Religion Based Interface Problem

[Jackpot]

[FfH 2 032l; Fall Further 041D]

I'm not quite sure if this is by design or a bug. I have a custom game with the following options enabled:

Living World
Religion Based Interfaces
Flavour Start
Broader Alignments


Everything is fine up until I convert to my founded religion (Runes of Kilmorph). The entire interface areas are made more transparent and changed. It makes the screen too busy and more difficult to read. How can I revert the changes or make it more opaque?

DoH! As I am writing this it just occured to me that selecting "Religion Based Interfaces" must be the reason. How can I fix this option mid-game? I guess I misunderstood the description on mouseover.

 

[Vehem]

[FfH 2 032l; Fall Further 041D]

I'm not quite sure if this is by design or a bug. I have a custom game with the following options enabled:

Living World
Religion Based Interfaces
Flavour Start
Broader Alignments


Everything is fine up until I convert to my founded religion (Runes of Kilmorph). The entire interface areas are made more transparent and changed. It makes the screen too busy and more difficult to read. How can I revert the changes or make it more opaque?

DoH! As I am writing this it just occured to me that selecting "Religion Based Interfaces" must be the reason. How can I fix this option mid-game? I guess I misunderstood the description on mouseover.

Aye - this is an experimental FF option that Xien came up with. The work that he did on altering the interfaces was excellent but he wasn't entirely happy with the way the resulting interfaces themselves looked. As I understand it though, SeZ took an interest in the idea and may well be using it for the main mod, with the addition of his artistic talents.

I can't remember how the Kilmorph one looks actually - but I do love darkness of the Veil one.

===

As far as I'm aware there's no simple way to fix it during the game - though I can think of a couple of workarounds if you're familiar with general modding. Firstly you could save, replace the art assets in the Kilmorph interface with the default ones and then reload your game (which hopefully won't notice unless you had locked assets). Alternatively you could disable the interfaces through Python, but that again relies on you being able to do it.

Other than that, I can't think of an easy option - Xienwolf may be able to suggest something specific (as he knows the code rather well).

 

[xienwolf]

Unfortunately you can't just replace the folder with the Runes interface with a default one because the default setup uses completely different file types. You could swap it out with other religions to see if you prefer one of those interfaces though.

To do that you would go to Assets/Art/Interface/Screens, you can change the name of any of the folders to Runes (after changing that name to something like Runes_idontlikethisone).


Your other option would be to go into the Python and change things there to make the screens remain on the default setup.

For that you would go to Assets/Python/Screens and open CvMainInterface.py with Notepad (or Notepad++ or any other SIMPLE text editing program, don't use word or an RTF editor).

Go to line 1108 and change it as follows:

if gc.getGame().isOption(GameOptionTypes.GAMEOPTION_RELIGIOUS_HUD):

changes to

if False:

So that means you'll change from:

		#Xienwolf Religious HUDs Add Begin  (Original Omitted)
		self.ClearHUD()

		pPlayer = gc.getPlayer(gc.getGame().getActivePlayer())

		if gc.getGame().isOption(GameOptionTypes.GAMEOPTION_RELIGIOUS_HUD):
			if pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_THE_ASHEN_VEIL'):
				Religion = 'Ashen'
			elif pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_OCTOPUS_OVERLORDS'):
				Religion = 'Overlords'
			elif pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_COUNCIL_OF_ESUS'):
				Religion = 'Esus'
			elif pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_FELLOWSHIP_OF_LEAVES'):
				Religion = 'Fellowship'
			elif pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_RUNES_OF_KILMORPH'):
				Religion = 'Runes'
			elif pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_THE_EMPYREAN'):
				Religion = 'Empyrean'
			elif pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_THE_ORDER'):
				Religion = 'Order'
			else:
#				Religion = 'Default'
				Religion = ''
		else:
			Religion = ''

to

		#Xienwolf Religious HUDs Add Begin  (Original Omitted)
		self.ClearHUD()

		pPlayer = gc.getPlayer(gc.getGame().getActivePlayer())

