Modding Medieval's Terrain

[Mord]

I spent an ungodly amount of hours trying to mod the terrain yesterday using the Campaigns method with nothing but frustration and failure (MODS folder won't work either). I happened upon a post on Steam by a guy named alansaund who got the grass working in Medieval. (GIANT THANKS to him for setting me on the right path!) Seems he did it by modding the main game folders. So, I tried the grass and it worked. I figured if the grass would work maybe everything would work. Low and behold, through some trial and error and the hero Paul, I got ALL of it to work. I am 100% happier with how the game looks now! It's everything I was looking forward to 19 months ago. So, best of both worlds, everybody gets what they want.

UPDATED: Paul SAVED the day! Steppe and Fortresses are back on the menu, boys! Everything works great!































My two favorites:








UPDATED: Mod can be found here:
viewtopic.php?f=639&t=104383


Mord.

[Athos1660]

What are the best textures for FoG2: Medieval (the Vanilla ones or those of FoG2: Ancients) is certainly a matter of taste.

I for one like what seems to have been devs' preference since Pike and Shot : making stylised graphics in the style of the drawings/paintings/mosaics/illuminations of the time, instead of realistic ones. This is certainly why the landscape textures in FoG2: A seem more pastel/lighter than in FoG2: M.

Not that I don't like 'realistic' graphics like those of a Total War. But it is a matter of getting to the bottom of things imho : in the FoG2 series, only a few soldiers per unit are shown, there's no real time but turns... so realism is hard to achieve and stylisation might be the right path.

Btw, if your purpose is to make more realistic textures, shouldn't the textures of the clothes be lighter, more dirty or more worn out to fit ?

[petrus58]

Thanks Mord. Like you I prefer the textures from FOG II, and it's great for people to now have the option.

[Mord]

What are the best textures for FoG2: Medieval (the Vanilla ones or those of FoG2: Ancients) is certainly a matter of taste.

Yep and now there are choices, though this mod isn't 100% yet. I don't know if it can be.

I for one like what seems to have been devs' preference since Pike and Shot : making stylised graphics in the style of the drawings/paintings/mosaics/illuminations of the time, instead of realistic ones. This is certainly why the landscape textures in FoG2: A seem more pastel/lighter than in FoG2: M.

The only thing stylized is the terrain. The units are virtually no different than in Fog II. The knights might be a bit brighter buts that's only because they have lots of clothing and were prone to color. Also it's part of the game design where the more prestigious units tend to get the most pizazz. But FoG II units shouldn't look anymore out of place on the vanilla Med maps (when the patch is released) than the Med units look out of place on the Ancients terrain. But to suggest, as you did in the other thread, that the Med units are designed to look like a Medieval painting and fit the landscape would also mean the units in FoG II were also designed to be in a Medieval painting and fit the landscape.















As you can see, some models are better than others. The texturing varies from decent to outstanding, with a good mix of bright and muted colors between Ancients and Medieval. I really don't see much difference outside of quality (such as the oldest models like Roman, light archer, light horse, Thureophoroi faces). Compare those to the Assyrian models and you really see a difference.

Btw, if your purpose is to make more realistic textures, shouldn't the textures of the clothes be lighter, more dirty or more worn out to fit ?

Maybe (the knights) but for the most part it all looks fine.


Mord.

[Mord]

Thanks Mord. Like you I prefer the textures from FOG II, and it's great for people to now have the option.

You're welcome. Hopefully the two issues can be sorted out.

Mord.

[Paul59]

UPDATED: I have tried EVERYTHING I can think of (crawled over the files painstakingly) but I cannot get the castle to show on either type of Relieve Besieged Fortress Maps, and the Steppe maps have raised lines going through them (See Below). Something is causing these conflicts and I just can't pinpoint it! It's great but frustrating at the same time, being so close to having it all work. From what I have tested, you can play all Battle types, with all the FoG II terrain intact, except for the above mentioned.

Steppes and Fortress problem.

Well done Mord!

Your problems are due to the mod using the Ancients OBJECTS.TXT file. It is missing all the info relating to castles, steppe grass, and probably a few other new Medieval things. An easy fix is to copy and paste the Medieval OBJECTS.TXT into the mod, but I'm not sure if that will cause any issues with the old Ancients objects, I doubt it though.


cheers

Paul

[Mord]

Well done Mord!

Your problems are due to the mod using the Ancients OBJECTS.TXT file. It is missing all the info relating to castles, steppe grass, and probably a few other new Medieval things. An easy fix is to copy and paste the Medieval OBJECTS.TXT into the mod, but I'm not sure if that will cause any issues with the old Ancients objects, I doubt it though.


cheers

Paul

Thanks, Paul. I appreciate it.

