Basic information

PaulWilliams · March 21, 2001, 11:32

As a newcomer to this forum I am extremely impressed by the effort and inventiveness that is to be found among CTP fans. I want to do something too, but where to start? What is needed is an introduction to basic principles, which I would be prepared to write once I understand them ...

For example: I want to add a new GOODS to the game. Let's say, to make it easy, one of the goods from CTPI. I can see the two files I need to adjust, but what about the sprite? Someone said the sprites from CTPI are still around. Where? What are they called? Is there such a thing as a sprite viewer?

I want to add a unit. Let's say Tom Davis' chariot. He says to amend the files. Which files...? How?

I want to add a building. The sewer system mentioned in a topic elsewhere seems a good idea. But where can I find Hexagonian's orginal instructions?

Hope someone out there doesn't mind helping out a beginner.

PaulWilliams · March 21, 2001, 11:40

Oh yes - aand I have always thought bridge building would be a good idea. Low and behold there IS a bridge (in Alexander the Great scenario). How would one go about including this as a tile improvement linked to a technology?

Martin Gühmann · March 21, 2001, 14:18

I noticed that some goods sprites are not used. May be this are the missing goods of CTP1. But I don't know it really, because I didn't implement them, yet.

I only know that the unit sprites are still in the ..\ctp2_data\graphics\sprites\ folder.
The CTP2 unit sprites are called like:

GuXXX.spr

The CTP unit sprites are called like:

GuXX.spr

Unfortunatly there is no sprite viewer, that would help us very much.
There is only an sprite creation tool by Activision, it can be downloaded from Apolyton.
The game itsself is our sprite viewer. You can screen capture the graphics.
Usual I put the city and goods graphics on an pure black terrain. Just add an special terrain to the terrain.txt.

he first to lines of the new terrain must be:

TERRAIN_SPECIAL3 {
TilesetIndex 27

-Martin

hexagonian · March 22, 2001, 01:18

Building instructions in the Hospital and Drug Store thread in the CTP2 General Forum

Use cut and paste from existing .txt files to make your alts...

PaulWilliams · March 22, 2001, 04:54

Thanks for the replies. Hexagonian has got me going. Now, about that Bridge sprite:

If I understand it correctly, a sprite done just for a scenario would be in the scenario subfolders. That bridge in the Samurai scenario isn't there. So where is it?

What is the naming convention for tile management sprites?

Hannibal Ad Portas · March 22, 2001, 07:20

Hi

If you open up my SPQR scn (available in files Database) you will find
in it Wheat/Grain/Gold/silver/Tin/Copper/Fish goods along with Marble
and amber that are unused in the game,the files you want are goods.txt
goods id txt and unit icon along with the graphics in graphics/pictures
look at these to see how to add your own.Terrain txt/tile improvement
are also quite intresting things to look over.

Hannibal
SpenNick@aol.com

Martin Gühmann · March 22, 2001, 11:28

If I understand it correctly, there are no sprites fore terrain tiles and terrain improvements. The graphics fore these things are stored in the gtset555.til in the ..\ctp2_data\default\graphics\tiles\ folder.
I have no idea to get the graphics out of this file or how to modify this file. Therefore I know no mod which adds terrains and terrain improvements without the help of Activision. May it help you if you play with the TilesetIndex in the terrain.txt. I found the TilesetIndex for rivers and huts.

-Martin

PaulWilliams · March 23, 2001, 07:41

Thanks for the replies - I have a got a bit to be going on with now!

Couple of additional questions to you Civilisation Wizards:

(1) What is an icon? Well, I understand the role in uniticons.txt for, say, a building. Add one of Harlan's graphics and it shows in the bottom panel when the building/advance is being built. But what use for goods? I now have some goods from CTP1 now in the maps, but have just used icon references to existing goods rather than create new ones and it seems to work.

(2) Where are all the TGAs? Uniticons.txt refers to them all the time, but while there are some in the graphics/pictures folders, and of course I add Harlan's TGAs, I cannot find many of the others. I thought they might be in one of those RFZ files, so I got the utility and decompressed, only to find they are full of RIM files which are ... what?

PaulWilliams · March 23, 2001, 08:06

Martin: what were the number for rivers and huts?

And how do people add huts to their scenarios?