		if False:
			if pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_THE_ASHEN_VEIL'):
				Religion = 'Ashen'
			elif pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_OCTOPUS_OVERLORDS'):
				Religion = 'Overlords'
			elif pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_COUNCIL_OF_ESUS'):
				Religion = 'Esus'
			elif pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_FELLOWSHIP_OF_LEAVES'):
				Religion = 'Fellowship'
			elif pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_RUNES_OF_KILMORPH'):
				Religion = 'Runes'
			elif pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_THE_EMPYREAN'):
				Religion = 'Empyrean'
			elif pPlayer.getStateReligion() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('RELIGION_THE_ORDER'):
				Religion = 'Order'
			else:
#				Religion = 'Default'
				Religion = ''
		else:
			Religion = ''

That would be the easiest way I can think of to bypass the religious HUDs. Not entirely sure it would work, but in theory it is perfect.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

You could also try going into worldbuilder, saving the map as a scenario, editing the scenario in notepad to change the game options, and then loading the edited scenario.


I'd have to agree that the Religion Specific Interfaces are too transparent. That is good for the Council of Esus interface, but I realy think that the other interaces should be opaque.


The Interfaces have gotten a lot better since when they were first released. I hated most of them at first, but now I kinda like all of them except the Empyrean one (which I still hate) except for the fact that they are too transparent. Of course, they could all stil use soem improvements, and will probably be improved when they are redone for the new 0.33 layout.

Edit: Now that I think of it, the OO interface should stay transparent too. The Order, RoK, and FoL ones need to be Opaque though. I'm still thinking that the Empyrean one should be redone entirely. It doesn't fit the Empyrean at all.

 

[xienwolf]

Well, thus far the only improvement will be "less transparency" since that is the only solid feedback I've gotten. Though if I get the time I'll try to do something along the lines of what seZ had done for his first shot at an interface.

 

[Jackpot]

Thanks for the explanation. Whenever a mod enhancement is released I try not to read all the changelogs (except bug fixes) because I look forward to them so much, I prefer it to be a surprise. It's just a personal preference. Such a radical change on the user interface seemed so foreign that I suspected a bug at first. I agree that while I like the idea of the religions having their own custom interfaces the high transparency was too distracting. I will try a few of the suggestions offered in this thread but have also made a note for the future. Just for reference I have posted a screenie of the Kilmorph Interface here, which incidentally looks like something from 1985. Perhaps someone else can post the other Religion Interface changes as well.

@MagisterCultuum: I'm curious as to why you feel certain Religion Interfaces are better transparent vs. opaque.

@xienwolf: Is it possible to add a transparency slider with the next release?

 

[xienwolf]

A transparency slider might be possible by some tricks of coding, but if so I haven't a clue what that trick is thus far. I create the elements of the screen in Photoshop and the Transparency is set in the TGA file, not by the game engine. I do know that you can set RGB+Alpha colors as an overlay for various things, but an overlay wouldn't look nearly the same as a complete interface.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The Council of Esus's theme is shadow, so it would be appropriate for the interface to look like a shadow cast over the main screen, darkening it but not completely hiding things.

The Octopus Overlord's Interface is meant to look like water, which isn't usually Opaque. It could be nice for it to make things below it have a blue-grey-green tint to it though. (It would be really cool looking if the ripples in the water's surface were animated.)

The Fellowship's Wooden Interface, The Order's Marble Interface, and the Runes' Stone/Earthen Interface (hmm...less stone-like than I remembered. It should be made rougher and rockier, perhaps with wood and iron portions resembling supports within a mine.) are all supposed to look like Opaque solids, and so should be opaque.

I'm not quite sure what the Ashen Viel's interface is supposed to look like. A pool of blood on a sacrificial altar maybe? Its transparency doesn't bother me nearly as much those of the Order, RoK, and FoL interfaces, but it too would look better more opaque.

I have no idea what the Empyrean's interface is supposed to look like, so I can't really say if it should be opaque or transparent. I can only say it should be replaced.

 

[xienwolf]

It should be so bright it blinds you. Duh.