Limit of the game Editor

NickGen · Post by **NickGen** » Fri Nov 25, 2011 9:55 am

Hi all,
I planned to make some mod's for panzer corps, but comes to mind a first question:
Game programmers may be able to answer:

Is it possible to create a new kind of road, having such a road, railway and a highway?

Is it possible if I modify the correct files to use this new terrain in the editor?

I have read many things on the forums, among other interventions HBlack, he said, it is not possible to add new terrain in the editor, it is hard coded ... Is this still the case? or the new patch did they change things?

Clearly, if I create new types of terrain, it is possible to use them in game and in the editor, or should it change the executable file to make it work ...?
Thank you to enlighten me a little ...
Fred

Rudankort · Post by **Rudankort** » Fri Nov 25, 2011 11:00 am

Adding custom terrain was supposed to work (that's the reason why terrain.pzdat file exists in the first place), but it turned out that it is not 100% functional as of now, because this feature was not used or tested much during the beta and after the initial release. It is certainly coming in the near future.

NickGen · Post by **NickGen** » Fri Nov 25, 2011 11:34 am

Ok, thank's Rudankort for the fast reply,

I'll do some tests and experiments in the coming days....

Fred

gunhojr · Post by **gunhojr** » Sun Nov 27, 2011 3:08 am

nickgen hope it works you have great mod abilitys all your equipment look great so hope to see how your roads turn out

NickGen · Post by **NickGen** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:16 pm

well,
after some testing, I am rather disappointed ..
I created a new layer for my highway, I then added the "terrain feature"
in terrain.pzdat and modified movement.pzdat

The layer is seen in the editor, I can manually place the highways hex's on the map , but they are absolutely not recognized as a new "terrain_feature".

but, in addition, the layer is simply named "IDS_LAYER_TILES9"
I have not found a way to force the editor to recognize it as a "highway", as it does for other terrains.
I guess the link to the correct string is hardcoded in the exe.

I then added a graphic for highways in the terrain_features.png,
it is seen in the editor, I can select it, but of course nothing happens when I click on the map.

Clearly we can not currently add a new "Terrain feature" in the map editor, we can simply add new graphics to
existing Terrain or feature...
It's a shame for a game that was designed to be mod free...

Rudankort, can you do something about that? give me some ideas?
I suppose and understand that you can not give us access to your code ...
but it is disappointing to be blocked by the lack of possibility of modding.

If some people have ideas to work around this problem ... Personally, I plan, if I have no other alternative, to replace the railways by my highways, but it bothers me to lose the use of railways. .....

Stay tuned for more info on my investigations.

Fred

rezaf · Post by **rezaf** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:50 pm

It's definately possible to add new terrain - it's a quirky process where you have to work around various oversights and hardcodings, but it seems to work, from all I can tell. If you package your mod and pm me a link, I can take a look if you want.

As for the layer name ... I'd hate to point out the obvious, but you HAVE added your layer to tileset.pzdat in the Graphics directory, have you?
_____
rezaf

Rudankort · Post by **Rudankort** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 9:59 pm

I said right away that adding custom terrain types was not fully functional. Your tests proved just that - various bits and pieces are there, but they don't work as an integral whole, yet. I will be looking into this aspect very soon, because we need it for our own future projects too. Stay tuned.

NickGen · Post by **NickGen** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 10:04 pm

Tank's Rezaf for the info,
yes I have seen in quite a few posts (on Panzer central forum among others) that there are ways to do this, but it seems difficult to achieve ...
I would actually create a new type of road (highway) and a new type of land (town) for my project.
Rather than someone to do it for me, I prefer an explanation of what to do ....
I do have a hard time knowing where to look ... and what ...
I can send you my mod that you can take a look ....
As for the tileset.pzdat, yes i have edited it to add my new layer...

Fred

NickGen · Post by **NickGen** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 10:05 pm

Rudankort wrote:I said right away that adding custom terrain types was not fully functional. Your tests proved just that - various bits and pieces are there, but they don't work as an integral whole, yet. I will be looking into this aspect very soon, because we need it for our own future projects too. Stay tuned.

Tank's Rudankort, it is a very good new....

rezaf · Post by **rezaf** » Tue Nov 29, 2011 10:14 am

Ah, I see at first glance that you have failed to create a string for your description - if you want to use the string table, you will have to add an entry for IDS_LAYER_TILES9 to your strings.pzdat file, otherwise it can't display a text for you.

If you do that, you'll get your layer properly named in the editor.

Beyond that, I'll have to take a closer look, after which I'll report back.
_____
rezaf

NickGen · Post by **NickGen** » Tue Nov 29, 2011 11:40 am

rezaf wrote:Ah, I see at first glance that you have failed to create a string for your description - if you want to use the string table, you will have to add an entry for IDS_LAYER_TILES9 to your strings.pzdat file, otherwise it can't display a text for you.

If you do that, you'll get your layer properly named in the editor.

Beyond that, I'll have to take a closer look, after which I'll report back.
_____
rezaf

yeah right, it's a mistake on my part ....
Thank rezaf, for the info

Limit of the game Editor

Limit of the game Editor

disappointed.....