Terrain Themes Mod - Released.

[TPB 563]

Terrain Themes Mod

Hi all, I'm glad to announce that this little project of mine is near completion now live here. 

I'd like to extend my infinite thanks to boformer, BloodyPenguin, hyperdrive_engage, and knighthawkGP for their continued support in my learning process, without whose help this mod would have been a much longer time in the making. If I forgot to thank you I'm sorry, my brain is kind of fried from all the coding... ha! Thank you everyone who helped me!

boformer deserves a special acknowledgement as he went out of his way to give me personalized and thorough assistance with many aspects of the mod, including most of the initial code to show me how to create the theme functionality. He is a the main contributor to this mod. Thank you boformer!

THE MOD

This mod makes it possible to apply Terrain Themes to your game.
You can subscribe to theme mods from the workshop for use with this mod or use the included "Improved Default Themes".
 
"Improved Default Themes" are essentially the default game textures for each biome
except they have been fixed to remove seams and tiling effects, as well as featuring improved 
water surface and foam textures, more realistic colors offsets for Fertile Land, Forest Ground, 
Grass and Water pollution, among other cosmetic fixes.

It also allows you to load any of the default game themes' textures on any map, regardless of biome.

Incompatibilities:

- Environment Colors Changer - this mod manipulates the same color settings and could cause problems/conflicts
- Water Color Changer - this mod manipulates the same color settings and can also cause problems/conflicts
- Terrain Textures Replacer - this mod changes terrain textures and can cause conflicts
- No more purple pollution mods - these mods change pollution colors and can cause conflicts
- Any mod that changes colors, textures, or texture tiling factors.

Definition of terms:

Theme: A package composed of textures, color settings, texture tiling settings and other options
Biome: One of the game's four environment themes: Boreal, Europe, Temperate and Tropical
Texture: Diffuse texture files used by the game's render engine to render terrain
Color/Color Offset: An RGB value used by the game's render engine to alter the look of certain textures depending on several factors, such as the presence of certain resources, pollution, among others.
Tiling: A numerical value that indicates what area of the game field a texture covers.
Level: A loaded Map Editor, Asset Editor or City scene.

What this mod does:

- Adds an options menu that allows you to select terrain theme's you've subscribed to from a drop-down menu
- Features improved default themes for the game's default environment biomes
- Allows you to change themes live while in-game from the options panel, without having to re-load the level
- Works on city, map editor and asset editor
- Saves your theme settings to the save file, automatically applying it next time you load the save(if the theme is still enabled in content manager)}
- Lets you use your favourite map with a different biome's default theme. Love that map but hate the look of the temperate biome? No problem, select your preferred biome theme from the dropdown menu.
- If for some reason you don't like the "Improved Default Themes", you can disable the feature in the options menu, and next time you launch the game it will revert to the default vanilla textures.

While in the main menu:
Select a theme while in the main menu and any level you load will display that theme, as long as that theme is allowed in the level's biome. If it isn't, the "Improved Default Theme" for that level's biome will be loaded.

While a level is loaded:
Use the mod's options panel in-game to easily switch themes, you can load a theme into your current level without having to reload the level, as long as the theme you wish to load is allowed in the current biome. 
If it isn't, it won't even be displayed in the drop-down menu.

I will publish an addon to easily create themes in the coming days, but if you want to look at the info, open this spoiler.

Spoiler

 

- How to create Terrain Themes -

To begin you need to create a simple mod by following this steps:

1. Open notepad or your favourite text editor and write the following:
   
   using ICities;
   namespace YourThemeName
   { 
       public class Mod : IUserMod
       {      
           public string Name
           {
                get { return "Write your theme name here"; }
           }
    
           public string Description
           {
                get { return "Write a short description of your theme here"; }
           }
       }
   }
    
2. Save your file with a .cs file extension using your mod name as the file name, so if your mod is called Southern France Theme save it as:
   
   SouthernFranceTheme.cs
    
3. Create a folder in your "AppData -> Local -> Colossal Order -> Cities_Skylines -> Addons -> Mods" folder and name is the same as your .cs file, so in our case we will create a folder called SoutherFranceTheme
    
4. Open the folder you just created and create another folder named Source inside of it, then move or copy your .cs file to this Source folder.
    
