Request for modders

[hcrof]

Can I make a request for some kind hearted modder?

The long grass never shows up in the game for me with my PC. Could someone perhaps replace the long grass vegitation with the swamp vegitation while keeping the base the same? I can garuntee that it will look like grass because of the different coloured base however it will be more obviously long.

I am assuming it can be done because the water mods change the terrain and you can kind of get the effect when you checkerboard marsh and long grass tiles. You just cant move on it. I can post a screenshot of what I am after if you like.

I am in the middle of building an African scenario very loosely based on the Angolan Civil war and want to get that feeling of the wide expanses of long grass found in central Angola around Huambo.

Thanks!

[Scipio]

I don't think it' that easy. You can easily change the textures, but not the 'behaviour' of the terrain. In other words, it's easy to replace colour bases, you can maybe replace the grass texture (if they ain't hardcoded) with an invisible placeholder, so the grass won't show up in the game, but you can't make for example a grass tile to a cliff tile by simply changing it's look in game.

[hcrof]

I meant the visual effect - sorry, it was late when I posted.

Basically the I want to replace the vertical grass with the vertical swamp and maybe change the colour a bit to have the game attributes of a long grass tile while making the grass look longer. The base would stay the same as the long grass base.

If it takes more than a few minutes then I could have a shot at it myself but I cant remember how to open up the game to mod textures.

[birdstrike]

I think to remember that the texture size of the two grass types is different. The normal grass texture is only about half as high as the swamp grass texture.

You could try to rename the swamp grass to the normal grass, but I bet, it would be resized to half its height.

Have you considered using the grain field instead?

[hcrof]

well I finally found the modding tools and have done a few tweaks to some textures but I can't seem to get rid of the background on the grass, have a look:

I have tried everything but can't get it to work. I have heard the term alpha channels thrown around from time to time but I don't know whether I am on the right track.

Any ideas?

[birdstrike]

Did the size of the grass keep the same? Because the size looks right to me- so my concerns were unneccessary.

As for the alpha channel - have you tried to simply rename the swamp grass texture into the grass texture? I mean without editing the bitmap itself? - That would seem like the easiest way, without the need to work out the alpha channels.

[hcrof]

Thanks for the advice Birdstrike, actually after posting that picture I stumbled across the method you describe except I used the long grass texture which got taller - It works very well!

You are actually looking at a grain field - I changed the base to look greener in order to add to the grass effect. I am beginning to enjoy this modding stuff and have already done much of the work for a terrain pack but I still can't seem to work with alpha channels or 32 bit .bmp files which seem to be necessary. For example I want to add some new road tiles.

I had been working with paint.net but now have started with GIMP2 with little success. I can't seem to get transparent bits on my bitmaps!

[birdstrike]

I'm also using Gimp (2.44), and the best way I found was to add an Alpha channel to the bitmap I wanted to edit (if there wasn't one already) and then simply cut out the things which shouldn't be displayed in the game.

When you have opened the bmp, in the "Layer" drop-down menu, open "Transparency" and then select "add Alpha channel". Then remove all bits and pieces in the texture you don't want to see (cut out, or use the eraser tool) and save the file in the advanced options as a 32 bit bmp (A8R8G8B8).

If you can't seem to work on the bmp once hte Alpha channel is added, you need to check which the layer you're currently working on using the "Layers" dialog box (shortcut ctrl+l, IIRC). The texture layer needs to be the active layer.

You could also use the "Color to Alpha" option in the "Colors" dropdown menu to select a specific color you wish to use as transparent color, but I found this cuased some problems now and then. Still you can try out both to see whatever suits you best.

[joeroma]

In my opinion, however, one thing that should be changed, not the grass or the sky or the trees, but the animation, special effects and especially to better manage the infantry adding the opportunity to change formation.

To me this is more than anything else, to be amended!!

regards