Screenshots thread

[Pieter Boelen]

There's no need to rename the original file. It's probably a copy of "lizard.gm".

@CouchcaptainCharles copied "lizard.gm" and then resized it with @Inez Dias' TOOL.

I would suggest:

• Copy the current "b_invisible.gm" as "b_lizard_small.gm".
• Apply the alpha texture to "b_invisible.gm".

If you want a lizard in your choice of build item, copy "lizard.gm" from "RESOURCE\MODELS\Animals" to "RESOURCE\MODELS\Characters", then use "lizard" instead of "b_invisible" in its 'InitBLDexterior' line in "initItems.c".

If I can magically conjure up the time to do that, I will.
For now, I am completely swamped with other stuff.

 

[Grey Roger]

@CouchcaptainCharles copied "lizard.gm" and then resized it with @Inez Dias' TOOL.

It doesn't look smaller than a normal lizard, either in the game or in GM Viewer. Checking the sizes with TOOL confirms that "lizard.gm" and "b_invisible.gm" are the same size.

I would suggest:

• Copy the current "b_invisible.gm" as "b_lizard_small.gm".
• Apply the alpha texture to "b_invisible.gm".

As it does not seem to be small, I've copied the original "b_invisible.gm" as "b_lizard.gm".

But there's a problem with the totems. One of them shows the feathers as metallic and two others show up entirely metallic. Easy to correct, you'd think - the game is treating them as weapons, which show shiny metal where the alpha map is white and texture where the alpha map is black. But when I tried a version of the texture file with the whole alpha map set to black, the metallic totems showed up as solid black - and no, I hadn't been stupid enough to fill the texture with black instead of the alpha map! The totem from TEHO provided by @Jack Rackham has no such problem, and one of the GoF totems has no feathers, so at present those seem to be the only two usable totems.

Here's a WIP Indian village.


It's a version of the "Pirate Fort" location with all the buildings removed by TOOL. The original has a fire on one of the buildings and smoke from several chimneys, and also what looks like a fireplace in the middle of the ground. So I made a version of the locator file with all but one smoke locator removed, the fire locator and the last smoke locator moved, and now there's a camp fire. Originally I wanted to add the tepees in TOOL, but when I tried to save the location model after adding a tepee, TOOL crashed and wrecked the file. So I've made it a buildable item instead, and the locator model is now just empty ground plus the fire. The tepees are placed on the same spots as the original buildings, which means the walk file prevents you from walking straight through them. And the tepee model has a different texture to keep @Jack Rackham's original version unique. (Alternatively, perhaps make that one a generally available build model as well, then Indian villages can use both types instead of being filled with just one version?)

Lighting still needs to be done with "loclighter" and I'll add a few more 'Build_at' commands to "PROGRAM\Locations\init\Colombia.c" to place some more tepees.

 

[Jack Rackham]

Nice texture on the tipis.

 

[Jack Rackham]

WR2 spoiler.

suddenly a hidden door opens...


...hmm where am I - outside/inside?


an entrance to a deeper cave - guarded by indians


no, mummy indians


a secret ritual indian cave


wrong again - looks like templars guarding a palace


whatever it is, it's bad


a factory leaking smoke/steam?


with scary paintings?


another gate


oh oh, dead priests and something worse


much worse

Spoiler

from Charles Johnson: A general history of the pyrates.

Blackbeard was asked where he had buried his money.
He answered, that nobody but himself and the Devil knew where it was, and the longest liver should take all.

 

[Grey Roger]

Interesting looking locations, as always. Especially the stalactite and the creepers on the cave ceiling.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here...

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

Spooky place, I love it!

Very very nice!

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

Also @Grey Roger, check your inbox, as soon as possible very important!

 

[Grey Roger]

There's a problem with lighting. I don't cast a shadow, but the removed buildings still do. You can see here the shadow of the wooden wall and watch tower at the entrance to the original "Pirate Fort" even though they've been removed.


How are shadows produced in other locations?

Most of the building shadows aren't a problem because I'm going to put tepees where all the original houses were, so any house shadow which isn't obscured by a tepee will look like the shadow of the tepee. The shadow of the gateway wall may be a problem but if I can't get rid of it, I'll find something else to put on top of it. That just leaves the question of how to give shadows to characters.

 

[Jack Rackham]

In textures/lighting/day/locations/Pirate Fort there's this file:


3 more in evening, morning, night.

Maybe if you could avoid reading it somehow. I'm not sure if this is all that makes the shadows visible.

 

[Grey Roger]

If those files are indeed what makes the shadows then the next job is going to be to edit them to remove the unwanted shadows... It also means I'll need to copy all the model, locator and lighting files into a new folder rather than leaving them as additions to "Pirate Fort", then put the edited shadow files into suitably matching sub-folders of "textures\lighting". I don't want to mess up the shadows in the real "Pirate Fort"!

 

[QARownsBP]

Just came back to this game (always do), and tweaked the QAR.
I prefer Barbossa's Revenge for the brief minute we saw it in 5 to the beat up version in 4.

