Grass 2da lines, tree-grass for Amn

New models, textures, & integration of 3rd party content.

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t-ice
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Grass 2da lines, tree-grass for Amn

Post by t-ice »

So, tree grasses, here we are:
t-ice wrote:Grass used on Amn world map:
http://www.alandfaraway.org/forums/view ... 23&t=47358

Don't know where is it on the vault (or where to get the correct toolset icon bmp, I just copied and named an existing grass icon for it), but I have the DDS files. They are on the DMftp at:
/NWN2/Modules/17 Amn/grass

It seems the textures shows right without having an entry at grass.2da. But it isn't added to the toolset, and thus can't be put more of, without that 2da line. Old Exodus grass.2da is also at the ftp, in case it's necessary or helpful. Can I get those DSSs in, and that grass entry to our 2das?
Zelknolf wrote:You're gonna hate me for this, but:

Putting it in the same numbers will break compatibility. Sorry. That tree-grass is gonna have to be repainted, or we're stuck retooling parts of our live mods: there's a 2da conflict. The deciduous trees should still work, but the pines are going to look like jungle foliage until they're redone.
The grass doesn't seem to need a 2da line to show right. It does as long as the DDS files are in the module. This leads me to think that while displaying the grass, the 2da lines are not referenced to see which model should be used. The model file (DDS) is referenced directly by the game. Currently there is no 2da line for those grasses, but grass painted shows just fine.

What the 2da line seems to be needed for, is to tell the toolset that there's this option for painting this type of grass. So the 2da linking to the model is only used when painting grass, but once painted, the module is just told the DDS model, not the 2da line that references to the DDS model. Currently I am not seeing the tree-grass in the toolset, and thus I can't paint more.

So, the hope is that these tree-grass types could just be assigned any 2da line, currently unused in ALFA haks. And then more could be painted. And the old tree-grass would also show right, long as the DDS files are in the haks (where they belong, not to module directory).

There's a risk of toolset instability with the grasses with this, and I have a gut feeling that handling grass on the Amn world map has made the toolset jittery even in the past. But then again, the toolset is always jittery, so maybe this can be overcome. More specifically the toolset might crash if you're looking at grass types that have been painted, and you have the old trees that have 2da conflict and you try to select them to paint more of... so 2da and model files do not match ... and boom. But that's less of a hassle (at least at this point) than re-painting all of Amn's woods.

Thoughts?
Zelknolf
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Re: Grass 2da lines, tree-grass for Amn

Post by Zelknolf »

Maybe? Rollout's tonight; test it.
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