5. Now fire up the game and the game's compiler will create a .dll from your source file. Or you can skip this step and do it later, or whatever.
    
6. In notepad(or your preferred text editor), create a new file, write <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> in the first line and save it as TerrainThemePack.xml in your mod's main folder that we created above(not the Source one, but just outside of it). 
    
7. At this point you can carefully and lovingly create all the textures you wish to personalize in your theme according to the information below. When you're done, put them all in the same mod folder as the xml file from the previous step and continue with the stuff below

You should include as many of the following textures as possible so your theme actually does something. 

Creating good Foam, Water Normal and Cliff/Sand Normal textures is a complicated art that requires a lot of trial and error, and as such I will be providing some for use for anyone who wishes to include them without having to spend hours making them.

Texture types and the file naming convention:         

Type	FileName
Cliff	cliff.png
Grass	grass.png
Sand	sand.png
Gravel	gravel.png
Pavement	pavement.png
Ruined	ruined.png
Oil	oil.png
Ore	ore.png
Foam	waterFoam.png
Water Arrow	waterArrow.png
Water Normal	waterNormal.png
Cliff/Sand Normal	cliffSandNormal.png

XML file theme settings:

I will be making available in due time a second "Theme Creator Mod" that simplifies the process of finding good values to use in your xml file, allowing you to load textures and change colors/tiling factors live in-game without having to reload a city each time, and providing an easy way to auto-generate the xml file for you, however, this info below is still useful to understand what the values are, and in case someone wants to make a mod already before I finish the Creator mod.

    General settings:
    
        <themeName>My Super Awesome Terrain Theme</themeName>  - set the name to be displayed in the drop down menu
        <transparentWater>false</transparentWater>  - allows you to set your theme to have transparent water(like the one you get when using the water tools)
        <biomes boreal="true" europe="true" temperate="true" tropical="true" /> - allows you to restrict your theme to certain biomes, set to false the biomes you don't want your theme to be used in.        

    Color Settings:
    
      Offset: three  float values (R,G,B) from -10 to +10 (can be lower or higher but its not recommended as the resulting color is very ugly in most cases)
      Color: three float values (R,G,B) from 0 to 255 (recommended to stay below or close to 64 for these or the resulting color is very ugly and unrealistic)
    
        <fertileOffset r="2.55" g="3.18" b="1.27" />         - Fertile Land color offset
        <fieldOffset r="0.43" g="-0.53" b="0.35" />          - Farm Field color offset
        <forestOffset r="-1.27" g="-1.27" b="-0.3" />        - Forest Ground color offset        
        <grassDirtyOffset r="1.78" g="-0.51" b="-0.765" />   - Polluted Grass color offset.
        <waterCleanColor r="0" g="22.5" b="22.5" />          - Water color.
        <waterDirtyColor r="39" g="34" b="13" />             - Polluted Water color.
        <waterUnderColor r="255" g="255" b="255" />          - Color of bottom water surface. Changing this changes the overall water by some degree but especially the water near the shore.
    
    Tiling Factors:
    
      This is in game "meters" so 8 is equal to 1x1 cells. A float value from 8 to 1000(can be higher but it probably will look very ugly in most cases unless you use a very high pixel dimension image, shouldn't be lower than 8, and in any case, never 0) This is the game field area a texture covers.
    
        <textureTiling cliff="500" grass="35" gravel="16" oil="30" ore="30" pavement="16" ruined="30" sand="140" />        - Set texture tiling factors.
            
            Cliff default vanilla value is around 400
            Grass default is around 30
            Sand default around 140
            Gravel default is 16
            Pavement default is 16
            Ruined default is around 30
            Oil default is around 30
            Ore default is around 30
            

    Texture Quality:

    This allows you to specify Anisotropic Level and Filter Mode for the textures when they get loaded into the game. AnisoLevels can can be from 1 to 9, FilterModes: Point, Bilinear, and  Trilinear.

