Making Cradle 3+ fully compatible with the Apolyton Edition

[Kull]

Tile Improvements (In-process and Multiple graphics): The "Port", "Trading Post", and "Fortification" are three "early-game" examples of tile improvement which feature "in-process" building graphics. You don't just get the standard "building" graphic (barrels, pile of rubble & stacked lumber) which sits on the map for "x" number of turns until the improvement is completed, but rather can "see" all three of them undergo different phases of construction. Among other things, it's a good reminder of what's being built on that tile (the "mouse hover" tells you nothing), but it's also a pretty cool effect.

Many of the late game improvements are equally generous in that regard, but most of the early game improvements are not. As a result, this latest project created new "in-process" graphics for farms, pastures, advance farms, mines, watchtowers, colonies, townships, shipyards, and even Wonders. Plus some for the modern era as well: Airbase, radar, sonar buoys, listening posts and underwater tunnels.

In addition, I used several of Hex's new farm-type improvements and made them terrain-specific. For example, you can build Advanced Farms (a classical era farming upgrade) on Grassland, Plains, and Desert tiles, and now each one of those has a DIFFERENT on-map graphic (see attachment). This really helps reduce the "everything looks the same" effect.

Lastly, I revised a few of the build buttons. They are only 40x30 pixels, and when you try to represent a complex improvement like a colony or township, well....not good. The result is two buttons that look nearly identical. The solution was to select the most prominent building from each improvement (a tower from the colony and a temple from the township), and it's now a much cleaner look.

[Kull]

"Updater.slc" Bug Fix: As I reported way back in Post #10, the new unit upgrade system does not work for "unbuildable" units like the Cradle Militia or Cradle Elites, a pair of categories created using SLIC code. The workaround for that involved another SLIC file, "updater.slc", but that had one MAJOR bug. If you tried to do a partial upgrade of your units, the code took you through them one-by-one and offered a yes/no choice for each of them. Or rather, that's what it was supposed to do, except the code threw out errors, collapsed in the middle of the upgrade process, and never functioned correctly from that point forward.

Well, I'm happy to report that as part of the Apolyton Edition project, Peter Triggs, Tamerlin, and Pedrunn created a revised version (APOL_updater2.slc) and after extensive editing to insert the Cradle 3+ Advances and Elite/Militia upgrade paths, the bug IS GONE! That's a MAJOR step forward for Cradle 3+, as it eliminates an old bug that affected all previous versions of Cradle, and solves one of the biggest remaining issues on my checklist. Because the Apolyton file has been edited so heavily (it won't work with other mods), the Cradle file has been renamed "updater3.slc", but the reality is that all the hard work (ie. the coding) was performed by the aforementioned CtP2 modding gurus. MANY thanks, and a big tip of the hat!

[Kull]

Unit Facing: The only downside to the "Idle Animation" is that once a unit completes its move, the sprite shifts to "Idle and then faces in one of two directions; SE or SW. Units without the Idle animation display no motion (legs walking, spears moving, heads bobbing, etc) but they do "face" in the direction of their final move, which could be any of the 8 Sprite directions (see post #51 for a small diagram). Personally I consider that a small price to pay in order to regain full on-map motion, but it occurred to me - why not solve the problem by creating Idle Animations for ALL directions?

And that's what I tried, using the Assyrian Archer as my testbed, but sadly it was a total failure. I could not figure out how to code the sprite building process so it would make use of all the new Idle direction images. I even opened up some of the CtP2 sprites which came with an Idle animation, and every one of them uses only the #4 direction (i.e. "SE": As described in the linked post, "SW" is not separate art, but rather the mirror of the SE image). A review of the "MakeSprite" documentation also came up empty, as their examples only included a single facing direction, and there's no hint that more are even possible. So at this point I'm going to assume it is NOT possible, and won't pursue it further.

That said, a really interesting thing happens every time you load a save game. All units - even those with Idle Animations - are facing in the direction they last traveled! And they retain that "directionality" until such time as they move, after which they revert to one of the two Idle facings. However, that is not universally true, and thus perhaps it's a clue that source coders could follow up on.

When you build the Idle animation, there are THREE animation "types" to choose from:
0 = sequential (play through from the first frame to the last defined frame)
1 = looped (starts over at the first frame when it's gone through all of the frames
2 = back-n-forth (reverses direction of playback when it reaches the last frame, and plays back to the first before reversing direction again.

And here's the clue: If you build the sprite using Idle animation types 0 or 2, the unit does NOT retain directional facing when you load a saved game, you just get one of the Idle facing directions.

Why is that? Who knows, but once I realized what was happening, all my rebuilt sprites utilize the "looped" animation (#1), so at least directional facing is available whenever a save game is loaded.

