"With version 1.2, we offer support for Scenario Packs and Scenarios"

[MarkG]

That's a sentence from Steve Mariotti on new scenario support in patch 1.2
I'm going to posting the full thing in a while



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Markos, Apolyton Civilization Site

[MarkG]

I haven't added these news in the main ctp page yet, but here is the actual info http://apolyton.net/ctp/news/scen12.shtml

[DOGFISH]

I read the above posting but, sorry, I'm just not excited by this. Maybe the last thing that was supposed to make it easy for people to customize CTP (makespr), has made me wary of the things they choose to release.
I guess what comes to mind is that once again, we'll all be doing beta for them. How many new bugs will we encounter, and how many hours stumbling around in the dark because of poor documentation...? Well enough negativity... it's a most welcome thing and we'll all rise to the challenge, adapt, and overcome.
Dogfish

[Evan von Christoph]

Finally, the game will be worth playing!

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Die Vereinigten Staaten müssen leiden, weil sie der Welt geschadet haben!

Tod regiert im ersten Teil des einundzwanzigsten Jahrhunderts!

General Feld Marschall von Christoph
Oberster Kommandant des T.T. (Truppen des Todes)

[Owlboy]

Ok, so that's not really the response I was hoping for, exactly.

I realize that makespr wasn't what some users were hoping for, and that's precisely why it wasn't shipped in the box. It really was just a light, easy to maintain utility that worked beautifully with SoftImage to take our models and make unit sprites out of them. We offered it as-is.

Of course, there's room in the user community for a full-on sprite editor too, though none of us at Activision have the need for one ourselves. So I'd like to offer to work loosely with one of you who has the inclination to make a user friendly sprite editor that more CTP players can enjoy.

Steve

[Harlan]

Hi Owlboy,
I take it from your offer that you're an official CTP person. Welcome. Sorry, we're not a very complimentary bunch. Many also are waiting to see what else the second patch contains and evaluating it as a whole, cos if this is it, people will be let down after waiting all this time.

Just the same, the scenario functionality is welcome, and the full on sprite editor idea is welcome too. I don't know how to program a lick myself, but I have used the sprite editor alot, and I made a how-to text file on making sprites, so I thought I'd list here what I'd like to see a complete sprite editor have, if anyone is listening.

First off, a way to break a sprite file down into tifs. If this isn't possible, simply posting the tif files that came with the game would do the same thing. Many were disappointed that the makespr program only works one way- there is no way to tweak a CTP unit a bit, and then resave it. As long as someone is at it collecting files, it would be nice to have the unused sprites made public as well. I've asked this lots of times, and every time I get a response of "soon". Its soon already!

Second, a way to edit the terrain, public works images and other art that is currently off limits. Without terrain editing, scenario making is going to be heavily constrained. No space scenarios for instance. I noticed there are only one or two megahuge files where all the terrain info is presumably stored, but maybe there could be some kind of workaround.

A windows type interface, instead of DOS! Please.

A series of options on what kind of graphic you're making. There would be a menu and you would select if the art is going to be a city image, unit image, etc... If its a unit, one could have the further suboptions of a one facing unit, 5 facing unit, full on animated unit. If the one facing unit was selected, the program would automatically make four copies to fulfill the minimum requirements of the game. I don't think anyone has made a one facing unit yet- the casual users have been frightened away.

Have the editor deal with alpha channels! Alpha channels are a big pain in the butt, and could be fully automated. Alpha channels are probably the number one reason people are afraid to make sprites. People should be able to have a file without any alpha channel, then the program would search for pure black, and make an alpha channel accordingly without the user even having to know what an alpha channel is.

From a user perspective, there shouldn't be a need for a seperate shadow file either. Simply have pure white represent the background, and pure black represent the shadow. The program would take care of the rest.

If the above were implemented, that would truly be something great. People could simply grab an image of appropriate size, click a few buttons in the sprite editor, and voila, a new sprite!

Am I pipedreaming, or could a "full-on sprite editor" look something like this?

[TP]

Steve,


I might now be in danger of extremely annoying flaming or loosing my harddrive (if one of those who do not like the following lines belong to the hacker community), but I honestly ask myself whether there is really a need for a user-friendly sprite editor.

Ok, makespr is not actually one of the easiest tools available, however people are able to work with (more and more sprites are making their way in the download area). It took me personally 2 days for my very first sprite but only 2 hours for the remaing ones I wanted to do (only the 5 facings)

People just have to use a bit more of their brains which is good in these times where brains are sometimes a bit too often in off-mode.


