.

 

[GeoModder]

Okay, will do.

 

[Maniac]

And here's the result after some tinkering with the scales and axis of the smoke.
Looks quite foggy to me, doesn't it? The outer parts of the smoke seem to hover over neighbouring plots, and are not so dense as in the center above the condenser. Improvements behind the condenser are quite obscured after a while.
Good enough? If so, I'll prepare an upload with the necessary files. I can even attach what's finished sofar for the solar collector and the greenhouses.

The idea is good, but:
1) As Lord Tirian says, I think the fog should be on ground level
2) I don't think the fog should extend into neighbouring plots
3) I think the fog should be more transparent. You should always be able to see what terrain type the plot has, and what unit is on the plot. That seems more important information to me than knowing if the condenser is worked or not.

Besides that I like the idea and look.

Do you still want to use these double greenhouses on the algae resource, or should I link a single greenhouse in the algae improvement and let it choose a semi-random spot ingame on an algae plot so it avoids in most circumstances the resource? Same can be done with 2 semi-random greenhouses on an algae plot, fyi...

A single random greenhouse sounds good as long as it's only random when the plot has an algae bonus.

And as last remark, I played a bit with scales and saw that on scale 0.5 the greenhouses stayed entirely within the top part of high-altitude plot like ridges and highlands. With their present scale (0.8) they always have overhanging parts on ridges. Same for the mines, but on scale 0.65 then.
For the greenhouses, another solution is to create a so-called improvement_ridgegreenhouse and let only that use a scale small enough to fit in the top entirely, while high -and lowland greenhouses still use a bigger scale.

Is your suggestion to add a new improvement type, or modify the LSystem so that the graphic will appear smaller on Ridges only? The latter sounds good, the former not.

 

[The_J]

Besides that I like the idea and look.

I guess, maybe other modders could use it like it is at the moment...
(okay, i'll probably not be modding in this month, but there's always a lack of graphics for every mod...)

 

[GeoModder]

The idea is good, but:
1) As Lord Tirian says, I think the fog should be on ground level
2) I don't think the fog should extend into neighbouring plots
3) I think the fog should be more transparent. You should always be able to see what terrain type the plot has, and what unit is on the plot. That seems more important information to me than knowing if the condenser is worked or not.

1) can be done simply by lowering the location of the smoke, 2) is a simple downscaling of the smoke (it uses scale 100 to spill over other plots) but I have no knowledge of how to (if it is possible) make the fog more transparent like you ask in 3). We'll see how it looks smaller and on ground level.

A single random greenhouse sounds good as long as it's only random when the plot has an algae bonus.

Well, if the algae improvement can only be built on an algae bonus that solves itself.

Is your suggestion to add a new improvement type, or modify the LSystem so that the graphic will appear smaller on Ridges only? The latter sounds good, the former not.

It was the former. So no new improvement class thus. Well, yay for small(er) greenhouses all over Planet.

I guess, maybe other modders could use it like it is at the moment...
(okay, i'll probably not be modding in this month, but there's always a lack of graphics for every mod...)

Actually, I didn't change a thing on the nif itself. I only tinkered a bit with the local transforms of the node.

 

[GeoModder]

Okay, here it is then.

This attachment ads changes to the greenhouse, algae lab, solar collector and condenser as discussed earlier in this thread. I also did some scale adjustments in PlotLSystem on greenhouse, algae lab, solar collector and mine.
To check what I changed, in both xml files I added the phrase <!-- Geo was here --> and <!-- end Geo was here --> at the entries I added or adjusted things, except for the rescaling of the mine.

No scale adjustments for the farms yet.

 

[Maniac]

Thanks downloaded!

 

[Maniac]

Solar collector and the condenser look awesome!

I don't like the changes in rotations and reductions in scale though. I've removed them. Plus I feel scale change are best done in the ArtDefines file rather than PlotLSystem anyway.

Unfortunately the rotation changes for the condenser was done in the nif file itself. Could you please create a nif file where this rotation is undone?

 

[GeoModder]

Solar collector and the condenser look awesome!

I don't like the changes in rotations and reductions in scale though. I've removed them. Plus I feel scale change are best done in the ArtDefines file rather than PlotLSystem anyway.

Unfortunately the rotation changes for the condenser was done in the nif file itself. Could you please create a nif file where this rotation is undone?