        <anisoLevel>5</anisoLevel>
        <filterMode>Bilinear</filterMode>

     

-----------------

           
When you're done with your XML file it should look something like this:

        <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
        <TerrainThemePack>
          <themeName>Southern France</themeName>
          <transparentWater>false</transparentWater>
          <biomes boreal="false" europe="true" temperate="true" tropical="false" />
          <fertileOffset r="2.55" g="3.18" b="1.27" />
          <fieldOffset r="0.43" g="-0.53" b="0.35" />
          <forestOffset r="-1.27" g="-1.27" b="-0.3" />
          <grassDirtyOffset r="1.78" g="-0.51" b="-0.765" />
          <waterCleanColor r="0" g="22.5" b="22.5" />
          <waterDirtyColor r="39" g="34" b="13" />
          <waterUnderColor r="255" g="255" b="255" />
          <textureTiling cliff="500" grass="35" gravel="16" oil="30" ore="30" pavement="16" ruined="30" sand="140" />                                                                                                             <anisoLevel>5</anisoLevel>
          <filterMode>Bilinear</filterMode>
          </TerrainThemePack>

And your mod's folder should look something like this:

When everything is ready, you can go ahead and publish your mod to the workshop, but first wait until I publish this Terrain Themes mod

 

And now some visual candy of the Improved Default Game Themes(subject to change before release):

Keep in mind I don't even have a GPU so the images are probably quite poor compared to the result you'll see with a good GPU ...

Spoiler

Options Menu

Boreal

Europe

Temperate

Tropical

 

 

And that's it for now folks, please let me know what you think, especially regarding the Improved default game textures, I'm probably going to make further tweaks to them before I release the mod so your opinion is very valuable to me

Thanks for reading!

[Cool_Z 1,547]

 

 

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

That's incredible! A mod where you can pick a different terrain type in-game! Does this also mean different pavement types with each particular terrain theme?

[Judazzz 1,936]

Holy "F" this is exciting!

[TPB 563]

That's incredible! A mod where you can pick a different terrain type in-game! Does this also mean different pavement types with each particular terrain theme?

Yep

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Excellent!!!! And thanks for giving us impatient ones a way to do this now until your main course is finished. A big thumbs up!!!

Now all we need is to get at that sky box.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Excellent!!!! And thanks for giving us impatient ones a way to do this now until your main course is finished. A big thumbs up!!!

Now all we need is to get at that sky box.

You forgot the reflection map 

[boformer 3,169]

The cool thing is that you can also bundle a theme with a map. Players just have to subscribe to the theme mod.

[Samness 104]

Oo, nice! Really looking forward to using and abusing this one! 

[TPB 563]

Bad news, I tried moving my installation to SSD drive and I and broke Cities Skylines. Even after reinstalling it back in its original location it doesn't seem to work any more unless I disable workshop, which means I can't publish the mod for now. So I think I will finally install Windows 10 and see if that fixes the problem.

On the plus side, this gave me time to continue working on the companion Theme Creator mod so hopefully once I fix the installation both mods will be released simultaneously

Sorry for the wait and I hope it will be worth it in the end

[dedgren 830]

"❤️ Like this" not (obviously) for the sad news about the computer glitch, but for keeping the eye on the ball and incredible perseverance.  You should, as an aside, get a really good performance kick out of the migration to a SSD.  I did that (put all programs on a separate SSD right before Cities: Skylines was released) and have never looked back.  Beware Windows 10, though.  Unfortunately in many ways it is worth exactly what you pay for it (says the once happy Win 7 Pro user who was more or less forced to upgrade).

Can't wait for the release of your next mod, whatever it is.

 

David

[Turjan 1,048]

Good luck with your computer problems! Those mods look definitely promising.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Good luck dude !!!! Hope you'll solve it all quickly 

[merc187 46]

This is amazing.  I've been manually editing textures and just doing it old fashioned way when I want to change maps which takes a lot of time.  This theme creator is going to be amazing.  Mars themes.  Different colored terrains for different parts of the world.  Maybe instead of white sand we can make black sand beaches?  Possibilities are endless.  Thank you @‌TPB, @‌Boformer, and all the other coders involved - you guys rock!

