Jump to content

shipping container roofs


Skitso

Recommended Posts

I'm still trying to make shipping container roofs work like they should. My first version just had invisible floor tiles on top of the container prop. (Floor 1, layer 1= container, floor 2, layer 0=invisible floor) It works, but isn't exactly that elegant solution and causes also all kinds of anomalies. (Unit on top of the container can't see the container below as there is the invisible floor tiles blocking the los.

Now I modified the container images to be hollow and without roof and added a new, separare 2x8 tile container roof spectre. Everything works flawlessly and looks great, until I put something on top of it (like my container walkways or another container). In such cases the roof spectre isn't visible, and the illusion is broken.

Any ideas to get this to work? Why is a spectre that is on floor 2, layer 0, removed if there's another spectre on floor 2, layer 1?

Edited by Skitso
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a similar issue. I'm trying to make modular UFOs and the wall tiles facing N, W, S, E need to be "full tile blocks" in order to block movement and line of sight, and they hide the UFO floor tile, but not the grass (or whatever type of ground under the UFO) making it look ugly as hell.

Maybe there's a flag for one of the 2 spectres that should allow what we are trying to do?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, I've thought of that, but as the containers are single objects that are not split into tiles, that wouldn't look that hot. Also, that would require stupid amount of work that I'm not willing to do for such a trivial thing...

Edited by Skitso
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm pretty sure I've found the reason: I think the game prioritizes tile drawing in a way that puts tiles painted with paint ground tool always the lowest. At least I tested this by painting sand of top of a container and it went below my new roof tile eventhough both are on layer 0. If this is the reason, I won't be making this, as I have no idea how to slice the roof to correct sized tiles and there's no way I'm doing it manually. Wonder if Chris and co. had some tool to make them?

If you want to take a look kabill, my art and spectres are here: (I really hope you find a solution! :))

http://www.mediafire.com/download/1b0gfszd2l5247s/containers.rar

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, the functionality is there already. (with my latest map pack) This would be just for added visual uniformity. (So that container roofs would behave the same way as all the other roofs in the game) If somebody takes the time to split the roof image to properly sized and aligned pieces, great, but I feel it's gonna be a lot harder than you think to get them to be aligned exactly to the grid, as containers are non-standard, smaller than grid sized objects.

Well, I might give it a try later... when it's not this hot and sunny outside. Beach, BBQ and Babes await! :)

If you want to give it a try, I'll more than gladly finish the submaps and add them to my map pack. (Crediting you of course)

Edited by Skitso
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm away from home (and my computer) for 3--4 days. Could you check them yourself? They are maps/desert/props/shipping_container**, maps/industrial/props/shipping_container** and maps/soviettown/props/ (something, can't remember) each have 2 color variations and 2 alignments. Please use ones in my improved art pack so the colors are correct. Thanks a bunch!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I could get them done today, but its a very repetitive and boring work :P so I will probably finish them by tomorrow.

I'm trying to create props that come to my mind, or from suggestions I've seen in around. So far I have pumpkins, dead dogs, bikes, dead people inside UFO tubes, the usual ;) Feel free to suggest more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Farm tileset is pretty barebones, so anything that goes in that theme would be welcome. Dead cow carcasses would be a classic. In industrial tileset, I'd love to have an assortment of roadwork props (cones and stuff). Thanks for doing this. If the quality is up to Xenonauts standard, I'm sure to add them to my maps later!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think someone mentioned Jungle (Tropical) tileset could use some variation, in case you find that appealing since it isn't entirely functional game tileset.

If you are interested, this one is a big personal favorite of mine - check out Trompe-l'Å“il in google image search, I always thought amazing things can be done with it in UFO designs or alien "infested" GC maps to provide more outlandish/spooky feel:

12688084.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry guys, unfortunately this is just not going to work as I visioned it in my head. With the new roof tiles (cut by SoulFilcher, thanks for the effort!) everything works as it should and looks great until I put something on top of these new containers. The roof tiles that are under something else don't get displayed when there's for example another container on top of it.

These missing roof tiles just look too shoddy that I can't release it in the "AAA" quality I require from my mods. I can't seem to be able to fix this without llunak checking the code why the "levitating" level 2 submaps don't allow the floor tiles beneath it to be seen.

But anyway, this has already required way more time and effort than such a trivial thing deserves, so I guess I'll just give this up and move on to other things. :/

Edited by Skitso
Link to comment
Share on other sites

How were you placing the ground tiles? You mentioned previously you were using the 'paint ground' tool to place the floor - have you tried instead just placing the tiles on layer 0 (which is how I would normally place ground tiles)? I tried this the other day and it seemed to be ok in the submap editor (but I had various issues with the tiles so couldn't check it out in-game).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There isn't any difference in functionality whether you just place one tile at a time to layer 0 or use the paint ground tool to layer 0 other than that the latter is much faster and more easy to do. The issue isn't visible in the submap editor, mind. The issue rises only in game in situations where i've placed two different submaps on top of each other (floor1 = container, floor2 = container 2nd floor) Everything is fine if you put two containers on top of each other in the editor.

This isn't a mapping issue, but a game rendering order one, I'd think.

Edited by Skitso
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can confirm this. For my modular ufo mod I need N, W, S, E wall orientations, so I needed to make them full tile walls to block line of sight correctly, and because of that ufo floor in that tile won't be shown in game (but grass under it will). Maybe it was made this way so that running the game would be possible for slower machines, or its just an oversight. Unfortunately a full tile wall block everything inside that tile, line of fire included, so the wall works very differently from what I had planned.

I don't think it required more time and effort than needed Skitso, I'm sure that if we keep having ideas to make interesting map changes we will step on these issues, and finding one like this is relevant.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...