Modifying NAM FLUPs Textures - Tutorial

[rsc204 21,808]

First off, you will need an image editing application, MS Paint is really not ideal, if you want a free application, your best bet is GIMP which is open source. In addition, you will need a copy of GoFSH, "the Swiss Army Knife" of SC4 texturing:

Since I have textures all over the place, I've put together a small repository (attached). Using GoFSH, a lot of the work can be automated. Don't mess with the directory structure of the texture repository, extract it as-is or you'll quickly run into problems.

Because I'm responding to a user request from @Handyman, I'll focus briefly on how to remove the manhole/grilles on these textures. But you could edit these in many different ways, depending on your requirements.

Using the supplied script, select the "Run Script" option in GoFSH, it will re-compile a ready-to-use override DAT, with minimal effort. You simply need to edit the textures beforehand... in fact, it's easier than that for about 90% of them, thanks to something called Definition Alphas.

In the example above, it shows a "texture pair". The imagine on the left is the SC4 Texture (Straight Road FLUP), the image on the right is the Definition Alpha. It's easy to identify them, the first ends in -C0.bmp, the latter in -D0.bmp.

 See the small white holes on the edges (circled in red - far right)?  The white parts are ignored (i.e. it doesn't modify that part of the texture), which you need to change. Just edit the D0 texture and fill that gap with the correct colour, Green for Sidewalk or Cyan for grass. When you run the script afterwards, it will replace the grates with sidewalk instead, without any further effort.

Just be careful to get the right shade, these are based on RGB values:

• Green = 0,255,0
• Cyan   = 0,255,255

This might sound more complex than it is... but you just need to use the Eyedropper tool (or equivalent) to pick up the colour from the existing image.

This works when the gill covers the sidewalk/grass area. But for some textures where the gill is part of the texture itself, you'll need to edit the actual texture to remove it. Is essence, find a texture without the grill in that spot, place that over the original as a new layer, remove any excess parts you don't need on this layer, and save the new file.

NAM FLUPs Repository.zip

[Handyman 765]

Thanks again rsc204, definitely gives me something to chew on. I am very familiar with Gimp as I have been using Open Source software for many years including my operating system(Ubuntu Gnome). I have SC4 running in Wine with Play On Linux as a front end. I will try to get the GoFSH tool running, hopefully that won't be too painful, but I have never dealt with .net before so fingers crossed.

[rsc204 21,808]

Ah, yes I hadn't thought about non-windows users... still with all the improvements in Wine over the years, I'd imagine it can be made to work. Without GoFSH, you are stuck with doing this the old way and manually converting/packaging the textures after editing them. Not to mention, you wouldn't be able to utilise the Definition Alphas, which would speed this task up considerably.

[Handyman 765]

Well kudos to PoL (PlayonLinux) for the great job they have done, they made that pretty easy. I  have GoFSH and Blender running and have played with it a bit. Thanks for the zips.

Correction : GoFSH and Bender

[rsc204 21,808]

That's useful to know. Feel free to ask if you get need any further help. .

[Handyman 765]

Just an update. I have been working with GoFSH every chance I've had and have now completed one set of textures(grass) without grilles. I put these in a .dat  and tried them in my plugins folder. Now when I choose FLUPs underground route pedmall (grass) it shows the grilles until I plop it and the grilles are gone. Of course there was a lot of hit and miss in between but I am happy with the progress so far. Thanks, to rsc204, for all your help and the zips certainly gave me a leg up in the process. I'm sure I will have more questions for you as I work my way through the rest of the textures on my list.

[rsc204 21,808]

Since you seem to be getting the hang of things, I'll just explain how to get the textures in case it's helpful in future.

The hardest part here is knowing where to find a given texture, although the file names of the DATs in the NAM help, sometimes it's not obvious. Im which case\ feel free to ask, I know first hand how long it can take to find one, but have probably as much experience as anyone has ever had with game/NAM textures through my exposure to them.

