Some questions about terrains in civ 6

[MrSlayer02]

Hi,

I wanted to create a mod that adds a complete new terrain, with new textures, and I have some questions that maybe some of you already answered.

My main question is : How and where is the texture of a terrain defined ?

Here's what I already found out :

- Terrains are defined in Terrains.xml
- Small aspects of the terrains are defined in Clutter.artdef and the link between XML and clutter is made in Terrains.artdef (at least that's what I understood)
- The base texture of a terrain is defined in TerrainName_Base.mtl material, and this material is only used in TerrainStyle.artdef (linked by TerrainMaterialSet_Base.XLP).

But what I haven't understood is the link between these :

and the terrains defined in the XML.

I searched in the whole pantry and no file has reference to these, and you also can't modify/add some in TerrainStyle.artdef.

I can't see why this would be hardcoded, because everything else about terrain types is defined in xml / artdef

Thanks for your help

Slayer

 

[Deliverator]

I haven't played with Terrains yet myself, but there is a test mod here that changes the appearance of Hills that you can follow as an example.

 

[MrSlayer02]

Thanks ! I'll take a look at it but I don't think it's really solving my problem, it's just changing textures and not adding new terrains ... TerrainStyles weirdly seem to be hardcoded (from what I've seen the 'PlainsMtl' for example is used like 'Material' in other artdefs) I hope there is still a way to add our own terrains as it would allow a bunch of cool mods

 

[isau]

I don't know too much about this, but I can guess that it is an enormous task. Terrain needs to be referenced by map scripts in order to appear in the game. So you're looking at writing a map script that can handle the new terrain on top of everything else.

I would start by looking at something easier like Luxury Resources. That can at least give you the basics of how to most of the necessary steps, before getting into the earth-moving task of working with terrain.

 

[MrSlayer02]

Terrain needs to be referenced by map scripts in order to appear in the game. So you're looking at writing a map script that can handle the new terrain on top of everything else..

Do you mean I have to modify the map generation to make them appear ? If yes, this is quite easy for my mod, I already made the script but I still have to check if it works ...

Also, I think I found a way to add terrains (I still have to check if it works IG) : using large Decal textures on Blank TerrainMaterial (I suppose it's the default for a new terrain) that covers the whole terrain. The preview in the Asset Editor looks ok, but I still have to check if you can do other than flat terrains that way.