Method to change road/trail colors?

[wfsaxton]

Is the graphic for roads/trails just a color or is it an actual set of graphics?

I'm wondering because for civilizations with trees/jungles as a staple of their landscape, the road improvements are not imperceptible.

If it were just a matter of changing a HEX number, that would be awesome. Otherwise, it might be beyond my meager CIV4 hacking abilities...

 

[wfsaxton]

Bump. Any ideas?

 

[Breez]

I agree, one of the things I hate about the lizards is the in ability to see Trails in their jungles. I would rather have glowing purple, or something completely out of character than not be able to see them at all.

 

[wfsaxton]

Yeah, my idea was to make them really obnoxious, like bright yellow or orange. ANYTHING to be able to actually see them...

 

[sylvain5477]

not really difficult, you have to find the right art which you should find in the Route....?info file.
I created a new style of route easily this way.

 

[wfsaxton]

Please remember, I'm a noob

I found some .nif files in

C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Assets\Art\Terrain\Routes

Which don't appear to be viewable by the default stuff in Windows XP.

Are you saying that we have to actually created new NIF files? Is there an easy utility that will allow me to do this?

This is well beyond a hex edit Not sure I can pull this off...

 

[Valkrionn]

Please remember, I'm a noob

I found some .nif files in

C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Assets\Art\Terrain\Routes

Which don't appear to be viewable by the default stuff in Windows XP.

Are you saying that we have to actually created new NIF files? Is there an easy utility that will allow me to do this?

This is well beyond a hex edit Not sure I can pull this off...

Nifs are easily editable using NifTools (Or NifSkope, whatever you want to call it), but that's not what you want here.

You want the .dds file the nif references. Basically, the skin, not the model. Can find it in the artdefine, but I'm not sure where that is. One of the art files, obviously.

 

[wfsaxton]

Do you know where the "trail" is even defined? Were trails introduced in base Civ 4, Beyond the Sword, or RiFE?

I did a text string search for "trail" and "shaper" all over the place in the Civ 4 directory and nothing came up.

 

[Valkrionn]

Trail itself (and all other routes) is in XML/Misc/Civ4RouteInfos.

Artdef is in XML/Art/Civ4RouteModelInfos.

Doesn't list the DDS used, but it should be kept in the same folder as the route so it shouldn't be hard to find.

 

[Breez]

BTW this is the best reason for Imperial roads in orbis, THOSE you can see clear as day.

Also I think roads are easier to see that trails in jungle, I wish the trail mechanic was done away with all together, no upside, all down side to me.

 

[Swinkscalibur]

I think there was some intended changes coming having to do with the newish dll code for trails/roads. The same code update was used to make Mechanos mobile forts forced to travel on railroads.

 

[wfsaxton]

Alas, there are no .dds files in there...just the .nif files.

I did a search for all .dds files in RiFE and browsed 100+ of them. None of them have any reference to route or trail either.

This is driving me nuts

 

[Valkrionn]

That's because artfiles are packed in FFPak051.

First, download PakBuild - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=136023

Then unpack the file.

The art is in Art/Terrain/Routes/Trail. You want roadprimitive.dds, it's the only skin. Convert it to a png or whatever, open up Photoshop, and apply a colorize to make it whatever tint you like... Really quite easy to recolor.

 

[sylvain5477]

Alas, there are no .dds files in there...just the .nif files.

I did a search for all .dds files in RiFE and browsed 100+ of them. None of them have any reference to route or trail either.

This is driving me nuts

OK, you have the following file in the PACK file containing the Trail art files: RoadPRIMITIVE.dds

There is a material in the nif files.

You want to make the trails easier to see:
1] Unpack the RifE pak file
2] Look at CIV4RouteModelInfos.xml to get the reference of all trail nif files and copy in your directory
3] Edit RoadPRIMITIVE.dds in the trail art directory to make it either larger or different (as you wish)
4] Change all reference to nif file in CIV4RouteModelInfos.xml to target your copied files
5] use nifscope on every used nif file to edit the material and make it (whiter/another color/ as you wish)
6] restart RifE, it should do the trick.

Is that clearer ?

 

[wfsaxton]

Success!

Simply unpacking it, modifying the dds, then repacking it did the trick.

Thanks for all the help everyone!

 

[Valkrionn]

You're welcome.

Should post a screenshot of your new route.

 

[wfsaxton]

Done!

 

[sylvain5477]

Done!

Do you think you could make it a dash line (same color) like - - - ?
I would be curious to try it then

 

[wfsaxton]

Do you think you could make it a dash line (same color) like - - - ?
I would be curious to try it then

I'll give it a shot. I'm not a photoshop guru by any means (and editing .dds files is quite another thing) so I don't even know if transparencies are supported. We'll see what I can do...

 

[wfsaxton]

Ask and ye shall receive.