[MOD] IEX - AP/TC Sector Visual Enhancement - IEX 1.5b (27/07/2014)

[Informer]

Hi Moonrat,

I always play X3 with your mod. It is really great to hear you still working on it.
I will test your solar system background next weekend.

Great work, and much appreciated.

Greetzzzzz

[Moonrat]

Updated Pluto texture

[ external image ]

Thanks go to New Horizons for getting this for my Birthday!

[JSDD]

... I give thanks to the following for permission to use their work and much more...

...
NASA & ESA for the space piccies.

... first, your mod is awesome !!! great work
... just a little question regarding earth:
there are really high detailed pics of the earth available at the nasa website, it would be nice if you could substitute the old one (if these arent too big, i'm not sure .. )
// http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_cat.p ... oryID=1484

[VonK]

As many here, I returned to X3TC-XRM after 2012. I reinstall everything from scratch including IE(X)-XRMi. The game is awesome, the feeling is great, the vizuals are amazing. A big THANKS to all modders-scrippters for the awesome work, a huge THANKS to you for bringing the Universe to our home.

VonK

[outtaspace]

Hi moonrat!
I like a lot your mods and I've played with it!
I remember a thing but...
there is the primary station, in argon prime, if I remember well..
that if You fly throught you don't crash...
Could be a bug or something?
Can You fix if is your mod?
( I'm not sure that is your mod but IE doesn't add station parts, for this i thought was your... )
What do You think...?
Anyway thx!

[RoverTX]

Any ETA on the new Pluto? Really looking forward to this update.

[dizzy]

Hello Moonrat, fantastic work here. I'm looking at using vokica's LU remap (a different Galaxy for LU, good for giving a fresh feeling to those of us coming back to LU) and while his work is amazing and indeed makes exploration feel fun again I'm thinking that adding IEX to that will really amplify the feeling of being different and new, as the sectors will feel very new (other than their name).

I don't know almost anything about X3 galaxy editing, I'm reading some docs, looking at the files changed by vokica's mod and then looking at files changed by IEX and the LU patch. Can you give me some directions what I should be looking at and what likely will need changing/tweaking? Or do you think this will turn out to be some really complicated work better left to a professional?

[Moonrat]

Can you give me some directions what I should be looking at and what likely will need changing/tweaking? Or do you think this will turn out to be some really complicated work better left to a professional?

You need to primarily ensure that the map you are modding is after any other map in place and that the mod has access to the IE & IEX files without any other mod. over-writing them by precedence. Then it's mostly a case of changing the suns/planets/backgrounds within vukica's LU map to whatever pleasing effect you are trying to achieve. Look for the following as a starter...

The values in yellow are an offset in each of the following files...

Nebula (TBackgrounds.txt)

• <o t="2" s="19" neb="0" stars="0"/>

Suns (TSuns.txt)

• <o t="3" s="47" x="761575860" y="424569008" z="-1053651701" color="1666650"/>

Planets/Moons etc. (TPlanets.txt)

• <o t="4" s="56" x="-174081151" y="-261848303" z="103997910" color="5614250" fn="0"/>

[dizzy]

Oh, but I'm not planning to edit/create sectors, what I was thinking is using the exact layout that IEX uses for the same sectors (which are now moved around in the "remap" mod universe). Say for "Argon Prime" (which is 1-3 sector index originally) to vukica's Argon Prime which is some other X-Y index. He has added new sectors too and for those I'd have to decide what to do but for any sector that is supposed to represent a sector from the original LU map I want to have the exact same appearance that LUVi would show for that sector (except the gates of course).

Put it simply, if I want to switch the appearance of 2 sectors in IEX, say I want X1-Y1 to look like X2-Y2 and X2-Y2 to look like X1-Y1, what files/fields do I need changed? Keeping it to the minimal number of changes that is

Thanks!

