Breaking Mods Graphics Changes

General discussion about anything related to Transcendence.
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Metallicow
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First of all I would like to thank george and other devs for the awesome changes introduced since well,
I believe last archive I downloaded and actually play tested was 1.08d(usually from the announcement threads).
The GUI improvements are really nice and needed change in 1.2. Finally starting to look a bit more user friendly!

Anyhow, getting back to modding and my mod MTO(sorry went AWOL for a bit) and the problems I encountered.
first of all I spent about 2 hours looking through the release threads in the announcements section and downloading archives from each *SUPPOSED*ly worked right link at one time...
Ex version 108d, 110, etc,... only to figure out that all the links apparently are getting redirected to the newest version 1.2
Then I found the archived versions link http://transcendence.kronosaur.com/archives/
What needs changed here is if user is looking for an old version from a thread in the announcements, then it should direct to the archived version, not download a archive named that version, that will contain the latest version.
Seems all the most recent announcement threads links have been borked this way. Also some of the versions are missing from the archives link/repo.

So as far as the mod graphics problem goes, I cant seem to find 1.2beta1, or beta2 anywhere.
The problem is that after 1.20alpha1 the 1000's of planets I rendered do not override any of the default games graphics upon new game.
The new graphics are nice, but after playing this great little game for as long as I have played it over the years, random massive variety in this category is what really makes it not so dull seeing the same textures over and over.
It seems that in 1.2 the planet textures are hard coded also(the starting plant textures always look the same, or so it seems). There doesn't seem to be any randomization in the textures.

Is this a introduced BUG or a change with the default story quest and maybe has another means of changing or overriding in the mod's code xml?

Any help would be appreciated.
Also if there was a change that affects the mods, could someone post a small example mod showing how to insert additional sheets to change (Ex: the starting plant) texture for simple reference.
The stargates animation and billboards and the rest of the tweaks seem to still work(haven't fully tested yet with 1.2)
Thanks, and keep up the good work.
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RPC
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Location: Hmm... I'm confused. Anybody have a starmap to the Core?

Yeah, 1.2 changed a *lot* in terms of code arrangement. To override planets or any specific unid I use the 'find in files' option for Notepad ++.
Here are the 1.2 betas:
http://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5896
http://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5938
http://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5978
http://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=6061
http://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=6102
http://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=6128

I think overriding things still works the same, can you show an example of what isn't working?
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Metallicow
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RPC wrote:Yeah, 1.2 changed a *lot* in terms of code arrangement.
I think overriding things still works the same, can you show an example of what isn't working?
Basically this stuff. I have the colorsheets layed out 10x10 in various pixel sizes and make a crapload of image variants at extend the graphics while including vanilla planets also.
Looks like when I get the first one figured out, then I will do a find replace or probably better yet, maybe write some python scripts to generate the code for MTO_WorldGraphics from the psds/colorsheets.

snippit

Code: Select all

    <Image UNID="&ptWorlds182Sheet01;"  bitmap="Metallicow\Planets\Worlds182Sheet01ColorMap.jpg"  bitmask="Metallicow\Planets\Worlds182SheetMaskMap.bmp" />

    <!--- Ice Planet ---> <!--- Graphics Addition: The one usually at the start of the game most of the time. --->

    <StationType UNID="&stIcePlanet;"
        name=               "(planet)"
        scale=              "world"
        backgroundObject=   "true"
        sovereign=          "&svIndependent;"

        attributes=         "icePlanet, planet"
        >


        <ImageVariants> <!--- 4 Original +300 New Variants 0,182,364,546,728,910,1092,1274,1456,1638 --->
            <!---
            <Image      imageID="&rsWorldsIcePlanet1;" imageX="0" imageY="0"   imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; ORIG
            <Image      imageID="&rsWorldsIcePlanet2;" imageX="0" imageY="0"   imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; ORIG
            <Image      imageID="&rsWorldsIcePlanet3;" imageX="0" imageY="0"   imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; ORIG
            <Image      imageID="&rsWorldsIcePlanet4;" imageX="0" imageY="0"   imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; ORIG
            --->
            <Image      imageID="&ptWorlds182Sheet01;" imageX="0"       imageY="0"      imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; 001
            <Image      imageID="&ptWorlds182Sheet01;" imageX="182"     imageY="0"      imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; 002
            <Image      imageID="&ptWorlds182Sheet01;" imageX="364"     imageY="0"      imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; 003
            <Image      imageID="&ptWorlds182Sheet01;" imageX="546"     imageY="0"      imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; 004
            <Image      imageID="&ptWorlds182Sheet01;" imageX="728"     imageY="0"      imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; 005
            <Image      imageID="&ptWorlds182Sheet01;" imageX="910"     imageY="0"      imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; 006
            <Image      imageID="&ptWorlds182Sheet01;" imageX="1092"    imageY="0"      imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; 007
            <Image      imageID="&ptWorlds182Sheet01;" imageX="1274"    imageY="0"      imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; 008
            <Image      imageID="&ptWorlds182Sheet01;" imageX="1456"    imageY="0"      imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; 009
            <Image      imageID="&ptWorlds182Sheet01;" imageX="1638"    imageY="0"      imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; 010
            <Image      imageID="&ptWorlds182Sheet01;" imageX="0"       imageY="182"    imageWidth="182" imageHeight="182" /> ; 011
            etc,etc,etc...
        </ImageVariants>
    </StationType>
Thanks for the links RPC, I'll check em out and see if it helps.