TP


*Don't hit me pleeeeeeeeease*
*If you want to flame me, feel free. I will simply ignore it*

[Atahualpa]

Well, TP, an integrated 3D animation program would be a little better I think
Seriously, I think CTP is getting better with every patch, this is the most customizable game I have ever seen. And the idea with scenarios and modpacks is just great. I always hated to overwrite hundreds of files in CivII (of course there was a editor, but it was in english and restored the txt files instead of the ger ones).

The game has just left the programmers hands

So, they worked on it all silently
Wonder if international versions will be released the same day as the US version.

ATa

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if something is easy, something is wrong

when I do bad things it is called mad, but when god does bad things it is called nature
-- the devil

[DOGFISH]

Hi Owlboy,

Sorry about kicking makespr before... It's not the working of makespr that irk's me it is the lack of documentation and poor examples. Read my thread that started out as a Paint Shop Pro question. Why, if makespr only supports victory/death in one facing were the cow tiffs included as an example? The cow had 5 death facings with 17 images per... and shadows. It takes a lot of time to make all the images for an animated sprite, as you know, run makespr, then game test. Finding out the undocummented things about makespr was a pain, ie one death facing and one idle facing, and attack_directional and...
Anyway we're through that and it's documented. If you or anyone has better doc's and or/examples for makespr the would be appreciated.
From my point of view, having done animations in every sequence available, move attack,death,idle and work, more than any other improvement, I would like an editor that can display the sprite without having to gametest it... Gametesting after having done hours of production is another pain... if an editor could display the different animation sequences by choice I wouldn't care if it ran in Windows, DOS, CPM, or if you needed a commodor 64 to use it.
Again sorry about my negativity before...

Dogfish

[MarkG]

to be exact, Owlboy is Steve Mariotti, CTP's Lead Programmer

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Markos, Apolyton Civilization Site

[Atahualpa]

So why does he then have Junior Civer Status and not Activision Status?

ATa

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if something is easy, something is wrong

when I do bad things it is called mad, but when god does bad things it is called nature
-- the devil

[Gregurabi]

Well, I must say that I'm extremely pleased to hear that CTP 1.2 will offer proper scenario and modpack support.

Some people have commented that CD's mod would be more popular if installation (and deinstallation, and coexistence of mods) were simpler. Well, OK, installation is pretty simple already -- but it's one way. If you install a mod to CTP 1.1, you have to overwrite the original data files. That's bad -- it means you can basically have only one mod at a time, or the original game.

But 1.2 will allow players to install multiple mods/scenarios simultaneously and switch between them at will. It also protects the integrity of the original files. These are good things.

Now, if Loki Games continues their good work on the Linux port, they'll ensure that scenarios/mods may be installed in private user home directories, without the need to give end-users write permission to the game installation. Loki's done a very good job in porting CTP to the multi-user environment so far, so I have confidence that they'll keep it up. :-)

[Harlan]

Hey TP,
I'll be happy to flame you! Not really flame, but heartily disagree. Obviously from your other work, you are a computer programmer and so you're used to DOS programs and things like Makespr. Casual users have been scared off by Makespr though. I know no less than 4 people who were keen on making graphics for CTP but gave up on the idea when they saw Makespr. Sadly, they gave up on the entire game as a matter of fact. More Civ2 scenario makers I know never got the game in the first place because of their impression that making graphics for it (and thus good scenarios) is too hard.

Not only would it bringing graphics editing to the non-experts, a better sprite editor would also save a ton of time. I've made over 20 sprites now, and I'd guess at least half of my work is unnecessary drudgery that I have to do because of the failings of the Makespr program. For instance, what DOGFISH mentioned, gametesting. And if the alpha channel hasn't been set correctly for even one pixel, I have to redo all the alpha channels for that sprite.

What on earth are you thinking? Do you enjoy wasting your time and getting frustrated? Why wouldn't you want an easier program to use???

By the way, what are these graphics you've made that took you mere minutes to do? Have they been posted yet?

[Owlboy]

Actually, the statement that to play new datafile mods with version 1.1 requires replacing the original data files is incorrect. You can, but only when playing from a saved game. If you build the proper data hierarchy in the folder where the game is saved, the data files there will override the default data files in ctp_data. You cannot, however, play on a random map with user-modified datafiles with 1.1 without overwriting the files in ctp_data.

Thanks for your collective thoughts on makespr and the need for a GUI-based tool. I think a GUI based tool would be useful for testing, as someone pointed out, but would also lower the barrier of entry for unit graphics.

If someone who does content creation for CTP is interested, I'm willing to work with them and give them specs to create a GUI based sprite editor for the user community.

Steve


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Lead Programmer
Civ:CTP

[MarkG]

testing...