Yeah, I actually had a mix of FoG II objects and Med objects (mostly FoG II). I needed some of the FoG II objects to get the tall grass/wheat effect in the agriculture terrain. BUT you just gave me an idea how I can narrow down what is causing this! I am gonna slowly add FoG II objects until I hit the snag. It's gonna be time consuming but it will give me the definite answer I need. I have been dicking with this MFer for 14 hours or so and I can't believe that that didn't occur to me until your post! THANKS!!!


Mord.

[Paul59]

Well done Mord!

Your problems are due to the mod using the Ancients OBJECTS.TXT file. It is missing all the info relating to castles, steppe grass, and probably a few other new Medieval things. An easy fix is to copy and paste the Medieval OBJECTS.TXT into the mod, but I'm not sure if that will cause any issues with the old Ancients objects, I doubt it though.


cheers

Paul

Thanks, Paul. I appreciate it.

Yeah, I actually had a mix of FoG II objects and Med objects (mostly FoG II). I needed some of the FoG II objects to get the tall grass/wheat effect in the agriculture terrain. BUT you just gave me an idea how I can narrow down what is causing this! I am gonna slowly add FoG II objects until I hit the snag. It's gonna be time consuming but it will give me the definite answer I need. I have been dicking with this MFer for 14 hours or so and I can't believe that that didn't occur to me until your post! THANKS!!!


Mord.

Hi Mord,

I think you might have misunderstood me slightly. Inside the NorthernEurope objects folder there is a text file called OBJECTS.TXT. It basically tells the game how to use the object models that are in the folder. You are using the old Ancients OBJECTS.TXT which does not mention the castles (Heavy Wall objects) and steppe grass at all, so the game is not using them. You need to copy and paste the Medieval OBJECTS.TXT file into your mod. The actual object models are not a problem at all.

Having said that, it might be worthwhile using some of the new Medieval objects instead of the old Ancients ones, for instance I much prefer the new Medieval Bush objects.

This is the file I am talking about:

[Adebar]

Great initiative, Mord! And thanks for the help, Paul.

Replaced the object.txt file as Paul proposed. That works fine except that there seems to be one (?) missing tile overlay for swamps etc. (wich is shown as a snow tile in the screens).

[Mord]

Hi Mord,

I think you might have misunderstood me slightly. Inside the NorthernEurope objects folder there is a text file called OBJECTS.TXT. It basically tells the game how to use the object models that are in the folder. You are using the old Ancients OBJECTS.TXT which does not mention the castles (Heavy Wall objects) and steppe grass at all, so the game is not using them. You need to copy and paste the Medieval OBJECTS.TXT file into your mod. The actual object models are not a problem at all.

Having said that, it might be worthwhile using some of the new Medieval objects instead of the old Ancients ones, for instance I much prefer the new Medieval Bush objects.

LOL. Yep. I did misunderstand. I should've checked back SOONER 'cause by process of elimination I did find it was the OBJECTS.TXT! Oh well, I guess it doesn't hurt to be thorough.

So my guess is that Medieval doesn't need the:

LightInsideCorner
LightOutsideCorner
LightWall
S4F files?
It doesn't have them but FoG II does.

I haven't noticed any difference when I included and excluded them.

As far as the Medieval objects go, I figure it'll be simple enough for anyone to just cut and paste whatever they prefer into the objects folder.



Mord.

[Mord]

Great initiative, Mord! And thanks for the help, Paul.

Replaced the object.txt file as Paul proposed. That works fine except that there seems to be one (?) missing tile overlay for swamps etc. (wich is shown as a snow tile in the screens).

Hang on for a few minutes, Adebar, and I'll upload the corrected Mod. I am almost done. I am double checking everything now.


Mord.

[Adebar]

Mord, please check TEX1.dds in the NorthernEurope_Overlay folder. The Medieval version looks very different compared to the Ancient version and features a number of additional swamp elements.

Below: Medieval (left) vs Ancients (right) TEX1.dds

[Adebar]

It should be noted that the problem with the missing swamp elements does only appear with maps of the Epic Battles.

The randomly created maps (which I've tested dozens of times) seem to be completely fine.

[Mord]

Mord, please check TEX1.dds in the NorthernEurope_Overlay folder. The Medieval version looks very different compared to the Ancient version and features a number of additional swamp elements.

Yeah, I was aware of that but didn't think it would effect anything as I wasn't seeing any problems in the Custom Battles maps. Not sure what the work around would be outside of correcting the map inside the editor. Should've known there'd be SOMETHING to keep it from being perfect! Well, worse comes to worst people can just use the Med DDS I suppose.

