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Barren Tileset


Tschokky

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The beta terrain is manually edited. Those screenshots are fake. Even those that use the final game's cliff graphics and trees don't align to the game's 24x24 cell grids at all.

 

Though I made that A10 crash into a template file ages ago :)

image.gif.6d27957b5707eb4a5ff29515203dff2f.gif

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Hi,

I have in mind already a campaign for this barren theater.

 

Some assumptions:

First, every mission will be an amplification of the same base map;

Second, every mission will take place in a different season;

Third, order of map making is from the last to the first mission, once the map is the same for all.

 

This is the layout:

M-01

=~ 30 x 30 - Desert

Tactical mission - You have to invade a base and extract scientists before the nuclear strike

 

M-02 =~ 40 x 40 - Barren

the consequence of the first mission here is a map almost without Tiberium -

 

M-03 =~ 50 x 50 - Snow

 

M-04 =~ 60 x 60 - Winter or Barren again -

 

Any thoughts?

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I wrote it in a previous comment that unfortunately I was unsuccesful in using spen/syrd/ss/dd/ca/pt/msub.tem files, the game uses shp-s from conquer.mix :( so I could not create the barren versions of those units. Good sighting, btw

Small note there: from my tests, adding such theater-specific files in mod only worked if you add both a .shp version and a version in the theater extension. Not sure whether that was in TD or RA though.

 

(and yes, it'll use the one with the theater extension, so add the original one as .shp)

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Theater specific structure tiles are hardcoded I think (like mslo, hbox). I added both as .shp in the expand file and they were not available in the interior theater until I added they to the terrain mix using the .int ending.

 

Using a map specific Image= tag would be the easiest thing for ships and shipyards in this case.

 

The beta terrain is manually edited. Those screenshots are fake. Even those that use the final game's cliff graphics and trees don't align to the game's 24x24 cell grids at all.

 

Though I made that A10 crash into a template file ages ago :)

a10cr.gif

Two fools, one idea: I did the same thing  :D

http://cnc-comm.com/community/index.php?topic=2620.45

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Well, this is odd, and annoying... it seems RA1 has no .mrf files, or anything comparable, except for the vortex fade.

 

This could mean two things... either they are all hardcoded in the exe... which would seem completely bizarre, since the palette and even remap definitions are external files... or, it generates them on the spot in memory, like those ????_VTX.PAL files for the chrono vortex, but without saving them to disk. However, that would mean it should never have any errors, so it's not true either...

 

The only other thing I could think of is that maybe it generates these effects on a master palette (in which case I'd assume, the palette of palette.cps, which has the remap definitions), and doesn't do it per-theater.

 

Maybe one of the RA1 hackers can shed some light on this, because I'm stumped.

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It might be in the mouse cursor SHP... which is Dune II SHP format, just to be annoying, and needs the Red Horizon toolset to be converted :P

Anyway, the issue is the lack of .mrf files to change on RA1  :S

[edit]

Huh, indeed, odd. No moveflsh.shp in RA1. Though there is a shadow.shp for the shroud edges, at least

[edit again]

Found a converted RA mouse cursor png on my disk... it has no movement flashes in it either.

image.png.f322ebaec31f81136e69c3c87f015403.png

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Fround the moveflash in each of theater mixes. Temperate and Interor uses index 1 as the move flash and 0 as clear. Snow uses index 14 as the move flash and 0 as clear.

 

Winter and Jungle for RA also use the same moveflsh as Temperate and Interor.  Desert for RA also use the same moveflsh as Snow.

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Well it make since when you look at a screen shot of Temperate and Snow. The Temperate flash is tranparent and the snow is darker and not tranparent. Attaching the moveflsh as they look ingame zoomed 4 times larger.

 

Winter and Jungle for RA were made from the Temperate and the Desert I used and did come with CnC Net 5 started life as replacement for snow so it uses the same moveflsh as Snow.

FlashX4.png.344759ebc2f875229ce2b1e5537a84c5.png

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The snow move flash and the shadow use index color 14 yet move flash is not transparent while the shadow on snow maps is.

 

Edit:

 

Attaching screens with snow using the Temperate and Interor transparent move flash. Works okay but some times it will flash a vary bright white.

Top_of_the_World.png.940d2bf91c78f8893a0577ed4e0ee890.png

tran_move_flash1.png.a382e907bad4e059a29cdad103889cb9.png

tran_move_flash2.png.b3bf46c406dc6416981bb6af5534afd1.png

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Right. Seems obvious... the filter for the movement flash is a brightening effect, and since the snow is already so bright, it doesn't give enough contrast. In C&C, where every theater has separate filters, they could simply have made a darkening filter for the movement flash instead (something worth looking into for the C&C95 Snow theater, in fact), but they chose to instead make the filter global and the SHPs theater-dependent.

 

This looks more and more like these filters are internal, one way or another, though :huh:

 

The only possible candidates for the filters, a bunch of completely unidentified files in local.mix, were tested out, and thought their file sizes are multiples of 256, they're definitely not mrf filters.

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Thanks!

 

They are of Red Dawn 2014 using old stock 640x400 res. 2013 as this point is really unpatchable as the patch would be huge. I had to put the Desert.mix and Winter.mix into the main.mix (both were in the REDALERT.mix). Add the Jungle.mix to the main.mix With all 3 in the main.mix I can update to the new RAED that can used Desert Jungle and Winter. Also some graphic reworks and missions edited to use secondary colors for the stock missions.

 

By the time I do all of the need changes a patch would be 82,357 KB. A new full install is only about 25% larger at 108,862 KB. Just not practical to me to have a patch that large.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Allen262 / Tschokky: dunno if you saw, but the .mrf generator is finished, so converting theaters with palette tweaks to C&C1 is no longer a problem. Since I made .mrp recreations of all the filters C&C theaters need, you can generate the needed .mrf files with just a few clicks.

General note for C&C1 palette editing, though:

image.png.ea5be37fdeaefc00181c2801dc67a01a.png

Only the entries at the indices indicated as full dark blue boxes with a red line through them can be changed between theaters. Of these indices, the last line (minus the very last index) will be used to generate the shadow and stealth effects.

(Tschokky: this is probably the same in RA; you used these for your water, which explains why subs were invisible on it; the shadow/stealth filters do not change these colours at all, to prevent overlapping shadows from darkening multiple times. According to the game's logics, these colours should be used exclusively for shadow, and should not be used in any terrain tiles. You'll also notice air planes will not cast shadows on your water.)

Download and info on the tool can be found here:

https://forums.cncnet.org/topic/2253-mrf-creation-tool-finished/

To create the required .mrf files for a palette, just go to [File] -> [Write multiple .MRF files...] and select the palette, the folder of finished .mrp projects that comes with the tool, and the output folder.

image.png.89073e6df24d3b5d461dd08af72bf491.png

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  • 5 months later...

Hello everyone,

 

Sorry for my absence, I have returned. Here's the most recent barren tileset - currently replaces temperate and it has its own separate palette. Clear tiles on the radar screen also feature a barren-ish color. Please share your comments, criticisms!

bar.png.d020d9b4d1d611816d1011618cf69153.png

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