TaleWorlds Modding Q&A

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E18. Will it be possible to switch between different UV tiling values based on distance? And also switch materials?
Need to write a custom shader that changes different render layers(diffuse, normal, specular etc.) That shader can continue to use the default shading function.

Quick question about the materials. Which PBR preset do you guys use? Or just be more specific on which texture maps will be used. For example (PBR metallic / Roughness )?

Thanks!
 
B15. How do you code the UI?
It is very similar to WPF. UI Layout is defined from xml files and the data preparation is done from C# code.

How flexible is the Ui mod system? Can we change the style and fundamental structure or is it mainly hard-coded?
 
Is there any response to this from anywhere? I'd like to know the potential, and limitations, of map modding to work out the probability of making some mods. Is there a max map size? Max faction amount? Town numbers/castles etc?

And unless I've missed it, when will the scene editor be released so we can start on making our own worlds?
Thanks!
From what I would imagine from Warband is that the map size is as unlimited as the mesh it is on. The issue is how many moving parts will be on the map more than the size of the map itself.
 
From what I would imagine from Warband is that the map size is as unlimited as the mesh it is on. The issue is how many moving parts will be on the map more than the size of the map itself.

I never modded Warband so forgive me, are you saying that while theoretically we could make a vast world map, you wouldn't be able to populate it fully, or interestingly, because the amount of objects, people/towns/castles etc are what really causes limitations and strain on hardware?

If so do we have an idea what a reasonable level of objects currently is? I feel like my computer which is 7-8 years old has no problem on the world map, so maybe a few more objects and people than currently in vanilla?
 
What kind of software/tools you used to create world map? Could you share some tricks so that modders can start working on global maps of their mods as early as possible. As I understand it, a map consists of several tens (maybe hundreds) pieces and for each there is an opportunity to load our own height map and change it directly in the engine?
 
Quick question about the materials. Which PBR preset do you guys use? Or just be more specific on which texture maps will be used. For example (PBR metallic / Roughness )?

Thanks!

The preferred way to create materials is using metallic workflow. Standard shader for it named "pbr_metallic" in game. It uses Lambertian Diffuse and GGX Specular.
The texture maps for that Albedo(RGB/A), NormalMap, Metallic(R)+Gloss(G)+AmbientOcclusion(B), also there is optional tiling DetailNormalmap, and Heightmap for POM/Tesselation.
There is special shaders and BRDFs for different material types, for example:
For floras we support transclucency and subsurface scattering driven by transclucency map packed into A channel of metal/gloss/ao texture.
For hair we are using Kaija-Kay two-lobed specular.
For skin we are using Kelemen/Szirmay-Kalos specular with SpecularIntensity(R)/Gloss(G)/AO(B) map and with a screen space subsurface scattering method correctly applying to only diffuse lighting.
For horses, we are using anisotropic GGX with two lobes driven with a flow map.

What kind of software/tools you used to create world map? Could you share some tricks so that modders can start working on global maps of their mods as early as possible. As I understand it, a map consists of several tens (maybe hundreds) pieces and for each there is an opportunity to load our own height map and change it directly in the engine?

Current version is created with Houdini, before that we used World Machine, before that world map was not using terrain. The engine uses a vista albedo texture, heightmap, splat maps for detail layers, and detail layer materials consisting of albedo/normal/materialparams/heightmaps for worldmap.
 
The preferred way to create materials is using metallic workflow. Standard shader for it named "pbr_metallic" in game. It uses Lambertian Diffuse and GGX Specular.
The texture maps for that Albedo(RGB/A), NormalMap, Metallic(R)+Gloss(G)+AmbientOcclusion(B), also there is optional tiling DetailNormalmap, and Heightmap for POM/Tesselation.
There is special shaders and BRDFs for different material types, for example:
For floras we support transclucency and subsurface scattering driven by transclucency map packed into A channel of metal/gloss/ao texture.
For hair we are using Kaija-Kay two-lobed specular.
For skin we are using Kelemen/Szirmay-Kalos specular with SpecularIntensity(R)/Gloss(G)/AO(B) map and with a screen space subsurface scattering method correctly applying to only diffuse lighting.
For horses, we are using anisotropic GGX with two lobes driven with a flow map.



Current version is created with Houdini, before that we used World Machine, before that world map was not using terrain. The engine uses a vista albedo texture, heightmap, splat maps for detail layers, and detail layer materials consisting of albedo/normal/materialparams/heightmaps for worldmap.

Thanks so much for the complete and detailled answer.
We now can start something about 3d :party:

Cheers!
 
Current version is created with Houdini, before that we used World Machine, before that world map was not using terrain. The engine uses a vista albedo texture, heightmap, splat maps for detail layers, and detail layer materials consisting of albedo/normal/materialparams/heightmaps for worldmap.
If I may, what made you use Houdini vs other tools? Just preference, or were there features it has?
 
