Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => Modding => Topic started by: Green1 on October 01, 2012, 03:57:48 PM

Title: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 01, 2012, 03:57:48 PM

STAGE ONE

Many older games have gone through a "fan made" canon graphics update. Now, there are wilder ideas. But the first deal would be a pack in honor of Blue Marble. It would probably be downloaded a lot.

Only thing is it must be modular and and free to use for any mod maker.

Hell, the community could even come up with it's own Upatch, you get enough modular mods like that like the guys over at Heaven games. BUT.. got to be canon!

Now, I am not sure where to begin. My talents lie in writing and explaining things (badly). I can not draw or code. I DO have ability to learn and experiment.

Now, unlike others. I am pretty hard headed and I like to do things when i get it in my head. But the problem is that much arcane knowledge for SMAX is hidden.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 01, 2012, 04:05:54 PM

Step one would be to start describing your vision...

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 01, 2012, 04:10:02 PM

A bit better example. SMAniAC and friends had a TCM called Planetfall. However, despite no lack of really dilligent work on behalf of SMAniAC and his team, much flavor of SMAX was lost due to hardcoded nature of Civ4, noncanon changes, performance issues on large random maps, and inability to put in Aliens as an option.

However, maybe a different approach is needed. Instead of porting SMAX into a new game, import the modern gfx into SMAX! It might even be possible to "take" the tiles from Planetfall and replace them in classic SMAX!

Imagine opening up to THIS without a fellow modder's well meaning tinkering or being forced to compromise because of limitations:

edit: no lack of; not the lack of. sometimes I type too fast. That could have made a lurker mad involved in Planetfall C4

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 01, 2012, 04:23:38 PM

The sattelite ideas and multiple maps deal would be more complicated. It is also where my theories border on madness!

Basically, you open up SMAX in a "wrapper" exe app that emulates a MP server. Then, many clients are opened for each planet or moon.

How this relates to "Red Mable" is Red Marble would be the groundwork for dealing with different planets. Each planet would be a different mod. The wrapper itself may have game functionality, too. (but do not get me wrong, canon Red Marble alone would be worth it)

Basically, you have multiple versions of each client acting as a planet. To simulate travel, you have a delay between where one unit shows on one client from another. Only certain units could do this.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 01, 2012, 04:32:54 PM

NOW.... even further proof of my MADNESS!

If you lift restrictions on factions/client... you could have a tranhuman style Evony MMO 4X! Of course, this is all speculation.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 01, 2012, 04:44:32 PM

But anyways, that's the reason I did not wish to go over the huge idea. Because it is crazy talk and I now have probably lost respect points.

However, It would be nice to experiment just with simple tiles and I think if it looks cool, it will be a great addition. Civ 4 Planetfall graphics being probably the mad ramblings of a dreamer who would be served better by a sequel.

So... how does one exactly change tiles. Is it a template system for each improvement? Is there a resolution limit? Where is this located?

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 01, 2012, 05:10:44 PM

The Plantfall graphics thing could only be done with some serious, serious hardcoding changes.

Have you got anything that will open that texture.pcx that I posted?  (Protip: GIMP can be downloaded for free.) That's what you can do, basically.  That resolution with the SMAC(X) palette.  The original is found in the root directory of you SMAC folder.

...

Darsnan, back when we were working on Deadlock III, wanted a multi-planet scenario, with each -technically a separate scenario- hosted at a different site...

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 01, 2012, 05:13:33 PM

Yes, I do have GIMP. It is an air traffic control panel, but i have used it before when I made POGs instead of minis when I ran public DnD games.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 01, 2012, 05:21:31 PM

Oh crap... unfortunately not on this particular comp. My on again-off again ex has the one I had Gimp on! GRRR. She "borrows" things. Worse, is that is a bike ride to Destrahan which is 10-12 miles down the MS river levee trail. Plus, I can not stand who she dates now. And.. there is drama :)

Give me a bit, BU. I have to go leech bandwidth since I tether and DLing huge things over cellular is a pain.

Then, explorations into .pcx will begin :D

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 01, 2012, 09:14:13 PM

Give me one more day on this. The coffee shop in Metairie was crowded with 20 laptops. Tomorrow I am hitting up another one that has better interwebs.

tethering is great and cheap. But hard to DL large things.

BUT, I do want eyes on what is stopping something like Red Marble happening and why no one has thought of it. It just seems like a no brainer mod.

