Seeing Tileset Grass in the Toolset

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

Bannor Bloodfist wrote...
1)  The toolset has an .ini option to turn on wok display,,, clutzy, but it works.  Downside is that it does NOT diplay the textures that would be affected it only hihglights thw wok faces according to type, thus making it easier to see pathing issues etc.

?

Bannor Bloodfist wrote...
It would seem to me that displaying the actual texture applied to growin grass would be problematic in several ways... One, grass grows taller according to how long the PLAYER is in the game during any specific play through.  It tends to re-start from shorter grass when the player has not played that particular mod in a while.... I am not possitive what controls this, and it has appeared to me to be somewhat erratic.

?

@Heneusa - I looked for it last night and couldn't find anything.  That's not to say it doesn't exist.  Here is a string dump from the toolset exe.  Some information in there can be misleading and not all information of the same type is always stored in the same place.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 26 septembre 2012 - 01:35 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               

OldTimeRadio wrote...

Bannor Bloodfist wrote...
1) The toolset has an .ini option <snipped as erroneous, sorry>.

?

Please just disregard my entire earlier message as I think I was way too tired to be even close to reality at the time I posted it; Of course the cause might also have been the pain-killers that I am on or a combination of the two. However I remember seeing wok faces displayed in toolset, but I can't remember how it was done... it may have been some sort of overlay for a specific tileset...

Bannor Bloodfist wrote...
It would seem to me that displaying the actual texture applied to growing grass would be problematic in several ways... One, grass grows taller according to how long the PLAYER is in the game during any specific play through, It tends to re-start from shorter grass when the player has not played that particular mod in a while.... I am not possitive what controls this, and it has appeared to me to be somewhat erratic.

What am I saying that is wrong or confusing here?

As far as "in toolset" growing grass... for what purpose?  Other than seeing the fully grown grass so that you can attempt to put a placeable into a position that the grass won't grow through it? 
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Bannor Bloodfist, 27 septembre 2012 - 12:03 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               The purpose for me is that I script terrain effects derived from a number of factors. Specifically in this case exceptionally tall grass or brambles can impact movement and make one more vulnerable to entangle spells.

To make this work I have to draw triggers (since I am not using NWNx). Guessing at where to draw the triggers is challenging, and if done right is tedious.

So far this is of most benefit in only one tileset - Rosenkranz's immersive swamps. He has very tall grasses in that set. It would be possible to simply alter a dev version of that tileset to make the grass triangles visible but I don't presently have the time to take on such a project. I've thus far avoided using GMax to make or tweak NWN's art assets. And I'd like to continue to avoid to do this as creating art assets along with all the other stuff will kill my project. I just don't have the time to do it all by myself.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               Ok... that makes a lot of sense... never having scripted special effects/affects attached to a trigger beyond walk-way points, I haven't run into this sort of issue.  However, I can see where seeing the woks might make it easier... for me, I tend to do a lot of zoomed in/close up work when I create things and being familiar with the most commonly used sizes for triangles in tilesets I can usually guestimate pretty accurately.

Of course, sometimes, seeing the woks might make things easier.  At this stage of things, I think about the only way to accomplish that is with some sort of overlay for the main graphics used for ground cover.  This has been done by many over the years, but requires the tileset author to create a seperate "builders" hak, and would require the area builder to include that hak as a resource while creatng the area, then remember to remove before making the area live.  

This likely would not be that difficult to accomplish:

1) create/pick whatever tileset you wish to use.
2) make a new hak with same name as original tileset.
3) Duplicate the original wok object so you have two, the rename one to be a textured auroratrimesh instead of aurorawalkmesh object.
4) Re-assign all the faces to have the corrected/viewable texture that you wish.  This aspect should be fairly quick to accomplish, and likely could be done with a little bit of skill in scripting/mild programming using a spreadsheet type of program. IE, do a search/replace on all faces assigned a specific surface type, split them out into a seperate object, assign a graphic, and export.  
5) Remove all non-essential objects like buildings, trees, walls etc, or leave them as builders choice, but removing would make it MUCH clearer to use in toolset if the correct walkmesh material ids were correctly entered in the original tile.  Typically true, for the most part, but can be problematic in complicated tilesets.

This would give you a very basic, but also VERY accurate rendition of the walkmeshes.  It also would allow you to continue to build/modify the area since you are using the orignal tileset name which is a complete duplicate.

This sounds a bit complicated, but I know there are some truly skilled programmers that would be able to accomplish something like this.  OldMansBeard comes to mind since I have seen his skills in creating extraneous batch type programs to accomplish huge tasks with little human intervention.  There are many other folks in the community that likely could accomplish the same sort of thing.  Some as extra .exe type compiled programs and others as batch type things that can run as a script inside of a spreadsheet.  Open Office has some pretty huge power available in it's scripting language.

Anyway, you would end up with two xxxtileset.hak files, one in a builders folder, one as the original.  The builders version would be much smaller as there are only about 12-15 wok surface types where having a special graphic would be needed, and all other graphic files would NOT be required.  The tiles would also be smaller if the program was created correctly, as all the extra "stuff" would be removed from the tile as they would not be needed.  You would likely end up with the builder's version being around 20% of the size of the full tileset.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Yeah. i know thats an option. but i don't presently have the time to delve into that. i'm a bit behind schedule with my mod. players are waiting for me to finish CC upgrade and to built oot many areas.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_T0r0]

               Wasn't there a little wok reader program from awhile back that let you load individual tiles to see and edit the wok. I realize it's not in the toolset but better than nothing.
Pardon if this isn't helpful.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

                Virusman came to the rescue
http://social.biowar...5830/7#14272578


               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 28 septembre 2012 - 12:55 .