Help with Terrain Mod

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

I am attempting to install a terrain mod for the first time. I downloaded the Appalachian Terrain Mod by Lowkee33 but after installing I see no difference in my ground and mountain side textures. No snow and the cliffs are like default. I tried choosing the various options but no change. I also installed all the dependencies. I feel like I missed something and am having a hard time figuring it out. I think I read somewhere about hight limitations and tweaks, does that have something to do with it? Do I have to do something special to SC4 aside from installing the mod? When looking in terraformer, the highest peak in my region is 917m (don't know if that matters). Any help is appreciated.

  Edited May 5, 2012 by Mr_Maison  

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Okay I got somewhere. My resolution was 1024x768. I noticed the textures for the mod are 1024x1024 and changed my resolution to 1280x1024 and I can now see the textures intended by the mod.

[GMT 389]

uhm... the screen resolution has nothing to do with the texture resolution, you can look at a texture of 99999x999999 on a cga resolution (320x200). So I don't quite see the relation between your problem and changing from xga to sxga resolution.

did you open the city tiles and save to see the changes in region view in the first place? (remember: region view is just a mosaic of pictures, not an actual view onto the city)

apart from putting it in the right folder, which I guess you did, all you gotta do is playing a city tile to see the new texture.

I just gave this thig a try and didn't run into problems at xga resolution with this mod...

[fatschmo 6]

Make sure you got the beach cliff and water textures? I only used the cliff textures, and it worked for me, I hope you have success, because the mod you are talking about it is very nice and high qaulity.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Thanks for your replies. I do have the cliff, beach and water textures installed. I think that's all I'm seeing though. I took the mod out the plugins folder and left the textures and see no difference. If I only put the mod and its dependency, what should I be looking at? Another question is how do I know if my mountains are high enough to show the snowcaps? Is there a way to see how high the terrain is by looking at some data?

I also had some CTD but unsure of what caused it. I know it is relevant to the mod in question.

@GMT: I did all that you suggested before I made this thread. Thanks for clearing the resolution issue up for me though.

  Edited May 6, 2012 by Mr_Maison  

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

You only see the cliff, beach and water texture files? Where is the actual Terrain Texture file itself? Without that the mod is useless.

  Edited May 6, 2012 by Indiana Joe  

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

You only see the cliff, beach and water texture files? Where is the actual Terrain Texture file itself? Without that the mod is useless.

I installed the terrain texture. swapped out the terrain mod folder and compared the grass and I do see a difference. I am now thinking my mountain ranges are not high enough to see the snow. My region is custom made from a greyscale image. I used some pretty bright grey values for the mountains in photoshop so I am a little lost on how to get the terrain higher if that's what I have to do.

[Lowkee33 5]

Thanks for the comliment there, fatschmo

Mr_Maison, I think that most every question you have is answered in the readme (also note the link to the thread that is dedicated to this mod).

The only question that isn't answered there is: "Is there a way to see how high the terrain is by looking at some data?". You need the extra-cheat mod, then hit Shift-Ctrl-Alt-X (in-game), and type "terrainquery" (no quotes). Your mayor mode query will now display terrain information (x,y,z coordinates), the y value is altitude.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Thanks for the comliment there, fatschmo

Mr_Maison, I think that most every question you have is answered in the readme (also note the link to the thread that is dedicated to this mod).

The only question that isn't answered there is: "Is there a way to see how high the terrain is by looking at some data?". You need the extra-cheat mod, then hit Shift-Ctrl-Alt-X (in-game), and type "terrainquery" (no quotes). Your mayor mode query will now display terrain information (x,y,z coordinates), the y value is altitude.

Thank you Lowkee33. Nice mod by the way, thank you. I'm sure it's worth all the challenge I'm going through. You are responsible for my first ever terrain mod installment (been playing since 2003). I did go to your thread before I came here. Guess I was being impatient or wanted my questions to get more exposure.

I have the terrain mod working now.....it's a keeper for me. I just have to continue to figure out how to make my mountains higher. I can see snow but barely I think because I need more altitude. I'm not simply making random mountains, I'm trying to sculpt them to particular forms based on my paintings. Any tips or am I wasting my time?

  Edited May 7, 2012 by Mr_Maison  

[Lowkee33 5]

Use the "snow" option, but not the "high" option, and snow should appear around 750 meters.

I guess you have two options, 1) alter your greyscale image be brighter (higher), or 2) alter a property using reader. I think reader would be much easier, and you can get the snowline to be anywhere you want.

Open the file "LK_AppalachianTerrain_Snow.dat" (or whatever controller you are using), and find the Terrain Properties Exemplar. There is a property "Temperature Range Factor" (which would be set to .14). The lower it is, the lower the snow line will be. In fact, this is the only difference between the default and "high" options. High has this set to .33.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

I installed the High Altitude Patch. It seems to be different files for specific terrains. In the readme it says this mod can be used with any mountainous map. I am a lttle confused on how this mod works because it has 12 files to choose from and all I want to do is get my mountains higher. I tried the Columbus Snowcapped Normal and it seemed to make my terrain lower for some reason. Where I had higher terrain without grass is green now. Can anyone explain how to use this patch?

[Lowkee33 5]

The high altitude patch increases the Max Altitude to 5000. it is a mod on the Terrain Properties Exemplar, so there needs to be a version for every terrain mod (as they use that exemplar too). So, read the readme and pick the patch that is meant for your terrain mod. If you use my terrain you don't need it because it is already part of the mod.

Your getting confused with high and low. If you want more snow, then you want a lower patch.