Enquiry: Creating new roads type mod.

[Spartanis]

Dear Members,

I just joined this forum over an hour ago, and despite my thorough search to see if the topic has been asked/discussed, I am unable to find it so. Perhaps, it may be that im not very good at "searching" for relevant topic.

As I would like to create my own Banished Mod. To create a complete mod similar to Colonial Charter, would be daunting. So I thought: Best start small and simple.. creating a variant of different road types (Other that Dirt, Stone and Brick (CC) )

I have the Modkit files (Inexperienced) and Blender 3D (Experienced).

I believe this is the best place to start for a newbie modder.

I would like to ask Members, if there is such a post exists where it teaches how to create such a simple mod from scratch?

Regards,
Sparty

[Spartanis]

*Le Sigh*

50ish views, 3000ish members, not one reply. O.o

I started to think that there is at least 1 serious modder out of 2000 members in this forum. O.o

In any case, I have been talking to the creator of The Fountain Mod, and he was kindly enough to lend me his example files, both FBX and RSC files for me to study. Within each of his models, I noticed his "Citizen_size" block mesh. And i think I may know the size the road tile mesh it should be made.

Its a start.

[RedKetchup]

very sorry @Spartanis 

i saw your post but i didnt have time to make a constructive reply at that moment
and after i forgot it (kinda normal cause i was very occupied at that point so it easily slipped from my mind)

there isnt really any thread here that explain how to mod Banished.  although always all around in all my posts, specially in NMT posts, i always explains what i am doing and let down some infos.

i didnt got time to reply because you are asking about something in game that isnt working like everything else : road
roads are kinda working very 'weird' and the developper made it very bad

i didnt got time to expiriment alot on road cause the 'weird' things i noticed from it and then i stop there (stop? stopped? stoped?)

normally all in banished is 3D , it is a 3 Dimentional mesh or form. but road are only a 2D painting on the ground and they dont have a 3D mesh.
i would have thought, (note that i didnt experimented alot) if i would take a .png (64x64, 128x128, or 256x256), the game would apply this .png at each tile. tiling those side by side along the road your citizens are tracing.
but it wasnt the case. it was like if the .png was divided per block (and the whole .png was covering like a 64x64 tiles in game) and was only 'drawing' a little part of the .png on the ground. and the tile next to it was 'drawing' the next little part of the png. it was very weird.

but like i said, i didnt experimented alot and you asked about something i couldnt really be very helpful.
the person who experiemented the most about road was @downloadmyheart , but i dunno if he is still around
Last Active: August 22, 2015, 03:08:10 AM

[RedKetchup]

of course, you can still put a 3D mesh on the ground like a 'wall' that is lying on the ground on its side' but you would need to consider it as 'a building' and would bug if you are turning it into 'road tag' but like i said and meant, i dont have alot of experience 'about roads' 

i can experiement abit in a near future.... but all this weekend i need to work on my own mod (since i was very busy this week and couldnt work on it alot)

[RedKetchup]

but there is also @kralyerg  who experimented abit with roads and made this addon : http://colonialcharter.com/index.php/forum/kralyergs-kave-of-krazy-kontraptions/1446-grassy-roads
maybe he can answer better than i could do

[Spartanis]

Thank you for your honest reply. I really appreciate it.

I come across "Color Tile Road Mod" that contains source files.

It appears you are correct on one thing: its not a mesh. Moreso, its just a bunch of png files that is "pasted" upon the surface of the Banished world.

This would be the most easiest mod to build, i suspect.

I shall start tinkering with it.

Re: kralyerg's Grassy Roads Mod. Thank you for mentioning that. I got his/her mod and looked at it at the game. This confirms my thoughts as mentioned above. It is a series of .png files used as "Terrains" texture.

I hope kralyerg can confirm my thoughts

[Spartanis]

WiP:Creating Roads Mod

Stage One: Modelling and rendering Tiled png Images (32x32)



So far.. so good.

Please note: This is an experimental stage. Images may not be the final product.

[Bobbi]

Well, I am not a modder, so I can't help, but I can tell you those look nice.

[Gatherer]

1 & 4 look really nice.

I'll definitely use this mod when finished.

[Paeng]

it was like if the .png was divided per block (and the whole .png was covering like a 64x64 tiles in game) and was only 'drawing' a little part of the .png on the ground. and the tile next to it was 'drawing' the next little part of the png.

If I'm not mistaken that is the technique to make each road segment kinda unique... by using small "snippets" out of a large image you avoid repetitions while drawing the road.

That's the "danger" with such small textures when repeated over a long distance - see the attached image where the repetitions are clearly visible...


* I also think that the shown texture is way too bright... once that gets finalized by the builders it will 'shine'... 

[Spartanis]

Ah.. i see precisely what you mean.  And that make sense. Which leads me to another question. How large, an image file is too large? is it meant to be squared? or it can be a rectangle image? (eg: 64x64 or 64x12)

oh! this makes me feel young again, like a giddy scientist embarking on a wonderful journey of experiment and research. lol

[RedKetchup]

i ve learn in this world (of banished lol) that everything in images need to be in a specific numbers : 32,64,128,256,512,1024....
you can play with those but no other number allowed.

[Spartanis]

Make sense, due to my experience in modelling, painting  etc etc for games.

Next weekend, Im going to create a 32x32, 64x64,....1024x1024 images. After I figure out the coding of *.rsc files, and "Building it" I will be able to test out which is best, and efficient.

[Emton]

If you want to minimize the repetition what you can do is, say you're using Photoshop, use Filter/Other/Offset and offset the image horizontally and vertically by half it's width and height, with the pixels set to wrap around. Then if you see any straight lines make them disappear. Then re offset the image back to it's original and check for any straight lines again. You can see what I mean when you offset your brick image. Next if you want to color the tile first you need to get the idea of colors out of your head and instead think about Chromatic Gray, otherwise known as "brown" is basically colors with very low saturation. There can be a "brown" color but it will have a slight tint of red or blue or orange etc. Using Photoshop Image/Adjustments/Variations is a good way to add just a little bit of color, use the smallest increments and try different combinations. Finally you should always be paying attention to the Histogram, it's a map of all the pixels in the image. Any adjustment you make shouldn't underexpose or overexpose the image. If you make it too dark it will permanently remove the detail. Here's some pictures showing what I'm talking about.

Edit: In the Chromatic Grays picture the blue, green and magenta colors are actually a bit too saturated to be considered chromatic gray, if you want a blue or green chromatic gray then you have to add even less saturation than you would with say red and yellow. In the light to dark picture those are some ranges of brightness you can have without losing any detail.

[purringcat]

It's too uniform in color and too repetitive.    It's really hard to make a photoshopped made texture look real.   And harder to get a photo of RL stuff look seamless.   
This one is 1024x1024 but has all kinds of flaws.    Some of the older games like Caesars had good, repetitive textures.    CG has good tileable textures too.