[Moonrat]

Put it simply, if I want to switch the appearance of 2 sectors in IEX, say I want X1-Y1 to look like X2-Y2 and X2-Y2 to look like X1-Y1, what files/fields do I need changed? Keeping it to the minimal number of changes that is :0

In theory then it's the x3_universe.xml map file only, changing the elements I described before?

[JSDD]

Put it simply, if I want to switch the appearance of 2 sectors in IEX, say I want X1-Y1 to look like X2-Y2 and X2-Y2 to look like X1-Y1, what files/fields do I need changed? Keeping it to the minimal number of changes that is

... it should work if you start a new game, but if you want to make those changes in your current savegame, you have to reload a new map (file) which contains your desired changes
that is because the x3_universe.xml will only be loaded at a new gamestart (that means it describes only the universe state at time 0)
another way to make those changes in your current save game is to use the mission director

example to swap argon prime & kingdom end bachgrounds:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="director.xsl" type="text/xsl" ?>
<director name="test" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="director.xsd">
  
  <cues>
    
    <cue version="1" name="change_sector_background">
      <action>
        <do_all>
          <find_sector name="this.sector1" x="1" y="3" exact="0"/>
          <find_sector name="this.sector2" x="0" y="0" exact="0"/>
          <do_if value="{sector.exists@this.sector1}" exact="1">
            <do_if value="{sector.exists@this.sector2}" exact="1">
              <!--get sector background IDs ...-->
              <set_value name="this.sector1bg" exact="{sector.background@this.sector1}"/>
              <set_value name="this.sector2bg" exact="{sector.background@this.sector2}"/>
              <!--swap sector backgrounds ...-->
              <alter_sector sector="this.sector1" background="{value@this.sector2bg}"/>
              <alter_sector sector="this.sector2" background="{value@this.sector1bg}"/>
              <incoming_message text="... {sector.name@this.sector1} and {sector.name@this.sector2} swapped backgrounds ..."/>
            </do_if>
          </do_if>
        </do_all>
      </action>
    </cue>

  </cues>
  
</director>

you can also change sector music / size (map size when pressing ".") / population / security level
but if you are currently in the sector which music you want to change the game will freeze !! it works only if you are OOS ...

[dizzy]

Thanks JSDD, eventually I decided against using the remap+IEX for my LU stream and just went with this: LUV 1.5.2 + IEX/LUVi 1.5b + various LU game starts + my own Small Improvements and Fixes (obviously ) + Phanon Plus + Revelation Plus.

So far so good, everything seems to work fine. Moonrat, you mentioned you are making some IEX updates for the next release, some especially geared for LU users, will those require a restart? I already streamed the first episode of this new series and would rather not have to do that.

[Spectre01]

Kinda have problem with the mod on AP.

I'm using XRM+TC plot for AP. By following your instruction, I installed IE's cat file (right after the official 4 cat files), follow by your IEX, then XRM 1 and XRM 2 cats, and TC-AP plot cat, and finally XRMi-TCAP cat. Everything seems ok so far, but in Terran sectors, there's this huge orange glow presents in every sectors: http://i.imgur.com/aUM6unx.jpg (on the right). I don't know what's causing this, I don't think I have other cat file mods after XRMi-TCAP that are related to sector backgrounds. I've tried a new game start and the glow is still there, makes the Sol system seems like to have two suns.

[-XeNoN-]

Kinda have problem with the mod on AP.

I'm using XRM+TC plot for AP. By following your instruction, I installed IE's cat file (right after the official 4 cat files), follow by your IEX, then XRM 1 and XRM 2 cats, and TC-AP plot cat, and finally XRMi-TCAP cat. Everything seems ok so far, but in Terran sectors, there's this huge orange glow presents in every sectors: http://i.imgur.com/aUM6unx.jpg (on the right). I don't know what's causing this, I don't think I have other cat file mods after XRMi-TCAP that are related to sector backgrounds. I've tried a new game start and the glow is still there, makes the Sol system seems like to have two suns.