However, if it will take, maybe clip/ gimpshop images from google Mars (MRO) then add fungus, boreholes, etc if it will look right? I really need GIMP back.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 01, 2012, 09:30:21 PM

Dunno if we can make something that looks like you envision, but we can make something cool, for sure.  We'll surely end up needing a tech guy, but it'll go a long way if everyone chips in.  Kilkakon's pretty good with that stuff.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 01, 2012, 09:51:50 PM

As I said, we improve the graphics, maybe even the UI (though that is a bit problematic from my poking around and lurking and probing), that alone would be sufficient to bring traffic.

ONLY PROBLEM. You can get SMAC pretty easily. SMAX, though is hard to get -ahem- legally unless you buy off some neckbeard on ebay at a king's ransom. That hurts.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 01, 2012, 09:54:23 PM

Neckbeards would charge double for their poots if they could.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 01, 2012, 10:15:22 PM

Quote from: BUncle on October 01, 2012, 09:54:23 PM

Neckbeards would charge double for their poots if they could.

Indeed.

But from looking at it, the structure of both SMAX and SMAC's terrain engine is the same. Or at least seems to be. So, feasibly if resolution problems do not kick our tails and spoil the fun, a Red Marble mod could technically work for both SMAC and SMAX. Advertise it on GoG. THEN... like the Taco Bell little dog commercial. Sisko's going to need a bigger box!

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 01, 2012, 10:54:46 PM

He's already worried about needing to upgrade our hosting package.  I'm getting in the habit of clicking on whatever ad's at the top of the page once a day, just to help that tiny little bit to pay, when we need it.

I'll need to know more specifics, but the look of the terrain can be altered, for sure.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 01, 2012, 11:43:16 PM

Quote from: BUncle on October 01, 2012, 10:54:46 PM

He's already worried about needing to upgrade our hosting package.  I'm getting in the habit of clicking on whatever ad's at the top of the page once a day, just to help that tiny little bit to pay, when we need it.

I'll need to know more specifics, but the look of the terrain can be altered, for sure.

Careful with that! At one point I was doing research on adsense/Youtube/blogging income potential. (Since I would love to tell some of these employers I have had to go to hell and do stuff I love instead of doing drudgery so others can do what THEY love.). I came up on all these horrid stories where they banned folks from clicking on thier own ads or telling family + friends to click on those ads!

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 02, 2012, 12:20:23 AM

Well, YOU can still do it - I close the windows right away, frankly.

We'll become friends later this evening, so that's okay.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 10, 2012, 09:15:14 PM

I finally got gimp and I opened up and found the .pcx files. I tell you, GIMP is an air traffic control panel!

It seems the way they have it is indeed, templates. I even found one .pcx that had roads, various fungus, forests, and mag tubes. I think when I get time, I may head over to UMSF or sme of these other imaging forums and capture mars images and paste this onto the .pcx and see if SMAX does not puke on it.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 10, 2012, 09:45:29 PM

When you get to that, be sure to post the Mars picture - it'll save me time when SMAX pukes.

GIMP is indeed an air traffic control panel.  I find the interface user-hostile, but it doesn't seem to get any better on powerful graphics programs, certainly not Photoshop, and I'm used to it now.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 10, 2012, 10:22:25 PM

I am thinking MRO or Google Mars. Just take a clipping that looks somewhat cool and line that up where the old terrain was in the .pcx since SMAC/X tends to like to do graphics tiles all on one page.

Speaking of which, someting that has always bugged me about map gen all the way up to civ 3. There's no poles! A prime feature of a planet would be ice at the poles. Oh well, lets just go with what we got and see if it works.

Also does GIMP convert modern .jpeg and other formats to .pcx?

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 10, 2012, 10:56:19 PM

Yes.  Tell me when you're ready to try, and I'll talk you through it.  You may have noticed that I don't mind teaching.

I'm pretty sure that what you propose won't work, but it probably will be a good first step for something that will, so I'm not intending to discourage you at all.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Green1 on October 11, 2012, 05:07:59 AM

Sure thing. Let me pound out this AAR and maybe another, then my attention can be firmly on that task.

I am thinking I may head out to a coffee shop that day and pound out it out there and be seen at the same time. I am getting to be one of those gaming hermits. Not good for the soul.

Well.. at least it is not as bad as something like WoW where if you are into the raid game, they damn near want you to have a bedpan and pee jug handy. Going to have to check out Pandaria at some time. I just detest the lack of sandbox and the huge time commitment you have to make to even get to play halfway competitive in WoW. I am a random BG/PvP guy myself. Raids are too damn boring. Same thing over and over till you get sick of it. I demand dynamic games.

Title: Re: Non TCM "Red Marble"
Post by: Kilkakon on October 15, 2012, 05:40:12 AM

Hey let us know when something exciting happens. :D