Iron Wars development thread (download not available)

[Ardis]

Okay, so I'm going to try to resume my mod project. I'm trying to revive it as a space mod because I accidentally removed a file (Firegraft data) I shouldn't have and forgot to back up regularly/didn't have room on my hard drive. And I figured since I have to start from scratch, why not try a space mod?

I just need to know if there is a guide/tutorial for making space based mods out there.

[Negi]

That sounds like a doctor's recommendation.  "Take two of these pills, but this time, in space.."

[IskatuMesk]

I wrote a general guideline on Fleet Mods, if that's what you're talking about.

http://www.campaigncreations.org/forum/index.php?topic=2093.0

[Ardis]

Was going for the director "take two" thing as in a second try, but I guess that didn't work.

And thanks.

[Ardis]

Hmm... I'm reading over what Iskatumesk linked a moment ago and I'm liking it. I had a bit of an idea regarding balancing big vs. small ships to make smaller ships more usable without making larger ships walk right over bases. And yes, I looked at how I said things, I realize I probably did sound like quite a fool.

My idea is to have the mod treat larger ships (anything in the upper-medium and up tiers) as ground units while smaller units are treated as air units making the smaller units targeted as something entirely different meaning turrets and stationary defenses will use heavier weapons on larger targets and faster, but less powerful weapons on smaller targets. The downside is that larger ships would have to maneuver their way around buildings, but at the same times, might actually make things more interesting (or annoying)

I've been going through a few fleet mods and space combat RTS games and have been making notes of what I like and don't like about them.

I like the resource system of StarCraft as-is so I don't intend to fiddle with it too much, although I'm going to scale resources a little differently to make smaller ships favorable.

My resource system would be something much like the resource system of StarCraft with a few things added on top to make things interesting.
-Salvage. You gain 15%(might change percentage) of the unit's resource cost when you destroy it. (Might be a bit too complex and I might not be able to do this)
-Income system. You gain a set amount of resources for each base you own or by upgrading bases depending on faction.
-Planetary Colonization. You gain resources for colonizing worlds as well as an increase in your unit cap.

Right now it's all in the planning stages. I won't touch a modding tool until I have a system I am satisfied with apart from testing ideas to see if they're possible and whatnot.

[IskatuMesk]

You can do those resource systems if you know how to program C++ and make a plugin for it.

[Ardis]

Sadly, I haven't taken the time to learn C++ nor any programming language for that matter. I think the salvage one could be done by just having the set resource amount already known and set up in-map triggers to add the proper amount of resources when you kill that unit. I remember seeing a tool out there that lets you modify the different game types and I can just add the needed triggers into the melee data.

If I knew how to make plugins, I would try it. Sadly, my modding tool knowledge is rather simple; DatEdit, Firegraft, TBLPad, MPQDraft and some modding to the Iscript.bin file (for my custom sprites) are all I use.

[Ardis]

Another idea, since I was going to have larger ships be treated as ground units and the terrain was going to be treated as a flat plane, I could add obstacles which smaller ships could go through, but bigger ships can not. Or make something similar to that.

At the same time, though, I see that this might not work for various reasons. One being that space has an up and down, making most obstacles irrelevant to this game.

Also, how do you render the sprites in ITAS so they don't get their colors completely ruined when you move them over to .grp files? I can't get Blender to render in 256 color mode (unless there is an option I can't find somewhere) and any external program that converts it to 256 color mode destroys the colors.

[IskatuMesk]

There is no magical way to avoid color distortion; you have to find a base color that converts good. I spent endless hours, days even, JUST rendering over and over and over and converting and facepalming when my awesome scheme got totally destroyed. SC's palette is very, very limited, and is one of the greatest issues with custom graphics.

[bajadulce]

Use a gif program that can "pop" desired colors and let rad smaker tools do all the converting for you.  This is how Blizzard made their .grps

Basically you will be taking your render and popping colors in your .gif tool to match what's available in SCraft.  From this .gif, you will then use rad smaker tools to churn out the exact color index every time.  A good gif tool can show you your global changes as you progress.  Popping colors will be the most time consuming, but once set, you're golden.  No guess work.  I hate guess work.

[Ardis]

Okay, just have to find colors that convert over well. That explains why some of the sprites actually looked halfway decent while others... not so much. Probably has something to do with the lighting as well.

What would you suggest for lighting? Right now I have it set up with six lights, one at each compass direction and two above the top and bottom lights angled down to provide a light from above and the lights all rotate with the model.

EDIT: Was testing out what you suggested. It turns out that the lighting is what ruins my colors.

[IskatuMesk]

I didn't even have any lights active on the ITAS renders, just the default lighting modified a bit I think through the environment settings in 3ds max.

[Ardis]

That would explain a lot...  You're using a different program. In Blender, default lighting is "none at all" to my knowledge. This kind of question probably would be more at home on the Blender forums rather than a StarCraft modding forum anyways.

[Lavarinth]

Locate a GRP that is similar in color to your GRP, or any graphic actually- portrait, background, even a screenshot- Go into something like Photoshop and extract the palette, then import and replace the pallete of each of your frames to fix color distortion.

[IskatuMesk]

The palette is the same for every grp.