[TPB 563]

Thanks all for your support

I'm getting close to being done, this time for real I hope.

Some new developments:

• I'm ready to install windows 10 and see if that fixes my issues, just want to finalize these mods in case something goes horribly wrong.
• I've pretty much "finished" both mods. Still some testing and tweaks to do but they seem to be working.
• The Terrain Creator has been converted to a "plugin" of the main mod, which means the main mod will be required to use the creator mod and I was able to considerably reduce the code of the plugin mod, by having it call methods and use fields from the main mod.

Some info about the Theme Creator plugin

This mod allows you to easily create themes for the Terrain Themes mod without having to manually create .cs files or xml files.

To use it, you place your textures into a Textures folder located at the root of the Terrain Themes Creator mod's folder, then you load a city or map, and check how they look. If the textures need further work, you can make changes to them in your favourite image editor, save them, then reload them directly into the game using the Load Texture buttons in the mod's options panel, without having to exit the city or the game. 

You have a bunch of sliders, checkboxes and textfields that let you set all the options for your theme live in-game, from colors to theme restrictions and everything else, again, without having to reload the city or the game.

Once you have a look you are happy with, and all your textures are good to go, you enter the name and description for your new theme mod into the respective text fields, and press the "Save Theme" button, and BOOM, a new Theme is created for you in its own folder in your AppData Mods folder. A xml settings file is created and all the textures are copied to the new theme's folder. A Source folder is also created with a .cs file in it, thus prompting the game's compiler to create the actual .dll file for you.

Once the game recognizes the new theme mod, it is dynamically enabled for you, and added to the Terrain Themes dropdown menu without having to do anything(No need to exit and go to content manager to enable the new theme!). So you can click Save Theme, wait a couple of seconds and then go directly to the Terrain Themes options and select the new theme from the dropdown, all from inside the loaded city! Neato!

No coding required, no xml creation required. All you have to do is make textures and use some sliders and stuff and press a button, and you're ready to publish your theme 

--

 

Sadly I'm pretty new to coding and well..., as I've been told, my mods are a little bit of a "mess", from a programmer's perspective, and by "little bit" I mean huge  However, they seem to work so there you go... I'm doing my best! I have a couple of friends who will be checking them for bad things like stuff that would make you lose FPS and such things. I hope to live up to everyone's expectations.

All right, that's it for now folks, see you again soon and thanks for your patience and your input.

 

[TPB 563]

I've been busy making a handful of themes to release simultaneously with the mod tomorrow as soon as possible, and wanted to share some images with you guys.

Most of these textures were given to me by one awesome person: MrMiyagi. I fixed them all to remove artifacts/tiling effects/seams(a LOT of work), and tweaked colors. I also picked the terrain colors and water colors and other theme settings.. I hope you like the results.

Arabian Nights

This was the first theme I made..

 

Ireland

New Caledonia

Navajo Valley

 

Navajo valley was the toughest to make so far, but I had a lot of fun doing it! Hope you enjoy the sneak preview.

I use real life images from the respective areas as reference for the themes, hopefully they convey the majesty and beauty of the real places to some extent. 

Making these themes was very fun and it allowed me to find some bugs in the Mods and fix them before release, and as a bonus I will now have 5 themes to publish simultaneously to get people started. Yep, there's a 5th I didn't show, surprise! hehehe. Ok, time for me to go to bed, today was a very long day of texturing... my eyes are sore.. haha.

ps. I don't have a graphics card, and they look that nice already, so imagine when you get your hands don them with your top tier GPU, *squeals*.. can't wait to see your screenshots

  Edited December 11, 2015 by TPB  
Ended up being busy with work today, not sure I can publish the mods yet. Sorry.

[TPB 563]

Ok, mod is live now.

Get it on Workshop and do let me know any and all issues you may find. Thanks!

The Theme Creator addon will be next, probably tomorrow.

[dedgren 830]

Clicking to get there as fast as I can!

 

David

[Roadman20 601]

Definitely adding this in right nao!

[gfvsims 169]

Fantastic work, TPB! Thanks so much.