[Kull]

"Assyrian Archer" unit: One side benefit from recreating the "Great King" sprite - it led me to look more closely at Stan Karpinkski's Archer unit from AOM (see attached). It's actually a Civ3 conversion, but either way the images which comprise the sprite are of consistently good quality, and it was pretty easy to add the missing Idle animation and to clean up the very few graphics glitches. It clearly has a more ancient look than the "Nottingham Forester" currently filling the role of "first archer", so I created some new 2D pix and it's now in-game.

[Kull]

IWe'd love to get more CTP2 enthusiasts active in here --- a CPT theme/skin for this sub wouldn't be out of the question...

LOL, well there probably isn't a large number of CTP2 lovers still out there, although it would be nice if those few were aware of the project. Hopefully it'll be ready for playtesting in a month or so - Cradle 3+ is already very stable and quite fun. Of course, Cradle has always been a fabulous mod, and I'm just ramping up the eye candy, cleaning out some old bugs, and hopefully getting this bad boy to be fully compatible with the Apolyton Edition. Frankly, its almost there, although the real test will be how well I've been able to merge the Cradle AI attributes with the loads of new stuff added by the Source Code guys.

But yes, If you guys want to do some sort of main page "hey look at this cool thing!" announcement, that would be great. Likewise if Apolyton is willing to host the final product, major thanks for that!

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Thanks, man! Hope you are enjoying the write-ups.

It's always awesome to watch an artist at work.

Is there anything the Management could do for you? We'd love to get more CTP2 enthusiasts active in here --- a CPT theme/skin for this subwouldn't be out of the question...

[Kull]

The REAL "real chariot": As a testament to the blindness that often accompanies single-minded focus on achieving a desired outcome, "Exhibit A" would have to be the "Real Chariot" sprite. As I discussed in the post dedicated to that topic (Post #44), the sprite appeared to have only two defects - it was a "little small" and the charioteer had a Greek-style horsehair-crest helmet. No problem. I disassembled the sprite and proceeded to modify 165 images to remove that crest. In the process I couldn't help but notice that the charioteer seemed to be very slim, had what appeared to be a flesh-colored breast plate and - based on the buttocks visible in the rear view - was apparently nude from the waist down. Admittedly "Great Kings" weren't known for absence of clothing in battle, but, whatever - I NEEDED a Wonder Unit chariot and these were just minor details, right?

Certainly not worth worrying about anyway, so I finished the unit, put it in-game and thought no more on the matter. Until, while looking through the "Forever Future" mod folder (from which this unit came), I found the large Unit Icon for this chariot (see attached). Whooops! Now don't get me wrong, I like naked chariot girls as much as the next guy. Especially those with an impressive set of "breast plates". But, well, there are some things that - once seen - can't be ignored. And thus, adios to this version of the "Great King" chariot sprite!

[Kull]

Great King Chariot Sprite v2: For reasons that will be discussed shortly, Cradle needed a replacement for the "Great King" chariot sprite. As noted in earlier posts, there weren't a lot of options so this time I modified the "Pharoah Chariot" sprite and gave it the head of a bearded Assyrian and removed the fancy plumes from the horse heads (see attachment). As a result, it now fights with bow & arrow, is the same size as its Egyptian counterpart, and generally has a more "Near Eastern" appearance. That said, it took an ENORMOUS amount of editing to create, and while the benefits are apparent, it might seem a bit duplicative. After all, this is the SECOND major editing project aimed at developing a sprite for exactly the same role. So why would somebody do that?

[Kull]

You rock, Kull.

Thanks, man! Hope you are enjoying the write-ups.

[Kull]

Concepts for "Elites" & "Elite Units": The Great Library had no information on "Elite Units" as a group, and while there was a limited concept entry for Veterans, the new "Elites" promotion (introduced by the Source Code team) was not mentioned at all. Accordingly, I wrote up a detailed description on which Cradle units qualify for Elite Promotion and also explained the difference between the two kinds of Elites, since the shared terminology is inevitably confusing. This includes links to & from the MANY affected units, and involved changes to the GL, gl_str.txt, uniticon.txt, & concept.txt, along with 3 new pieces of art for the Elites, Veterans, and Elite Unit concepts.

One "not-so-side-benefit" from the research effort was the discovery that "Elite status" doesn't just work automatically. The SC guys didn't incorporate it in the base game, but rather set the COMBAT_ELITE_CHANCE setting in "Const.txt" at "0". For Cradle 3+, that value is now set to "0.05" (half the veteran chance).

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

You rock, Kull.

