Discolor world map with generated objects/etc - possible?

[soulmata]

Hello,

My desire is simple so I'll get right to the point.  My starting point on a fresh game is the standard warband map.

Now let's say 50 days into the game, I want an event to occur that will discolor part of the map - or at least the ground - such as making a region of grass turn black.

Is this possible in any fashion? For instance, is it possible to create a map "object" like a city that is pseudo-transparent with a huge scale, and create it after a certain point? Is it possible to layer a texture over the map that will produce such an effect? Have similar efforts been made before?

Ideally, it would be great if there was a construcable/destructable way to do this, so it could be recycled and reused in a single game.

Any answers/pointers will be appreciated.

 

[Sinisterius]

Sorry, but no. I think the feature was asked by the developers, though, but it wasn't added in.

We'd need to be able to create our own custom terrains, then simply use a command like this:
(map_terrain_set_texture, "rt_plain", "dds_etc"),

However, I imagine it wouldn't be easy to implement.

 

[Somebody]

You can modify map icons fairly easily - although they might not cover the terrain to the desired degree, or intersect with the elevation of map in a proper fashion. If you have a specific static area in mind, then making an icon for that location should be simple. You can also try using the particle system to animate such an effect (although this would take a lot of tweaking), but the map icon is probably more ideal. After you've set up a static party (in module_parties), change the icon via a trigger as follows

(24.0*50,0,ti_once, [], [(party_set_icon, "p_whatever", "icon_whatever")]),

 

[soulmata]

You can modify map icons fairly easily - although they might not cover the terrain to the desired degree, or intersect with the elevation of map in a proper fashion. If you have a specific static area in mind, then making an icon for that location should be simple. You can also try using the particle system to animate such an effect (although this would take a lot of tweaking), but the map icon is probably more ideal. After you've set up a static party (in module_parties), change the icon via a trigger as follows

(24.0*50,0,ti_once, [], [(party_set_icon, "p_whatever", "icon_whatever")]),

Related note - is it at all possible to remove town icons from the game? Such as, whoops, Praven just vanished!

 

[Somebody]

You can do several things - the most obvious is disabling Praven - the player won't be able to see and click on the party, and hopefully the AI will do the same. However, the problem is that many scripts in Native iterates through every town, not checking whether it's active or not. So you either risk partial removal (by disabling the party and moving it somewhere off the map), or you could go all the way and change the necessary scripts, and change all references to Praven (i.e. dependent villages, ownership, merchants), after which you can remove the party entirely.

 

[soulmata]

You can do several things - the most obvious is disabling Praven - the player won't be able to see and click on the party, and hopefully the AI will do the same. However, the problem is that many scripts in Native iterates through every town, not checking whether it's active or not. So you either risk partial removal (by disabling the party and moving it somewhere off the map), or you could go all the way and change the necessary scripts, and change all references to Praven (i.e. dependent villages, ownership, merchants), after which you can remove the party entirely.

Can you do this during runtime, however? Temporarily disabling and moving it, then restoring it at a later point in-game?

 

[Kazzan]

Can you do this during runtime, however? Temporarily disabling and moving it, then restoring it at a later point in-game?

You can, I myself have little experience in this but it is possible to have a invisible party reapear. Though I don't know about moving it.

 

[Sinisterius]

I think you can alter the party's flags. pf_disabled.

 

[soulmata]

It also seems plausible that through the same system a bandit camp is generated, you could generate another overworld icon - now, can these icons be transparent?

I think if I could make an icon sufficiently large that was discolored and transparent, that might get me the effect I need.

 

[GetAssista]

I think if I could make an icon sufficiently large that was discolored and transparent, that might get me the effect I need.

Surely you can generate static parties with half-transparent dark cloud icon. Problem is you need lots of them, cause large icons do not work well on the map - they disappear from screen entirely when their origin moves just a bit outside screen. So you would need lots of small clouds. And Transparency does not work good with multiple overlays, so you would also need precise positioning of icons