In GoFSH simply click on FSHxDAT and find/open the DAT file. You can view the textures in a file with thumbnails if you click "Tex". Then you can select one or more textures you wish to export. It will export them as FSH files to the folder you choose. Then back from the main window in GoFSH use the "Decode" option to convert the FSH files into BMPs as C0 / A0 pairs. The key difference over the files I gave you are that A0 files are just regular Alphas (define transparency, where used). Making D0 or definition alphas needs to be done manually, although it can be automated, I won't get into that here though. However this process ensures the files you export are ID'd correctly and it's then real easy to get them back into the game.

To re-import your edited textures, can be done either through the scripting system, otherwise you can use the "Encode" option. Selecting to create a "Reader InList" will allow you to use FSHxDAT once more to take the newly compiled (encoded) FSH files and make a DAT automatically.

All these functions are explained in much more detail within the included user manual.

[Handyman 765]

Still working away, learning a lot about GoFSH, and I have used your (rsc204) tip for looking through the dat files with the tex selection. Thanks. I have removed the grilles from some of the FLUPs Pedmalls and have replaced the textures on some of them and some of the NAM Pedmalls. I am now running out of original files to replace and I wonder if there is a way to add to the originals instead of replacing them.

[rsc204 21,808]

That gets a lot more complicated, but it's technically possible. I should also point out, for such things to work, you'll need dedicated code in the NAM controller files. As such, you couldn't release these files, unless they were included in the NAM. Technically you can, but it requires users can make a custom NAM controller, put simply, not the most practical idea.

The basics of what you need to make are called puzzle pieces. The hard part is the RUL code to add them into the menu system. I don't want to put you off, just make it clear that this is a big undertaking, if you've never made such pieces before. That said, within reason I can help you out here. A proper tutorial exists here. Sadly, the part that creates the actual piece or S3D (Pt 5 - Puzzle Piece Maker) is no longer online. But you can copy/paste existing models to get around that, should you get that far, I'll help you out there.

Which pieces/networks were you considering adding? Perhaps we can do some joint development here? I've wanted to add STR support for example, I'm certainly open to a collaboration where I could help more with the technical aspects.

FLUPs development, officially speaking, is on a hiatus whilst we revise the implementation, but these things can take a terribly long time. As such, I couldn't guarantee any additions would be considered for inclusion with the NAM, but it's a possibility.

[Silur 3,304]

I work with NAM 34 и с zzz_MGB Mods for Maxis and Great PEGASUS. This is excellent for me. 

[Handyman 765]

Well, rsc204, that proposal is very interesting to me. Winter is coming and I will need another challenge to keep me away from the tv. I will see how well I do with this new info then go from there.

Basically, for the last few years, my focus has been cities with sidewalks and mass transit only. The challenge has been, satisfying the residential requirements. Everything else is happy to live on NAM Pedmalls but residential needs a road that connects to almost anything else (except residential). Over time I discovered that FLUPs underground route Pedmalls will satisfy the road requirement, as long as you run it past a qualifying building. More recently I found that subway/underground rail junction Pedmalls qualify as a connection, even if you don't connect subway or rail to them.

While these methods are a means to an end, they are kludgey and awkward to use.

I would like to add more Pedmalls, that will satisfy the requirements,  for residential. Also a way to add more texture selections.

Draggable Pedmall/ Pedmall bridges.

Better single track rail

There other minor things regarding underground rail and FLUPs underground routes.

Anyway, that's kind of where I'm at currently.

Off to check out your new challenge. Thanks again.

 

[Handyman 765]

Update:

I have had a bit of a struggle installing SC4Tools in Wine. The "Read Me" states that SC4Tools requires dotNet 1.1 be installed. This is easy enough to do with PoL , so after that and then installing SC4Tools I tried to run it but it caused this error " Failed to delay load library mscorlib.dll(Win32 error:0)". It took quite a bit of digging to find enough info to tell me the error was caused by dotNet 1.1. On a lark I decided to try dotNet 2.0-sp2 and it worked perfectly. So now I can finally start going through the tutorial suggested by rsc204.

Hopefully this info will help other Linux users.

Currently running on Ubuntu Gnome 14.04, using Wine 1.6.2 with PoL (PlayonLinux)