MAKING POOLS EDITORIAL

[SUB-0]

There is a tutorial on how to get a custom pool color available at modifier site written by LoC Saint. This will be a more complete set of step by step instructions and includes an XSI to start with that is easier to use than using stock ones.

1) To get ready to choose your colors and textures, open the bzeditor. Paint the desired color you want around the pool area to make sure it looks like you want it on the mini map and terrain. Eyedrop the colors and write down the 3 RGB values. Now switch to texture mode and eyedrop the main texture on layer 0. You will get a value such as "3. Write it down and close the editor.

Now open the TRN file (one of the 5 files that makes up a BZ2 map) and see what the texture's name actually is for tile texure 3. For our example here it will be mars2.tga. Code:
TileTexture3 = "mars2.tga"

Code:

TileTexture3 = "mars2.tga"



2) Now that we have the textures name and the RGB colors in hexadecimal we have one more step to do before the XSI editing. We need to convert the hex RGB values into decimal. For our example, the color we decided on is 150, 90, 65. To convert to decimal, take the RGB number and divide it by 255. Code:
Example:


150 /255 = .588235 : 90/255 = .352941 : 65/255 = .254901


Saint recomends keeping it to 6 decimal places but I haven't had any problems using just 1 place. Now that we have converted the RGB color 150, 90, 65 into decimal: .588235, .352941, .254901 we can open the xsi and do our search and replace.


3) XSI's are simply text files so you can do this work in any text editor. Open the provided XSI, in a text editor and you will find a section beginning like this:
Code:


SI_MeshVertexColors {
122;
0.75;0.75;0.75;1;,
0.75;0.75;0.75;1;,
0.75;0.75;0.75;1;,
0.75;0.75;0.75;1;,
0.75;0.75;0.75;1;,
0.75;0.75;0.75;1;,
0.75;0.75;0.75;1;,
0.75;0.7...

... ;0.75;0.75;1;,
0.75;0.75;0.75;1;,
0.75;0.75;0.75;1;,
0.75;0.75;0.75;1;;

Notice the last line ends differently than others so its safest to do your search and replace on just the first three numbers. The last of the 4 numbers; "1" indicates full alpha or opacity and should be left alone. There is another color section in the XSI but it is for the chromed biometal and doesn't need altering. All the color vertexs you need to change are the Code:


0.75;0.75;0.75;


into whatever decimal values you determined in step 2.

Next do a word search and replace for dune3.tga and replace with the texture you want to use. There should be two occurences of dune3.tga in the provided XSI that you need to replace.

4) Now save the XSI with a NEW unique name. This is very important to prevent bad assets and gamestate checking. Don't use something common like rendpool.xsi, pick something that no one else ever has. Keep the name length to 11 or less characters. For our example we will call it customtv1.xsi.

5) Now the final thing we will need to get this into the game is an ODF. Create a text document named a custom name for your pool. For our example it will be customtv1.odf, but remember your's must be unique.

Copy and paste this text into your new blank pool ODF. Code:


[GameObjectClass]
geometryName = "mepool01.xsi"
classLabel = "deposit"
scrapCost = 0
scrapValue = 0
maxHealth = 20
maxAmmo = 0
unitName = "Biometal Pool"
heatSignature = 0.0
imageSignature = 0.0
radarSignature = 0.0
collisionRadius = 1.0

effectHard1 = "hp_emit_1"
effectName1 = "mepool01.render"

[BuildingClass]
tunnelCount = 1

tunnel01X0 = 1
tunnel01Z0 = 1
tunnel01DX = 2
tunnel01DZ = 2
tunnel01Edge = "wwtw"

[DepositClass]




Find and replace "mepool01.xsi" with the name of your new xsi. In our example that would be "customtv1.xsi"

Close and save this new document as yourpool.odf (our example: customtv1.odf). Place it in the addon dir of where you edit from.

6) Open the BZ2 Editor and type "yourpool" (customtv1) into the cfg box (without the .odf extension) and now you can place the pool onto the map. Once placed it is converted to a mesh file found in data/bindata folder. Close the editor.

7) Go to data/bindata and move the new mesh to your maps assets folder. Do not leave a copy in the bindata dir. Once you have the mesh, BZ2 no longer needs the xsi, so remove xsi to another place in case you need to make a new pool. There is no reason to make 56k users have to download a useless file by including it with your map pack.

Just remember that the mesh and ODF must be included with the map files or the players machine will freeze up on the loading screen when it says "loading dll".

[Clavin12]

Nice tutorial. You're really on a roll aren't you?