I have EXACTLY the same problem but that glow big ball to the right should be the sun from IEX and the one to the left is vanilla one, during IEX development it should've been removed. W8 for author to respond im poisitve at next patch this will be fixed also.

[Spectre01]

Hmmm, since Moonrat hasn't responded to this thread for some time, I'm wondering if any one can give me some pointer to remove those glow myself. I kinda lost at whether I should dig in tsun, tbackground, or lensflares.

[Moonrat]

I have updated the IEX compatibility patch for Litcube's Universe to reflect the latest changes in version 1.6.1 ...

LUV (1.6.1)

• A small 'fake' patch is required to experience IEX with the latest version of Litcube's Universe (LUV 1.6.1), this is called LUi and can be found here or here.
  
  Unpack the zip file and then order the cat/dat files as follows:
  
  For LUV (AP only) in the 'addon' folder...
  • 01-04 EGOSOFT stuff
    05-09 LUV
    10 IE
    11 IEX
    12 LUi
  A new gamestart is recommended. Please let me know of any issues and/or any other feedback on this thread.

This new release contains the following fixes to reflect LU 1.6.1 :

• Addition of Nexus Miner (map change)
  Light of Heart - Change of Miner type (map change)

[enenra]

Hey Moonrat,

One thing that just came to mind regarding your experimenting with planets and their shaders: Spec maps on planets. Add a higher specularity to oceans. That will hopefully result in a nice sun-reflection-effect on the oceans (but not on the landmasses).

This here shows that effect nicely: https://glittering.blue/

I've also realized that the fades on planets which simulate the atmosphere are generally way too broad. At the same time they don't really cover the transition from the "end" of the sphere of the planet properly making it look kinda bad. Hm.

[Moonrat]

Hmmm, since Moonrat hasn't responded to this thread for some time, I'm wondering if any one can give me some pointer to remove those glow myself. I kinda lost at whether I should dig in tsun, tbackground, or lensflares.

Apologies for the appallingly slow service... looking at the posts it seems to be that may be the XRMi-TCAP mod might be interfering with the sector design by succeeding the IEX/XRMi map file with it's own... and the background (with the orange glow) is being used instead of the one with the "Milky Way" in it?

The unfortunate issue here is the XRMi-TCAP mod is not mine (at the moment) to fix. Have you tried contacting the author?

[Spectre01]

Oh, so the problem is with XRMi-TCAP...

Guess I will poke around in it and see what I can find.

edit: so that glow is suppose to be a picture of the milky way in the IEX? Are the code that control this sort of thing in x3_universe.pck? Could you show me a small example in your IEX version of x3_universe so I can see how the "milky way" code is suppose to look? I will try fixing it myself due to the XRMi-TCAP's author hasn't been on this board since 6 months ago.

[Moonrat]

Oh, so the problem is with XRMi-TCAP...

Guess I will poke around in it and see what I can find.

edit: so that glow is suppose to be a picture of the milky way in the IEX? Are the code that control this sort of thing in x3_universe.pck? Could you show me a small example in your IEX version of x3_universe so I can see how the "milky way" code is suppose to look? I will try fixing it myself due to the XRMi-TCAP's author hasn't been on this board since 6 months ago.

I've played about with this for a short while and the XRMi-TCAP map uses the same background (60 - xtmearth) in Terran sectors as does native IEX/XRMI so I'm not sure the issue is there... however IEX "xtmearth" uses a new texture called "solarsystem2_tp*_rl*" replacing the original called "solarsystem_tp*_rl*", this 2nd texture was replaced in connary's IE mod with that yellow glow ball texture instead of the original Milky Way... so I am wondering if your cat/dats are in the correct order? It might explain why all the Terran sectors have reverted to the yellow glow ball (back in IE 1.1) rather than an updated object / texture supplied by my IEX?

Can you please drop me a note stating what you have at each numeric position and where you might have got it from?