Also, is there anyway to version check and modify code in runtime with the mods? Ex: like say in python

Code: Select all

if version <= 1.2: 
    doThis
else:
    doThat
Or better yet... is loops possible for this type of thing with the xml?
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Metallicow
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Those don't work anymore. They all redirect to the latest 1.2 is what is happening there.
I guess what I am saying is that all the links either need fixed or change/edit all the threads in announcements to direct to the archives page.
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RPC
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Location: Hmm... I'm confused. Anybody have a starmap to the Core?

Ah, I guess we'll have to poke George about it >.<
As for versions, we have API version:
http://transcendence.kronosaur.com/wiki ... pi_version
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Metallicow
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RPC wrote:Ah, I guess we'll have to poke George about it >.<
As for versions, we have API version:
http://transcendence.kronosaur.com/wiki ... pi_version
First of all, It seems to be rather widespread of this common understanding mistake on alot of wikis info that is thoughrouly confusing is...
for example a int or a float. Which is it?... and why does the version and what is written don't match...
Ex:
apiVersion=12
or
apiVersion=1.2

Tried em all.
All of the numbers int or float don't work and some complain about incompatible upon startup.

I see the int or float mixing stuff poping up rather often.

Could someone with a mod for latest v1.2 post a small working sample mod that modifies the starting planets graphic, that has actually been changed at runtime and verified works...?
Also wasn't the graphics supposed to be random... If so then it isn't happening with vanilla either.

@ tTech: That is where I grabbed the 1.2Beta3 and 4 from. Some of the others are missing, so 1.2alpha is the last working version I can get ATM that still works with the graphics changes.
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RPC
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Test this out:
planet replacer.zip
(1.79 MiB) Downloaded 208 times
Pics: http://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.p ... 317#p56317
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Metallicow
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RPC wrote:Test this out:
planet replacer.zip
Pics: http://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.p ... 317#p56317
Thanks RPC!. I'll look at it for the coding style change and see if it works with my mod.
Verified runs on ver1.2.
It makes all the planets the first frame of that poptart cat or whatever that goofy cat is supposed to reference.
I seem to see alot of variations of this around the net.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyan_Cat was an strange read, but whatever... stranger things have poped off as popular with abstract art.

It looks that you used an animated colormap. Is the cat supposed to animate? It is not if that was the intention.

Still waiting on the "Are vanilla plants textures supposed to be random anymore?" question.
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RPC
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I just used the nyancat ship since it was the first thing I saw, I think you can get it to animate but I don't know off the top of my head >.<
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Metallicow
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RPC wrote:I just used the nyancat ship since it was the first thing I saw, I think you can get it to animate but I don't know off the top of my head >.<
Looked through some of my older mods. There is a attribute for the animated stuff. frames per tick or something along those lines.
Anywho managed to get the graphics working again now. :)
Thanks Again, tho the nyancat sample was a bit more digging through than what I would call a simple sample.

It looks like I will have to go through the xml source and add what was introduced as new asteriods/planets in 1.2 anyway.
And when I get the majority of that fixed up here soon, I will then see if it is backwards compatible... hopefully...

Writing a MTO compatible re python merge script will help with this and the modules to build the full module.
As it is a bit of a pain working with 10000 lines by hand anymore. Maybe there is a way to loop the xml to include a database of certain colors/sizes. PIL would help a bit with this, but not everything.

I'll have to look into modifiying my Python Powered Logo Blender apng/gif Blender logo rotation rig file further to work similar to the one StarWeaver was doing/working on.
And release it as a resource for ships, planets, and stargates generation from models if all works out well.

The original renders turned out great, besides some drawbacks of the gif format speed and colors.
Here are a few links to the finished renders, in case you want to use them for whatever in your projects... PSF License
The apng
http://imageshack.com/a/img34/4717/f4l4.png
The gif
http://imageshack.com/a/img35/4231/j29.gif
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