Mord.

[Benpark]

Excellent work, Mord. I came looking for just this.

[Athos1660]

@Mord : what I mean (and always said) is that, while the 3D models of the units of both FoG2 games look like Table top miniatures, imho :

- FoG2: Ancients looks like a ancient mosaic :





- and FoG: Medieval looks like a medieval illumination :





...mainly thanks to the textures. And imho it is a pity to break that. But it is a matter of personal taste.
(Time Warp and what-if battles between Med and Ancients are of course another matter)


(...not to mention Pike and Shot and its 3D models : )

[Paul59]

Mord, please check TEX1.dds in the NorthernEurope_Overlay folder. The Medieval version looks very different compared to the Ancient version and features a number of additional swamp elements.

Yeah, I was aware of that but didn't think it would effect anything as I wasn't seeing any problems in the Custom Battles maps. Not sure what the work around would be outside of correcting the map inside the editor. Should've known there'd be SOMETHING to keep it from being perfect! Well, worse comes to worst people can just use the Med DDS I suppose.

Mord.

The Medieval Tex1.dds and Tex2.dds (and their associated normal and spec .dds files) have a slightly different layout to the Ancients versions. The Medieval versions have some additional special overlays (mainly different marsh types) that are not used by the Random Terrain Generator, but can be used by scenario designers to create custom terrain for Epic battles. I used several of these new terrain overlays when designing the Epic battles.

The only way to properly fix this is to create new Tex1.dds and Tex2.dds files for the mod, replacing the Medieval textures you don't like with appropriate Ancient ones, but leaving in the new Medieval marshes. You would need to be experienced in graphics editing to do this. It's the sort of thing that I can do, but it's not quick and straightforward, and I am too busy to do it at the moment.

The other option would be to delete the overlay folder from the mod completely, so that the mod uses the Ancients base tiles and the Medieval overlays. The main problem with that solution is that you would have the Medieval slope tiles, which might look odd combined with the Ancient's base tiles.

[Mord]

...mainly thanks to the textures. And imho it is a pity to break that. But it is a matter of personal taste.

That's the glorious beauty of choice, we both get what we want.

Excellent work, Mord. I came looking for just this.

Thanks, brother!

Mord.

[Mord]

The Medieval Tex1.dds and Tex2.dds (and their associated normal and spec .dds files) have a slightly different layout to the Ancients versions. The Medieval versions have some additional special overlays (mainly different marsh types) that are not used by the Random Terrain Generator, but can be used by scenario designers to create custom terrain for Epic battles. I used several of these new terrain overlays when designing the Epic battles.

That explains why it wasn't screwing up during the CB map generation. It never occurred to me to check anywhere else. I figured it just worked. LOL.

The only way to properly fix this is to create new Tex1.dds and Tex2.dds files for the mod, replacing the Medieval textures you don't like with appropriate Ancient ones, but leaving in the new Medieval marshes. You would need to be experienced in graphics editing to do this. It's the sort of thing that I can do, but it's not quick and straightforward, and I am too busy to do it at the moment.

Well, maybe something can be done in the future? It's beyond my skills or I'd do it. I am pretty good with modding some aspects of Combat Mission but that mostly involves BMPs and WAVs. These DDS files are tough. The best I could do in FoG II was that banner I showed you. I am more of a manipulator than artist.

I am happy to at least be able to play Custom Battles with the FoG II terrain. I mostly play CBs anyway. I can live with this small failure.

The other option would be to delete the overlay folder from the mod completely, so that the mod uses the Ancients base tiles and the Medieval overlays. The main problem with that solution is that you would have the Medieval slope tiles, which might look odd combined with the Ancient's base tiles.

Yeah, the Med slopes are definitely a deal breaker. I already encountered what they look like with the FoG II terrain and it's horrible looking!

Mord.

[Paul59]

The only way to properly fix this is to create new Tex1.dds and Tex2.dds files for the mod, replacing the Medieval textures you don't like with appropriate Ancient ones, but leaving in the new Medieval marshes. You would need to be experienced in graphics editing to do this. It's the sort of thing that I can do, but it's not quick and straightforward, and I am too busy to do it at the moment.

Well, maybe something can be done in the future? It's beyond my skills or I'd do it. I am pretty good with modding some aspects of Combat Mission but that mostly involves BMPs and WAVs. These DDS files are tough. The best I could do in FoG II was that banner I showed you. I am more of a manipulator than artist.

Yes, it might require some work on the alpha layers, so it would probably be more complex than working with bmps or wavs.

I will see what I can do, maybe in a few days I might be able to devote some time to it.