[MOD] Better Highway Alphas

[Nebogloee]

Annoyed with the lack of visibility with the highways? X is beautiful, and the highways are a good time to take it in. This mod decreases the alpha on the highway maps, making them more transparent. Now you can see that station coming up and plan your exit - no need to look at the bar.

This is just a bunch of quick edits. Feel free to change the values. No changers were made to color tint, so this will work with the highway color mod.

Anybody have any idea how to lessen the highway "exhaust" trails? Or how to change the colors of the clouds in the highway? I suspect that their diffuses may have to be tinted, which sucks because there is a bunch of them.

Grab the zip from:

[ external image ]
Better Highway Alphas

Screenshot

My apologies for the screenshot, I am running this game on low everything due to my Q8200 and GTX260. (I am just lucky it works at all)

[MutantDwarf]

Does this modify the look of the highways from outside, or just inside? I'd like the highways to be a little less obvious when you're not in them; maybe make their alpha value 20-50% so they're much less visible.

[Nebogloee]

Mostly from the inside. I did drop the alpha for the tube, but the tuning of the other external stuff should happen on the color tint property and that is done with the color highway mod.

[BlueSabor]

Much better thank you.

[enenra]

Use this.

[ external image ]

[Nebogloee]

Done. The brand is safe. I will add it to the No sirens mod as well.

[spartanheyho]

Debug text for your mod upon launching new game in free-play mode:

Code: Select all

[General] ======================================
[=ERROR=] Cannot match path '/materiallibrary/collection[@name='effects']/material[@name='highway_streamclouds_03c']/properties/property[@name='alphaStr']' in patch file 'extensions\better_highway_alphas\libraries\material_library'. Skipping node.
[General] ======================================
[General] ======================================
[=ERROR=] [Material::ParseMaterialNode] found unsupported exported properties value () in material(effects.highway_tube) skipping!

[Schabernack]

has anyone a working download link?

[Schabernack]

as with other nexus links the domain prefix "xrebirth" seems not to work, the following link works though

http://www.nexusmods.com/xrebirth/mods/36/?

On another note, within the highways, you got mostly a greenish look to the outside. Can someone tell which part i need to change to change the color?
I have looked at another mod changing the tube effects, which included the following lines but didnt change the color of tube effects inside the tube as i hoped for -_-

Code: Select all

  <!-- changes highway effect -->
  <replace sel="/materiallibrary/collection[@name='effects']/material[@name='highway_tube']"> 
    <material name="highway_tube" shader="shaderfx\high\XU_highway_tube.fx" blendmode="additive" preview="none"> 
      <properties> 
        <property type="BitMap" name="diffuse_map" value="extensions\Highway Fusion\assets\fx\textures\highway\highway_new_effect" />
        <property type="Float" name="diffuseStr" value="2.0" />
        <property type="BitMap" name="alpha_map" value="assets\fx\textures\highway\highway_fx_mask_04.tga" />
        <property type="Float" name="alphaStr" value="2.0" />
        <property type="Float" name="camera_fade_range" value="10000.0" />
        <property type="Float" name="camera_fade_speed" value="1.0" />
        <property type="Float" name="diff_anim_speed" value="0.18" />
        <property type="Float" name="alpha_anim_speed" value="0.25" />
        <property type="Color" name="color_tint" r="200" g="200" b="220" a="255" value="(color 200 200 220)" />
      </properties>
    </material>
  </replace>

You commented out a few lines within your mod, what would those normally do/effect?

Code: Select all

  <replace sel="/materiallibrary/collection[@name='effects']/material[@name='highway_streamclouds_03a']/properties/property[@name='alphaStr']"> 
    <property type="Float" name="alphaStr" value="0.5"></property>
  </replace> 
    
  <replace sel="/materiallibrary/collection[@name='effects']/material[@name='highway_streamclouds_03a']/properties/property[@name='alpha2Str']"> 
    <property type="Float" name="alpha2Str" value="0.5"></property> 
  </replace>
  
  <replace sel="/materiallibrary/collection[@name='effects']/material[@name='highway_streamclouds_03b']/properties/property[@name='alphaStr']"> 
    <property type="Float" name="alphaStr" value="0.4"></property>
  </replace> 
    
  <replace sel="/materiallibrary/collection[@name='effects']/material[@name='highway_streamclouds_03b']/properties/property[@name='alpha2Str']"> 
    <property type="Float" name="alpha2Str" value="0.4"></property> 
  </replace>

  <replace sel="/materiallibrary/collection[@name='effects']/material[@name='highway_streamclouds_03d']/properties/property[@name='alphaStr']"> 
    <property type="Float" name="alphaStr" value="0.05"></property>
  </replace> 
    
  <replace sel="/materiallibrary/collection[@name='effects']/material[@name='highway_streamclouds_03d']/properties/property[@name='alpha2Str']"> 
    <property type="Float" name="alpha2Str" value="0.05"></property> 
  </replace> 

i intent to merge a few highway mods. Do i have your permission to use yours too? (credits included)