 

[Grey Roger]

@QARownsBP: those sails do look nice! If you upload the texture file as well as the system files which you modified to use it, I can include them in the next update.

 

[Grey Roger]

In textures/lighting/day/locations/Pirate Fort there's this file:
...
3 more in evening, morning, night.

Editing those files did the trick! Ironically, the "day" one was the only one which did not need to be changed. The shadows near the entrance in "day" look more like nearby palm trees and there is no shadow of the palisade or watch tower. The other three ("evening", "mn" and "storm") are all the same, which made things simple as I only needed to get rid of the palisade shadow on one, then copy it to the other two folders. "storm" is for rain in general, not just for a full strength storm, so that's the shadow texture which was in use during my test. I'd started a FreePlay and then used a 'DoQuestReloadToLocation' in console to teleport to Colombia, where it was still raining as usual after a FreePlay start.

So, here's the entrance to the village in evening, now without the unwanted palisade shadow:


Welcome to the village!


The location is empty by default. The five tepees are placed by "Build_at" commands. Anyone else can use the same location model plus some "Build_at" commands (or some "randitem" locators in a customised locator file) to create a new location with whatever they want there.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

View attachment 36020
Just came back to this game (always do), and tweaked the QAR.
I prefer Barbossa's Revenge for the brief minute we saw it in 5 to the beat up version in 4.

Nice work!

If you want, you can share it as @Grey Roger said.

Editing those files did the trick! Ironically, the "day" one was the only one which did not need to be changed. The shadows near the entrance in "day" look more like nearby palm trees and there is no shadow of the palisade or watch tower. The other three ("evening", "mn" and "storm") are all the same, which made things simple as I only needed to get rid of the palisade shadow on one, then copy it to the other two folders. "storm" is for rain in general, not just for a full strength storm, so that's the shadow texture which was in use during my test. I'd started a FreePlay and then used a 'DoQuestReloadToLocation' in console to teleport to Colombia, where it was still raining as usual after a FreePlay start.

So, here's the entrance to the village in evening, now without the unwanted palisade shadow:
View attachment 36021

Welcome to the village!
View attachment 36022

The location is empty by default. The five tepees are placed by "Build_at" commands. Anyone else can use the same location model plus some "Build_at" commands (or some "randitem" locators in a customised locator file) to create a new location with whatever they want there.

Much better than before!

 

[QARownsBP]

I used the same ship and file names aside from the sails, so all I changed was Ships_init.c (in the zip file)

refShip.EmblemedSails.normalTex = "sail_QAR.tga";
refShip.EmblemedSails.nationFileName = "sail_QAR1.tga";

and removed a few lines so only the main topsail uses the emblem

refShip.GeraldSails.rey_b2 = 1;

The bow decor is black in the last film, so I used an already existing wood texture.

 

[Grey Roger]

Judging by that video, from about 0:43 onwards, the bow decor does not appear to be black. Dull brown, perhaps, but then the whole ship is rather dull and drab, possibly due to dull, overcast weather, or the way it was photographed. And the sails are torn.

What I could do is make that sail texture available as a choice of special sail. Then you can select it from the "Sails" part of the ship interface.

 

[QARownsBP]

The sails are really the only major change between films, but that video is from 4 and I just never changed my signature. Here's a screen from 5.

 

[Grey Roger]

Unless there is significant demand, I'll not use the new textures to change the appearance of Queen Anne's Revenge. The reason is that most people associate the ship with Blackbeard; and the Black Pearl, especially the cursed version, with Barbossa. Indeed, if you choose Blackbeard or Barbossa as FreePlay characters, those are the ships which you get by default.

But there's no harm in restricting the emblem to just the main topsail. The current Queen Anne's Revenge uses the same texture for both normal and emblem sails so you won't see any difference. Meanwhile, I've succeeded in making the new sail texture available as a choice of "Special Sail":


The attached zip file contains the necessary files to add the new sails to the selection, as well as "Ships_init.c" with Queen Anne's Revenge using the original sails but with only the one 'refShip.GeraldSails' line. The files will also go into the next update.

 

[Grey Roger]

The Colombian Indian village is now complete. The population is cloned from the Aruba village, with new ID's. (And in the process I found that the Arawak Indians in the Aruba village have duplicate ID's, with two each of "Indian1" and "Indian2". That will be corrected in the next update.)


The reason there are two colour schemes for the tepees is that there are two models. Using just one model, some tepees were flush with the ground while others were some way up their poles, and changing the Y co-ordinate of the "Build_At" commands didn't make any difference. The system seems to try to put the object at ground level, for varying values of "ground level" as the terrain is uneven. So I cloned the model, used TOOL to sink it to compensate, then made a new texture to give the village some variety. And then I raised both models slightly with TOOL so that the corners of the fabric touch the ground, with a slight visible gap as the fabric rises between corners.

 

[Jack Rackham]

Yes, that looks better. And another texture too!