Martin Gühmann · March 23, 2001, 17:52

The river number is:

TilesetIndex 34

And the number of huts is:

TilesetIndex 33

Now I have to explain what are huts exactly CIV1/2 players know it. In CTP1/2 huts are ruins. If you look into the risk.txt you will see this term used used for ruins.
For example one line:

BARBARIAN_HUT_CHANCE 0.00

Now an example of the uniticon.txt:

ICON_ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS { FirstFrame "UPDP022.TGA" Movie "NULL" Gameplay "ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS_GAMEPLAY" Historical "ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS_HISTORICAL" Prereq "ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS_PREREQ" Vari "ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS_STATISTICS" Icon "UPDP022.TGA" LargeIcon "NULL" SmallIcon "NULL" StatText "ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS_PREREQ" }

I think "Icon" is be used for the bottom panel when the building/advance is being built. UPDP022.TGA is not the image for ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS actually it is the german leader photo which is not used in the game. The function of "Movie" is a little bit different to CTP1. In CTP1 there was an animated Great Library. This feature could be turned on an off. If the animated Great Library was disabled, there were shown pictured instead of the animations. These pictures were be defined under "FirstFrame". This entry is for also for the Great Library in CTP2. In this example the german leader picture is be shown in the Great Library. Of course it is smaller as the tech pictures, therefore it is stretched to to make fit it in the image box. In CTP2 the "Movie" entry is for the wonder movies only wonders have movies. Maybe this entry allows modmakers to implement advance movies that are played if you discover an advance.
I think "Gameplay", "Historical", "Prereq", "Vari" and "StatText" are entries referring to GreatLibrary.txt. "LargeIcon" and SmallIcon" are for cheateditor and unitmanager.

Now an example of a good:

ICON_GOOD_ARCTIC_MOUNTAIN_ONE { FirstFrame "UPGP018L.TGA" Movie "NULL" Gameplay "TERRAIN_ARCTIC_MOUNTAIN_GOOD_ONE_GAMEPLAY" Historical "NULL" Prereq "NULL" Vari "NULL" Icon "UPGI18.TGA" LargeIcon "NULL" SmallIcon "NULL" StatText "NULL" }

There are "FirstFrame" and "Icon" defined. I suppose "Icon" is used for the trade screen.

Now to your second question:

First the game search for tga files. Is there is no tga file in the picture folder the game will search for an equivalent rim file in the zfs files.
For example if there is no upap107l.tga file in the picture folder the program will load the upap107l.rim file. RIM files are picture files but this format is unknown to us. We have no rim file viewer or rim to tga converter except the game itsselef. I recreated all the tech images by screen capturing as tga files. My tga files are only two bytes longer as the equivalent rim file. Therefore my conclusion these files are not less uncompressed as my uncompressed 16bit tga files, just an unknown format.

PaulWilliams · March 23, 2001, 20:24

Martin:

Thank you indeed for your very full reply. But as one door opens ...

I have just completed the balls-aching task of checking the first 300 tile numbers by placing the requisite numbers in the TileSetIndex line in tileimp.txt. Curiously I have different numbers to you, so what is going on?

Tile no 33 was half an airbase (that is in fact not used in the building of the airbase tile improvement but should be.) Tile no 34 was one of the fortifications (temporary) of units.

I found the ruins on tile nos 150 (henge) and 151 (stones). I found a ruined hut on tile no 160. Unfortunately many, many of the numbers after the first hundred just produce a blue outline (of the sort which when put together make frontiers. So far I have not found rivers, the huts in the Samurai scenario or the bridge. However, as these are clearly tile improvements (you can't cut and paste them) logic dictates that they must be there somewhere.

Now there are, of course, two tilesets. So are we looking at different sets if we have different numbers? And if so, how? But then again the tileset numbers for terrain (1 to 27) clash with those in tileimp.txt so _they_ must refer to the other tileset. Is your 33 and 34 from that set? So where are you changing the humbers to get them?

Incidentally I have also found all the makings for the space module still there plus some really strange things that look like space mines and tank traps!

I got the Goods Sprites from CTP1 and moved them across (renumbering of course) though now I've got Hannibal's scenario as well. Gosh there is going to be a lot of commerce - though I ass-u-me that even if you define goods 3 and 4 the randomly generated maps will only use the first two????

[This message has been edited by PaulWilliams (edited March 23, 2001).]