Oh well, to each its own I guess. I always felt if the cities are rotated, the improvements better be too to "stay in line" so to speak. Besides, I thought some sea improvements were alraedy rotated, not to mention the mine?

Okay, in attachment is a "straightened" condenser nif. Just drop it in the condenser folder on your end. I also attached a boreholecluster nif where the northeastern borehole will emit "smoke" when worked. At least, if you change the kfm-reference of the borehole_cluster entry in artdefines_improvement like I showed in the included textfile.
If you like what you see there, I can try to attach a smoke column to the other two boreholes too. But no guarantuees there. My first experiments failed and caused a CTD. The single smoke column doesn't cause problems as far as I tested.

Btw, is the borehole cluster referenced in other files besides artdefines_improvement? When I adjusted scale in that file and checked ingame I had a small and a normal-sized cluster on the screen. Python call perhaps? Also, I wondered why you allowed the cluster on highlands since the holes always float in the air then.

As for the other planet improvements (Mt. Planet, Garland Crater), do you have ideas/preferences as how those could be showed as worked? My first thought was to put a glow like the one from the energy resource or planet pearls (upscaled of course) in the Mt. Planet mound, and perhaps a mine in the middle of the crater when that one is worked.

 

[GeoModder]

I've given up on trying to put a smoke plume on each of the cluster mounds. It simply doesn't seem possible. Anyway, instead I added the smoke plume on Mt. Planet. If you on your end add the plantation/plantation.kfm on the mount planet entry in artdefines_improvement, change the name reference to MountPlanet_Worked and drop the attached nif in the correct folder you'll have a smokin' volcano when it is worked.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Oh well, to each its own I guess. I always felt if the cities are rotated, the improvements better be too to "stay in line" so to speak. Besides, I thought some sea improvements were alraedy rotated, not to mention the mine?

For what it's worth, I thought the 45° angle was better - Civ (and SMAC) has this isometric-style view for over a decade now... the straight greenhouses look odd. The condenser, however, is nicer as it is now (but IIRC, it was rotated like that in SMAC as well, despite the rest being at 45°). Scale-wise, the I think the smaller greenhouse is sort of better - because that huge grey base is less visible.

From my point of view, the "perfect" greenhouse would be the current size without the grey base (but with deep foundations for the greenhouse part), rotated at 45°.

Cheers, LT.

 

[GeoModder]

Thanks for the support, LT.
Besides, I can always keep things rotated and scaled as I like on my end.

To continue on the borehole cluster. If we had a model with only one alien borehole (and with a tube on the vertical axis to avoid floating holes) it would be possible to xml it that 3 of them appear in a plot. And since it would basically be a single model, I could attach a smoke plume to it and all 3 of them would emit the smoke when worked.

I also attached the unity pod flash on the maritime lab. Maniac, could you provide me your PlotLSystem file so I could put the entry for a worked/unworked version in it? I need it because I don't have the file with your final decision on scale/rotation for the other improvements. Or else you could do it yourself and add the highlighted code behind my greenhouse entry in that file and drop the attachment in the cities folder.

<!-- marine lab -->
<ArtRef Name="goal:IMPROVEMENT_MARINE_LAB">
<Attribute Class="Improvement">IMPROVEMENT_MARINE_LAB</Attribute>
<Attribute Class="Era">ERA_ALL</Attribute>
<Attribute Class="Scalar">NIF:Art/Structures/Cities/MarineLab_worked.nif</Attribute>
<Attribute Class="Scalar">bIsPartOfImprovement:1</Attribute>
<Attribute Class="Scalar">bApplyRotation:1</Attribute>
<Attribute Class="Scalar">bImprovementWorkedOnly:1</Attribute>
</ArtRef>

Oh yes, I recommend moving the unity pod texture in the shared folder since the maritime lab flash uses the texture from this model.

 

[Maniac]

Thanks for the files!

Re rotation, it's all personal preference of course. Perhaps the reason I feel a rotated greenhouse is out of place is because it is a rectangle and as a consequence no longer symmetrical (edit: on a vertical axis) when rotated. Compare this to mostly circular (mine, condenser, borehole) or square/diamond (farm) improvements which keep symmetry.

 

[GeoModder]

I plan on adjusting the farm scales once I have the latest PlotLSystem available. Probably after your next update thus. From what I've seen it's going to be a meticilous job to get it right.