@gkx Thanks for your answer, but I have few more questions about materials.
For horses, we are using anisotropic GGX with two lobes driven with a flow map.
1. What is two lobes driven and how do you use a flow map for horses?
I know that flow map is used in game engines for water flow simulations, but I can't understand how it can be useful for animals.
2. You said that you have a channels for black&white textures in one image so which order did you place your textures into channels? Is it editable in with engine's tools? Or artist need to pack textures into right channels in certain order?
3. Are there any objects in the game that use opacity map? Maybe plants with lightning scattering effect? If there are which channel do you pack opacity map or do you use separate files for it?
4. Also we know that game used metal/glossiness, but next you said this
For skin we are using Kelemen/Szirmay-Kalos specular with SpecularIntensity(R)/Gloss(G)/AO(B) map and with a screen space subsurface scattering method correctly applying to only diffuse lighting.
How is it working? If I'm not mistaken specular and metallic are different workflows. So how do you combine them?
5. Which tools do you mainly used for view 3d-models with applied materials? Marmoset or something like that?
 
On max gfx settings the horses have a really nice sheen shader, I think this is what they mean by 'two lobes' - it's probably a rimlight shader using two different light sources. Makes sense
 
@gkx Thanks for your answer, but I have few more questions about materials.

1. What is two lobes driven and how do you use a flow map for horses?
I know that flow map is used in game engines for water flow simulations, but I can't understand how it can be useful for animals.
2. You said that you have a channels for black&white textures in one image so which order did you place your textures into channels? Is it editable in with engine's tools? Or artist need to pack textures into right channels in certain order?
3. Are there any objects in the game that use opacity map? Maybe plants with lightning scattering effect? If there are which channel do you pack opacity map or do you use separate files for it?
4. Also we know that game used metal/glossiness, but next you said this

How is it working? If I'm not mistaken specular and metallic are different workflows. So how do you combine them?
5. Which tools do you mainly used for view 3d-models with applied materials? Marmoset or something like that?

im not the devs but as a 3D artist i will try to help clarify based on what gkx said
1- with anisotropic shaders this is refered to as a lobe image for best results it is often used as 2 lobes :
one wide with low reflectivity
two on top of the other one or next to it as thinner line with higher reflectivity .
and you paint/bake a flow map image to to tell the engine what direction the lobes are

2- " Metallic(R)+Gloss(G)+AmbientOcclusion(B) " metalic goes into Red channel + gloss goes into green + AO goes into blue

3- " The texture maps for that Albedo(RGB/A) " i i think this means that the Alpha channel in Albedo handles opacity

4- with current gen PBR its best to use different shaders as each has its pros and cons . metalic/gloss is good for well .. metalic objects
anisotropic good for hair and some metals . but if you applied those to skin it wont look good as skin requires special low cost shader that supports SSS
so the way to set it up is by applying several materials per object ( depends on object )
for a character as example : armor and cloth get 1 material that is metalic/gloss
skin gets a skin 1 material with SSS
hair gets its own material . and in some cases eyes also get their own material
with each material having its own texture set ( not a single huge texture for the whole character like old gen )
 
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Will we be able to start online battles through code? Essentially just hosting it on the machine that started the battle.
 
Multiplayer/Server-Client

F2. Can a server provide players with necessary files/code modifications upon joining/after asking for permission?

F3. Will we have full control of all data which is sent between server and clients? (Pretty useful for optimization purposes, e.g. reducing network traffic in order to maximize the possible player count)

F4. Is it possible to send data from client to client directly (P2P)? (Could be useful to reduce the server's traffic as well)

F5. What is the native admin system like? What type of moderation and admin tools will come natively with servers (MP)?

F6. Is the custom smithing feature available for multiplayer? If not, is it possible to port it?

F7. Will we be able to send http requests; post and get?

F8. Will it theoretically be possible to implement an in-game voice-chat?

F9. When a player is on a server can you connect/move him to another server if he performs a particular action?

F10. Will a MP server be able to query a database directly instead of using a website as a proxy?

F11. What network commands will exist to update both client and server? (Spawn item network command was added to allow armor to be updated on clients as well as server in warband)


F12. What configuration options will exist on the server? (Custom factions using existing assets, for example)

F13. Will there be a way to remotely control a server through something like a web API or webhooks?

F14. In multiplayer, how can you customize player stats? Can I have access to the same stats as in single-player mod like strength, agility, or maybe lower level stats like health, speed?

What exactly are these questions referring to? Have they said anything about us being able to host our own servers with campaign? Question F11, F6 and F14 seems to be talking about campaign specific behaviours. The current multiplayer modes are just one team versus another, right? So how are these questions relevant to simple battles online.
 
hey all , i had a mod that simply contained an edited spitems file for testing
That mod stopped working when i updated to 1.3.0 ( it worked up to 1.2.1...)
does anyone know what changed ?
i don't see any different in the format of the file
 
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