Martin Gühmann · March 24, 2001, 06:31

Paul:

In fact we are talking about different tings I meat the TilesetIndex in the terrain.txt not in the tileimp.txt. I was talking about terrains not about tile improvements. I added terrains up to TilesetIndex 54 but the last terrains were only pure black terrains.

I also try to define goods 3 and 4. On random generated map I have also the problem that these goods didn't appear. Maybe this can be adjusted in the const.txt but I didn't tried it, because I want to make a mod which will use the sprites of Nordicus alternative goods for CTP1. But as I saw this goods in the game I saw that the shaddows of these goods are missing therefore I want to remake them.

-Martin

Martin Gühmann · March 24, 2001, 10:56

Now I played also this game up to TilesetIndex 500 in tileimp.txt.
I found also some strange things like an orbit satilite. I also found forcefields, the space tile improvements of CTP1 and city walls. There were the normal city wall and the genetic and diamond city walls from CTP1. And I wondered as I used the CTP1 genetic and diamond sprites why they used also these city walls. But I don't know how to create an city sprite that uses these city walls.

-Martin

Martin Gühmann · March 24, 2001, 17:28

In the last hours I played a little bit more with this stuff, to figure out to get to know the maximum TilesetIndex number that can be used in the tileimp.txt. It is TilesetIndex 927. If you try to set per chaeteditor an tileimprovement with an higher number as 927 CTP2 will crash to your desktop. I only tried the last numbers. I saw something that is really not a tileimprovement. 923 is the unit cargo box and 924 is the star which idicates that an army consist about more than one unit.

-Martin
[This message has been edited by Martin Gühmann (edited March 24, 2001).]

PaulWilliams · March 26, 2001, 03:07

Thanks for giving me the top number - I was dreading having to go upto several thousand!

Curiously I cannot replicate Martin's tile 33 and 34 in terrain.txt - I get a black square. Martin, what is your methodology?

And, as you have done up to 500, what did you get between 300 and 500?

If it interests people we can put together a list: here is mine upto 300:

1 Generic Building site
3 Bldg ... (i.e. first stage of building farms 1)
4 Bldg ... (i.e. second stage of building farms 1)
5 Farms 1
6 Bldg ...
7 Bldg ...
8 Farms 2
9 Bldg ...
10 Bldg ...
11 Farms 3
12 bldg ...
13 bldg ...
14 Mines
15 Bldg ...
16 Bldg ...
17 Mines 2
18 Bldg ...
19 Bldg ...
20 Mines 3
21 bldg ...
22 bldg ...
23 Trading post
24 bldg ...
25 bldg ...
26 Mall
27 Nature reserves
28 bldg ...(nat resr)
29 bldg ...(nat resr)
30 Listening posts
31 (blue button)
32 Air base
33 (1/2 air base)
34 (temp fortificn)
35 Radar
38 (temp fortificn2)
50 Bldg (rig/port)
52 bldg ...
53 bldg ...
54 Usea mines1
55 bldg ...
56 bldg ...
57 Usea mines2
58 bldg ...
59 bldg ...
60 Usea mines3
61 bldg ...(interim stage for all fishing)
62 Fishing1
64 Fishing2
67 Fishing3
70 Sonar buoys
71 bldg ...
72 blgg ...
73 Port
74 Bldg ...
75 Bldg ...
76 Rig
77 bldg ...
78 bldg ...
79 Obelisks
80 Bldg ...
81 Bldg...
82 Fortiications
100 u/water hut or space building
102 bld 1 ...
103 bld 2 ...
104 space mine 1
105 bld 1 ...
106 bld 2...
107 space mine 2
108 bld1...
109 bld2 ...
110 space mine 3
111 bldg1 ...
112 bldg 2...
113 space food1
114 bldg1...
115 bldg2...
116 space food2
117 bldg1...
118 bldg2...
119 space food3
120 (star/space mine?)
121 (bld 1...)
122 (bld 2...)
123 (spce tunl/fence?)
150 ruins henge
151 ruins stones
152 large fut wall
153 small fut wall
154 town shield
155 town shield
156 town shield
160 ruined buildings
200-217 Road
300 (probably to 317) Rail

Martin Gühmann · March 27, 2001, 05:02

Now I have not enough time to make the full list. But I know that at TilesetIndex 400 follows Maglev and at TilesetIndex 500 Undersea Tunnel.
The large fut wall and the small fut wall are in fact the CTP1 genetic and diamond age citywalls. I wonder how to make CTP2 to use tese citywalls in genetic and diamond age.

