More distinctive terrains mod

[Cousken]

Hello!

One of the biggest problems i'm having with BE is that some of the terrain type (dessert, plains, grassland) are very hard to tell apart visually. In fact it's so hard for me that i need to point at them to get the tool tip.

Are there any other people out there experiencing the same problem?

Since i'm looking to do some modding, i thought i could fix this even though i'm not an artist. I don't have any modding experience with Civ, so i thought to check with people here first. My basic idea is to take the textures and adjust their brightness, colour and tint to make them more distinctive.

Is there any interest of using such a mod? Is such a mod already out there?

I've had a look at the tools available so far and it seems like i need Nexus to do what i want... Since it's not released yet, i looked at the DDS files in the game folder... i can open then, but not make out what they actually represent... Is it just a monochrome picture of the different color channels?

Can i use Nexus for Civ5 to mod the textures? Is nexus even the right tool? If there are any modders out here i would really appreciate you pointing me in the right direction

 

[Dellan]

I have the same problem. Sometimes Grassland looks just like Desert. It's insane. I'd instantly get that mod if it helps me to determine the type of terrain without pointing at it.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Started working on something like that but haven't made much progress. Currently, I'm bashing my head against getting the game to change the miasma texture, though...

 

[Sequitor]

I also would like to see a miasma overlay option.

 

[Barathor]

Yes, I constantly have to check the tooltips to see what things are. My movements sometimes don't go as planned if I quickly click orders to each of my units. For example, I had a unit stop in his tracks because he landed on a tile labeled as marsh, but it looked very close to the normal tiles! I think this was on what's called the "fungal" biome, the purple/gray one, which is also a slight pain to notice the miasma on.

Not only terrain types and miasma, but plot types sometimes give me problems as well! Sometimes a fairly flat tile is labeled as a hill. I've also encountered something that resembled a hill but it was really a mountain! It's crazy.

Don't get me wrong, the overall terrain is beautiful to look at and definitely has a nice alien feel to it while still remaining somewhat familiar. But its functionality definitely needs improvement so it's not frustrating to play on these pretty maps.

 

[Victus Mortuus]

Firaxis need to change this as I don't want to play the colour blind simulator anymore. Oh how I miss this;

http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2010/08/civilization-5-hands-on-preview/civ-5-preview-1.jpg[img]

Picture is too big..

 

[Cousken]

Well it's good to hear the mod will come to some use. I've found some tools that might help me on the Wiki, we'll see how it goes after i'm home from work. Keep me updated on your progress, Lord Tirian.

 

[Ahriman]

Desert and tundra are the hardest to tell apart for me. They both just look yellow.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Desert and tundra are the hardest to tell apart for me. They both just look yellow.

Yeah, tundras are annoying, they're the worst.

As a quick test, I just made fungal grassland really purple, ditto fungal forests - I think this will need a fair bit of tinkering as the colours do change due to the lighting implemented:

Spoiler :

 

[Fald]

Yes, i can play Civ5 for hours and have no issues. After 45 minutes or so of Beyond Earth I can feel a headache coming on from eyestrain and squinting at the low contrast UI and 256 varieties of purple/green in the terrain... Miasma is very difficult for me to pick up visually at times, I find myself having to check tool tips constantly to verify terrain types, so yes, a mod that made the terrain types/miasma easier to distinguish would be well received by many I believe.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Moved to the Requests and Ideas section of C&C.

 

[akjone02]

I promise good fortune and 1000 healthy camels to whoever can get a graphical mod released! Ok not really, because I don't have the power to grant either, but I beg you... please mod the terrain and the miasma!

 

[bouncymischa]

As a quick test, I just made fungal grassland really purple, ditto fungal forests - I think this will need a fair bit of tinkering as the colours do change due to the lighting implemented:

Spoiler :

I really like those neon fungal forests! I suppose it reminds me a bit of the bioluminescent environment in Avatar...

I want to see a bioluminescent biome now! X3

 

[Cousken]

Yeah, tundras are annoying, they're the worst.

As a quick test, I just made fungal grassland really purple, ditto fungal forests - I think this will need a fair bit of tinkering as the colours do change due to the lighting implemented:

Spoiler :

Did you add those modified terrains using a mod, fake dlc or by ovewriting them in the assets folder?

 

[Cousken]

Just a little raport on how it is going so far.

So far so good. I learned that i need to unpack the assets from the Resources folder and i found the textures i am looking for. I loaded them up and did some quick edits just to see something change in game.

I created a mod using ModBuddy, added the files and switched their VFS=true, and build. After the intro i got some error about the texture having to be L8 or something like that... But it's getting late now Will continue tomorrow.

 

[Cousken]

Well what do you know i just got SOMETHING to work

Spoiler :

 

[A Space Ostrich]

Not bad. I ditto the wanting of an Avatar Biolumen biome.

 

[Cousken]

I'll continue working in a couple of hours, only half day at work today.

So apparently BE has different biomes! This i did not know. I have played 4 matches of Civ and by coincidence every one of them has been on the Arid biome. That explains the abundance of textures that for me seemed to go unused....

I'll be focusing on fixing Arid for now. I actually have to see the other two first before i decide if they have a problem

 

[Cousken]

Well, unfortunately, i'm not able to reproduce my results today. I've made changes to the textures, but they do not appear in game. Iäve been trying for a couple of hours now, and i need a break ^^

One possibility i see is that the effect i posted a screenshot of is simply how it looks when a texture doesn't work.

 

[Cousken]

Allright so i got everything to work again and i'm prepare to actually finished the textures. Like i said i'll give airid a go first. The problem was that i forgot to set "Import into VFS = true" on the new assets

The asset file names have a format of [greekLetter]_[TerrainType]_[optionalSuffix]_[letter].dds
So for example, all the plain textures for all the biomes are called alfa_plain_d.dds for arid, charlie_plain_d.dds for lush and bravo_plain_d.dds.

alfa = arid
charlie = lush
bravo = fungal
delta = ???

The used letters in the end of file names are in d, e, h, and s. I suspect that this has to do with the type of texture they are, d standing for diffuse.

Some of the files also have a hills or hills_y suffix. I have not seen them in game yet however. First i thought they might be applied on hills but it does not seem so. So they might be unused assets or i just haven't seen them in game yet.

I hope this will help people get a grasp on this system, and maybe you can fill me in on what those seemingly unused files are for.