Civ2gfx: a civ2 tileset for Freeciv

[MarkG]

by Marco Tarini, sent to me by CapTVK

Civ2gfx is a tileset for Freeciv (see www.Freeciv.org for more info about Freeciv).

Using this tileset you can have a look-and-feel that resembles Microprose Civilization II in your Freeciv game.

Since most of the used images are copyrighted by Microprose, they are not distributed with this package; instead, you need to convert them (just use the provided script). This means that you can use this tileset only if you own a copy of Microprose Civilization II. You also need the default tileset for Freeciv, trident.

The tileset is PNG based; this means it can be used with the Windows native Freeciv client. The X-based clients (Cygwin, Unix) normally use tilesets in XPM format; a script to create them would be similar to the script supplied here.

[Sava]

Markos, I think there is a problem. I can't download the file!

[MarkG]

platform and browser?

[CapTVK]

For comparison I did a quick pair of screenshots. This is with the standard Hires set:

P.S
I've used the most recent version of the native windows client (29-apr- 2002).

[CapTVK]

This one is with the civ2gfx tileset.


P.S I've used my personal Civ2 mod set for the screenshot. If you look closely you'll see that the coastline is identical to the hires one.

[CapTVK]

This thread is also meant to adress any questions, issues, bugs..etc. about civ2gfx. If you find anything wrong or came up with a solution please post about it. The more feedback we receive, the better.

[Maquiladora]

When i use the flag option --tiles civ2gfx_flags, the flags show normally but when i use the no flag option i get some strange graphic where the flag would normally be.

[geoffrey arnold]

Mate is this 1.14.0 beta 3 compatable becouse when I set the tile set to this one my client crashes every time i try to start up freeciv . what a bummer.

[geoffrey arnold]

Its ok worked it out hadent gotten all the giff files from the civ2 folder it works now but ive got the same prob as the guy above with the civ2 flags hope you can work out a fix this looks good.

[CapTVK]

Hmm, I've seen this problem before and there was a workaround. I'll have to look it up.

[CapTVK]

Well found it, buried deep in an archive of my mail folder...

You'll have to tweak the flags.spec files a bit to make it work. Haven't tested this with 1.14 however.

Thank you for noticing the glitch...

I know where does it come from. The fact is, in order to position the shield accurately on top of the unit. I had to use _negative_ offset values in the shield specification
(that is the "x_top_left" on the spec file). Now, this is a hack, but it worked so far.

It seems that the client you used to make the snapshot behaves a little worse with negative offsets. The problem can be solved in different ways:

1) simply put the offset to 0 ("x_top_left=0") in the file shields.spec. This should solve it on any client, but would also move the shield 12 pixels on the right in the game, which looks bad, very bad!
It would also take to readjust the "shadow shield", the little extruding part of the shield that is used when more than one unit is stacked.

2) put the offset to 0 ("x_top_left=0") AND add 12 columns of empty black pixels at the left of the image "shields.png". This also solves the problem, and leaves the graphics as it should be. The "shield.png" file must be duplicated, enlarged with the 12 pixels, and included in the "Civ2gfx" package (also in the "shield.spec" file the line <> must be updated with <> of course). The only thing is that this way the CivIIgfx set would need a custom shield.png files, which means that every time someone will add some new shield it will take to manually adapt the file again...

3) adapt the client code to behave correctly with negative offset value (making it assume transparent all the pixels outside the image, in particular, the ones with negative coordinates).

Don't know if option 3 has been solved since but 1 & 2 should work.

[DarbyCrash]

ok, I installed the windows port of this game, but when I start it up, the freeciv logo, with the world, look cut up, with the bottom half sliced to the left, another piece to the right, and so on. and the in game graphics are all kinda screwy looking. Can anyone help me out?

I run on windows 98 se
and a
geforce 2 mx video card

[Yog-Sothoth]

I have converted the script to run under linux. It's seems to convert the files ok, but when i try to run "civclient --tiles civ2gfx" I get this error:

civclient: ../../client/tilespec.c:516: tilespec_lookup_sprite_tags: Assertion `sprites.road.dir[i] != ((void *)0)' failed.
Aborted

I've tried with both png and xpm files.

Y-S

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Yog-Sothoth
I have converted the script to run under linux. It's seems to convert the files ok, but when i try to run "civclient --tiles civ2gfx" I get this error:

civclient: ../../client/tilespec.c:516: tilespec_lookup_sprite_tags: Assertion `sprites.road.dir[i] != ((void *)0)' failed.
Aborted

I've tried with both png and xpm files.

Y-S

You didn't have to reconvert script, it originated from Linux . The original can be found here:

http://arch.freeciv.org/freeciv-dev-200103/msg00245.html

I guess you're using the CVS. There have been some changes in the isotrident which cause this.

Change which caused this:

date: 2001/09/14 07:35:09; author: rfalke; state: Exp; lines: +18 -19
Remove DIR_D[XY]2 and it's only user. The road and rail sprites in
isometric tilesets are now indexed by symbolic names in the
specfile. In the code the array is now indexed by DIR_D[XY].

Solution: perform changes like this on the spec file:

Index: terrain1.spec
================================================== =================
RCS file: /home/freeciv/CVS/freeciv/data/hires/terrain1.spec,v
retrieving revision 1.3
retrieving revision 1.4
diff -u -r1.3 -r1.4
--- terrain1.spec 2001/04/17 22:01:40 1.3
+++ terrain1.spec 2001/09/14 07:35:09 1.4
@@ -89,26 +89,25 @@
10, 3, "ts.whales"
10, 5, "ts.horses"

+;roads
+ 11, 1, "r.road_n"
+ 11, 2, "r.road_ne"
+ 11, 3, "r.road_e"
+ 11, 4, "r.road_se"
+ 11, 5, "r.road_s"
+ 11, 6, "r.road_sw"
+ 11, 7, "r.road_w"
+ 11, 8, "r.road_nw"

-;roads - we follow the the numbering of the DIR_D[XY] arrays
- 11, 1, "r.road0"
- 11, 2, "r.road1"
- 11, 3, "r.road2"
- 11, 4, "r.road3"
- 11, 5, "r.road4"
- 11, 6, "r.road5"
- 11, 7, "r.road6"
- 11, 8, "r.road7"
-
-;rails - we follow the the numbering of the DIR_D[XY] arrays
- 12, 1, "r.rail0"
- 12, 2, "r.rail1"
- 12, 3, "r.rail2"
- 12, 4, "r.rail3"
- 12, 5, "r.rail4"
- 12, 6, "r.rail5"
- 12, 7, "r.rail6"
- 12, 8, "r.rail7"
+;rails
+ 12, 1, "r.rail_n"
+ 12, 2, "r.rail_ne"
+ 12, 3, "r.rail_e"
+ 12, 4, "r.rail_se"
+ 12, 5, "r.rail_s"
+ 12, 6, "r.rail_sw"
+ 12, 7, "r.rail_w"
+ 12, 8, "r.rail_nw"

;add-ons
4, 7, "tx.farmland"

Raimar

I guess it's time for the script and Civ2gfx to be updated.

[Yog-Sothoth]

Originally posted by CapTVK
You didn't have to reconvert script, it originated from Linux . The original can be found here:

http://arch.freeciv.org/freeciv-dev-200103/msg00245.html

Doh!

Oh well, it took me just a few min anyway