-Martin

[This message has been edited by Martin Gühmann (edited March 29, 2001).]

Martin Gühmann · April 1, 2001, 16:11

Now I put in the tileimp.txt 927 additional tileimprovements. So far as I am I think only the last 50 TilesetIndices are interesting, they contains graphics for cities and units for example the veteran medal for units or the slavery sign for cities.

-Martin

Martin Gühmann · April 17, 2001, 10:09

quote:

Curiously I cannot replicate Martin's tile 33 and 34 in terrain.txt - I get a black square. Martin, what is your methodology?

Here is the code of my special terrains taken from the terrain.txt. May be the problem the InternalType: that you can't replicate. Only these two terrains will give you ruins and rivers. All the other TilesetIndicexs will produce a black square.

Code:

############################################################

TERRAIN_SPECIAL9 {
TilesetIndex 33
Icon ICON_TERRAIN_BLACK
InternalType: Special
CanDie
GLHidden

EnvBase {
Score 10
Food 0
Shield 0
Gold 5
Defense 0
Movement 200
Freight 100
DeadFood 0
DeadShield 0
DeadGold 0
}

EnvCity {
Score 0
Food 10
Shield 15
Gold 15
Movement 50
Freight 50
}

EnvRiver {
Score 30
Food 5
Shield 5
Gold 5
Movement 50
Freight 50
}

MovementType: Air
MovementType: Land
}

############################################################

TERRAIN_SPECIAL10 {
TilesetIndex 34
Icon ICON_TERRAIN_BLACK
InternalType: Special
CanDie
GLHidden

EnvBase {
Score 10
Food 0
Shield 0
Gold 5
Defense 0
Movement 200
Freight 100
DeadFood 0
DeadShield 0
DeadGold 0
}

EnvCity {
Score 0
Food 10
Shield 15
Gold 15
Movement 50
Freight 50
}

EnvRiver {
Score 30
Food 5
Shield 5
Gold 5
Movement 50
Freight 50
}

MovementType: Air
MovementType: Land
}

############################################################

quote:

I got the Goods Sprites from CTP1 and moved them across (renumbering of course) though now I've got Hannibal's scenario as well. Gosh there is going to be a lot of commerce - though I ass-u-me that even if you define goods 3 and 4 the randomly generated maps will only use the first two????

Maybe you should take a look on the good.txt

Code:

# Rubies
TERRAIN_ARCTIC_MOUNTAIN_GOOD_ONE {
   SpriteID 18
   Sound SOUND_ID_RUBIES
   Gold 1
   Probability 0.5
   Icon ICON_GOOD_ARCTIC_MOUNTAIN_ONE
}

# Diamonds
TERRAIN_ARCTIC_MOUNTAIN_GOOD_TWO {
   SpriteID 7
   Sound SOUND_ID_DIAMONDS
   Gold 1
   Probability 0.5
   Icon ICON_GOOD_ARCTIC_MOUNTAIN_TWO
}

# Rubies
TERRAIN_ARCTIC_MOUNTAIN_GOOD_THREE {
   SpriteID 18
   Sound SOUND_ID_RUBIES
   Gold 1
   Probability 0.5
   Icon ICON_GOOD_ARCTIC_MOUNTAIN_THREE
}

# Diamonds
TERRAIN_ARCTIC_MOUNTAIN_GOOD_FOUR {
   SpriteID 7
   Sound SOUND_ID_DIAMONDS
   Gold 1
   Probability 0.5
   Icon ICON_GOOD_ARCTIC_MOUNTAIN_FOUR
}

Note that the Probability to appear of every good is 0.5 that means 50%. hat would be a total Probability of 200%. Maybe this is our mistake. There is only a total Probabilty of 100%. And that could be the reason why the game does't recognize the extra goods.

-Martin

Martin Gühmann · July 10, 2001, 18:32

Quote:

Now I put in the tileimp.txt 927 additional tileimprovements. So far as I am I think only the last 50 TilesetIndices are interesting, they contains graphics for cities and units for example the veteran medal for units or the slavery sign for cities.