[Kull]

Dwight Eisenhower Tank Sprite: As noted in Post #41, the Panzer MkIII sprite has replaced the Abrams as a more appropriate WW2-era tank. However, that also meant the Dwight Eisenhower Wonder Unit was now represented by a German tank.....which just didn't seem right. Fortunately the Activision WW2 scenario also contains a US Tank sprite which can be used instead. The sprite has Idle (and the other necessary animation sequences) and looks pretty good (albeit a tad bit cartoonish) but didn't have any 2D graphics, so those had to be created from scratch.

All told, it didn't take long to make all the required changes, and now, what can I say? "I like Ike!"

[Kull]

Maglev as Road Level-4! One of many new features from the Source Code team was the addition of an interesting option to the Tile Improvement Database: PrerequisiteTileImp. That means you can't build one tile improvement unless another is already present. If you add that requirement to the Maglev section, and make the pre-req a Railroad.....voila. Maglev graphics WORK! Incredibly simple and incredibly easy to include in Cradle 3+. The Maglev button is now the "Level 3 Ocean Road", but all the underlying code make it entirely a land improvement - the "Ocean" part is simply the location of the Maglev building button (see bottom right of the attachment).

In fact, if you look closely at the attachment (red arrow), you'll see that it's impossible to build a Maglev on an open tile. There MUST be a railroad in place first. That's the only way to make sure you get Maglev functionality AND perfect graphics. Speaking of which, you'll notice that the original Maglev art has been added to the til file. I tried using Hex's stone roads instead, and while they look nice, there's no "shadow" to indicate that these are elevated transport lines, so the originals have returned.

And while I was at it, the railroads and stone roads have switched position in the build screens (see inset), so now you have the proper sequence of Road (L1), Stone Road (L2) and Railroad (L3).

Lastly, I'll leave you with this tantalizing thought. You'll notice that the "Ocean Road" Level 2 slot is still open. That means it's theoretically possible to add a FIFTH level of Land Road! Simply use the same method that activated Maglevs, and it would have perfect graphics and total functionality. I'm not planning to do anything with that idea, but.....it's certainly possible!

[Kull]

Maglev as Road Level-4? No matter how long it may take to solve a problem, what's presented in this thread is everything that "worked". But usually there was a lot of failure before it all came together, and some ideas simply never panned out. As an example, wouldn't it be cool if Cradle could have Stone Roads AND Maglevs? A 4th land road level? How hard could that be? Well, so far the results have been less than optimal. Mind you, they WORK, but......ugh.

[Kull]

Tile Files (& new Stone Roads): Most CtP2 graphics can function in-game as individual files. For example, even though all the 2D graphics such as unit and button files were originally located entirely inside a file called pic565.zfs, they can be extracted and altered individually. And most importantly - the game does NOT require them to be reinserted into the .zfs file. Open any mod's default/graphics/pictures folder and you'll see that it's full of individually customized graphics files.

However, the same is NOT true of "tile files". Look inside the default/graphics/tiles folder and you'll see only two files, gtset565.til and gtset555.til (only the first is required by the game). This file contains all the map tiles (which I won't be altering) AND all those images used by map overlays such as "Improvements" (think roads, farms and trading posts), Goody huts, and Visible Wonders (Hanging Gardens, etc). Additions or changes to these graphics have to be performed on individual files and then inserted into the .til files.

I won't get into the specifics of that process, as it's documented in the TileEdit program created by Martin B. Vestergaard, but just recognize that Tile Edit is the ONLY program which allows you to work with these files. That's a critical point because - for whatever reason - there is a problem with the .til files included with the Cradle 3 and 4 downloads. TileEdit consistently kicks out errors when trying to open those files, and even when it does, the majority of the Cradle-specific improvements remain invisible and unavailable.

The effort to rescue the Cradle files went on for months, and even progressed to the point of mapping out methods to try and recreate them using the Apolyton til files. Fortunately I eventually took a look at Hex's "Lord of the Rings" mod, and discovered those til files are error-free, fully editable, and contain most of the Cradle 3 graphics. Apologies for the long dissertation, but that's why Cradle 3+ isn't starting from the baseline Cradle til files.

All that said, the effort wasn't completely wasted as I learned a LOT about successful tile file editing, and most fortuitously, discovered a set of stone roads graphics from a modder named Tellius. Those familiar with Cradle will know that Hex created his stone roads by altering the existing Maglev graphics, primarily by changing the colors from bluish to greyish. While a nice feature, graphically they look more like modern day superhighways than ancient stone roads (see image appended to Post #15).

There is a LOT more to come with respect to new tile graphics, but we'll start with the lovely look of Tellius' Stone Roads, now fully incorporated in Cradle 3+.