How to Modify City Graphics?

[Hassan]

I'm really new at modifying CTP Data(but not civ data!), and I can't find a good explanation of how to modify City sprites in CTP II. The Diamond Age Cities suck, IMO, and I'd just prefer to replace them with the genetic age sprites. Can anyone tell me how to go about this? (Also, can you point me in the right direction, concerning outright creation and implementation of City sprites?) I'm experienced with sprite editing but I'm confused with all the files w/ CTP II.

-Eric (Hassan)

[Immortal Wombat]

You can either edit the sprites by taking screenshots, or somehow else and remaking the sprites as city sprites like units, but a simpler way would be to change the text document to use gentic age sprites instead of diamond ones. Copy/paste the genetic age sprite identification into the diamond age block.
I'm sure someone else could explain this better...

[Hassan]

I've already edited the text to make Diamond Age look like the genetic age. It was really easy, but I don't understand where to find the sprites, and where to put them once I make them. I want the remake the Genetic Age sprites to difrentiate between the Diamond and Genetic Ages in a more subtle way. ie: such as makeing red Diamond Age cities...

[OmniGod]

Also in the database under graphics are the images already cut out just need to be resized and added into a spr file. The link is http://apolyton.net/cgi-bin/ctp2/db/jump.cgi?ID=586

[Immortal Wombat]

The sprites are all in: call to power2/ctp2 data/default/graphics/sprites
however, there is no way to edit these files, so you will have to re-make them from scratch. You will probably have to take screenshots and cut out the bits you want, then make them into sprites again using the spritetool.
I'm not exactly sure of the details of this process, as the documentation is primarily for units, but the readme from the spritetool download should give more help.

[Martin Gühmann]

You can put the cities on an pure black terrain usual I do this.

Just add these lines to the terrain.txt in ..\ctp2_data\default\gamdata\ folder:


TERRAIN_SPECIAL3 {
TilesetIndex 27
Icon ICON_TERRAIN_DESERTS
InternalType: Special
CanDie
GLHidden

EnvBase {
Score 10
Food 0
Shield 0
Gold 5
Defense 0
Movement 200
Freight 100
DeadFood 0
DeadShield 0
DeadGold 0
}

EnvCity {
Score 0
Food 10
Shield 15
Gold 15
Movement 50
Freight 50
}

EnvRiver {
Score 30
Food 5
Shield 5
Gold 5
Movement 50
Freight 50
}

MovementType: Air
MovementType: Land
}

################################################## ##########

Than you can screencapture the city graphics.
It easy to separate them from pure black terrain. And there is no need to resize them they have the correct size. Just put the screenshots into an sprite file but do not foreget the shadows. If you want to make red diamond sprites foreget the images in Apolyton database. Harlan gave us only the city graphics of CTP1 and his own graphics for castle and pyramid style but he foregot graphics for the industrial age.

-Martin

[Hassan]

No, I meant I was going to make red Genetic Age Cities to represent the Diamond Age... That's OK though, I was intending on taking my own screen captures. I want to thank you all for helping me with this. I won't be modifying the graphics this month, but by mid to late April, I'll probably have found the time to edit the graphics. I'll post a message on the forum once I begin my modifications.

-Eric (Hassan) McIntyre