Indeed these graphics are not part of the *.til files. Actual the last TilesetIndices are graphics from *.rim/*.tga not part of the *.til files. These *.rim files are called like that:

upc0xx.rim

Be warned some of them are used and shouldn't be replaced.

These pics are used by the TilesetIndices maybe a bug. I noticed this as I got the ReadZFSFile version 2.0 by Martin the Dane it was really helpfull. Maybe this little example mod could Martin help to get tel *.til file editor closer. There are some colors in these pics that have certain functions:

black: Full Transparency
pink: Shadows
bright blue: Actually not a function but using this kind of blue will caues some wired effects.

So it looks that the *.til files could be a huge rim picture.

I was able to replace some of them here is an Tileimprove Add Example Mod it will add something that I define as some kind of undersea fortification. It is only for modmaker who want to know how to add a tileimprove graphic without editing the *.til files. It is not a finished mod, but it could be very helpfull. And there could be possible problems for example the number of new tileimprovement graphics is limited, maybe something between 10 and 20 and you should not use every pic that is possible to use.

-Martin

Immortal Wombat · July 11, 2001, 12:26

Quote:

So it looks that the *.til files could be a huge rim picture.

That would be very useful. I guess that means it is almost exactly like the Civ2 giant *.gif files. Activision borrow a lot of ideas, but changed them just enough that we wouldn't notice

I suspect the *.til file will also have some kind of header on the picture, as a *.rim does from a *.tga. That might explain why Martin found no obvious way to split the file into 927...

Martin Gühmann · July 11, 2001, 13:43

Quote:

So it looks that the *.til files could be a huge rim picture.

Unfortunatly it is a little bit more difficuilt. I e-mailed Martin to send me his little test application for the *.til files. His utility threats all the bytes of the the *.til files as a long line of pixels. He tried to combine these pixel lines. To one huge picture. But there is a picture for every terrain tile end every line of these pictures has its own length, because empty pixels are not saved. The lines of one terrain graphic are merged into one so you have to guess where one line ends and the next line starts. I didn't finnd a stop line pixel only a start and a stop picture pixel. So I was able to combine the lines correctly of a bech tile. The graphic at the top is a screencapture from the game for comparision and the graphic at the buttom is my pixel line puzzle from Martin's test tool. Note that the black surrounding is not saved in this *.til file. I guess the black stuff is also skipped in the sprites that would explan why my small city sprite are smaller than the sprites of the big cities. I e-mailed my results to Martin I hope it will help him.

-Martin

Martin Gühmann · July 11, 2001, 15:58

Quote:

That might explain why Martin found no obvious way to split the file into 927...

Note that there are must two different tables of TilesetIndeces. One for the tile improvements and another one for the terrains. From that what I saw today, it could be rather that there are more TilesetIndices (for the terrain) but less graphics, because empty graphics aren't saved with its full length. And I wanted to do someting about of GoodMod. So what do I instead: Adding tileimp graphics and sounds and looking into test app.'s, the different is that the first one is old and the other thinks are new to me.

-Martin

Immortal Wombat · July 11, 2001, 17:17

Quote:

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann

So I was able to combine the lines correctly of a bech tile. The graphic at the top is a screencapture from the game for comparision and the graphic at the buttom is my pixel line puzzle from Martin's test tool.

So... so far we (you

) can get the graphics out, but not put them back in - yet. It's a start I suppose, and a very good one. Congratulations, this is great news

Darkknight · July 11, 2001, 19:29

How much things have changed since the good old days back just after the game was launched when we knew nought but struggled and prevailed against the mighty menace of Slic sadly though losing our one true and great leader the mod editor. Me.

Modest ain't I

Martin Gühmann · July 12, 2001, 10:06

Quote:

So... so far we (you

) can get the graphics out

The prcess is very slow, because is just a test app. I needed one hour for this dessert piece. And I didn't find the tileimprovements, yet.

Martin the Dane · July 12, 2001, 17:23

Well seems like Martin has been talking about me behind my back

Ok I have managed to make a viewer now, take a look at the thread Tile Viewer/Editor in progress for a short description.

Quote:

I needed one hour for this dessert piece.

No need for that anymore, but thanks for the help, without it I would have given up (Well i actually had)