Custom River Stamps

[EvilPolygons]

So today I started tinkering with adding new river stamps to the game. Results are promising, I think, but obviously producing decent results requires decent stamps. And I am no artist. But here's what I've managed so far.







As can be seen, rivers added via stamps can be absolutely freaking massive when using 1024x1024 pngs instead of 512x512. I have no idea why there aren't any river stamp mods on the Nexus, because you'd think this is something that someone would have modded by now. Has anyone else spent any time modding river stamps for the vanilla RWG? I'd love to see some new stamps made by someone with actual artists talent because I am useless in that department.

Anyway, some of my stamps didn't turn out so well due to using the wrong colors in the stamp files. Another issue is smoothing the riverbanks instead of making jagged drop offs, but again that comes down to a matter of crappy stamps producing crappy results. Here are a couple of my really buggy stamps :

 

[Riamus]

Love the last two.

Yeah, you need to smooth out the riverbanks or people won't like it. You also don't want them to be too deep. And unless bridges are made a thing in RWG (not counting tiles that have bridges on them), you don't want the rivers to be too long or the only way across is a VERY slow underwater or swimming crossing, which I can tell you is not enjoyable.

Anyhow, more river stamps for RWG would be good for RWG.

 

[EvilPolygons]

Love the last two.

Yeah, you need to smooth out the riverbanks or people won't like it. You also don't want them to be too deep. And unless bridges are made a thing in RWG (not counting tiles that have bridges on them), you don't want the rivers to be too long or the only way across is a VERY slow underwater or swimming crossing, which I can tell you is not enjoyable.

Anyhow, more river stamps for RWG would be good for RWG.

True, care must be taken (especially with 1024x1024 stamps) to make rivers quite skinny in order to avoid the problem you mentioned. But it's pretty darn cool that rivers that massive can be created in vanilla, even if it isn't practical.

As for riverbanks, lack of skill and the proper software makes it very difficult to get riverbanks all smooth and proper. Tbh, my primary reason for posting this is to hopefully inspire some other modder with more artistic talent than I. Anything to do with Photoshop or image editing is FAR outside my wheelhouse.

 

[Riamus]

True, care must be taken (especially with 1024x1024 stamps) to make rivers quite skinny in order to avoid the problem you mentioned. But it's pretty darn cool that rivers that massive can be created in vanilla, even if it isn't practical.

As for riverbanks, lack of skill and the proper software makes it very difficult to get riverbanks all smooth and proper. Tbh, my primary reason for posting this is to hopefully inspire some other modder with more artistic talent than I. Anything to do with Photoshop or image editing is FAR outside my wheelhouse.

There are some blur commands like gaussian blur that are easy to use and may be enough, though it depends how step the backs are to begin with. But I don't do image editing, so that is about the limit for me.

 

[zztong]

I have no idea why there aren't any river stamp mods on the Nexus, because you'd think this is something that someone would have modded by now. Has anyone else spent any time modding river stamps for the vanilla RWG?

My POI modlet has a Stamps folder with some stamps I experimented with. I don't recall figuring out rivers, but I had some interesting canyons. I don't think the game is using them.

A hold up is basically knowing (1) how to create a stamp and (2) how to package it into a modlet. For instance, what file format, what size, what filenames, what tools can do that, etc. Then, where do I put them in a modlet. Is it a "Stamps" folder at the root of the modlet? Is there any XML needed to register them with RWG?

 

[EvilPolygons]

My POI modlet has a Stamps folder with some stamps I experimented with. I don't recall figuring out rivers, but I had some interesting canyons. I don't think the game is using them.

A hold up is basically knowing (1) how to create a stamp and (2) how to package it into a modlet. For instance, what file format, what size, what filenames, what tools can do that, etc. Then, where do I put them in a modlet. Is it a "Stamps" folder at the root of the modlet? Is there any XML needed to register them with RWG?

Yep, any png files you put in Stamps with the proper filenames will be processed. However, that's the easy part.

Where it gets tricky is telling the game to actually use your additional stamps. The way I managed to get it working (YMMV) was to create a completely new file in my mod's Configs folder "WorldGeneratorConfig.xml". Inside that xml file I put the following:

<worldgeneration>
<naturalStamps>
<river maxStamps="8" />
…
</naturalStamps>
</worldgeneration>

Now, I'm gonna be honest. I forgot to try testing the stamps to see if they would work without that bit of xml. I should probably do that. But for now it's working so I'm not keen on fixing something that isn't broken, if you catch my meaning.

Assuming that little <worldgeneration> snippet is actually needed (which again, I forgot to test) I would also assume that you can get your canyons to load the exact same way. Just specifiy the total number of png files the game should look for and name your files accordingly.

But once again, I'm not even sure that's needed. For all I know, it didn't even load. My stamps are appearing in game, regardless.

Nope, none of that is needed. Just put the png files where they're supposed to go and it should work.

 

[EvilPolygons]

There are some blur commands like gaussian blur that are easy to use and may be enough, though it depends how step the backs are to begin with. But I don't do image editing, so that is about the limit for me.

I used paint.net to color correct the super hilariously bad stamps and tried improving the others as well. I'm about to see if anything is improved.

 

[EvilPolygons]

I'd say this is certainly an improvement over the weird snake mountain thing I had going on earlier. The riverbanks are much smoother now. This went from being one of the worst and buggiest stamps to being the best of the bunch so far.

 

[EvilPolygons]

Nope the <river maxstamps> stuff is not needed at all. I just deleted it out of my Configs folder and my new river stamps are spawning just fine during map generation.

 

[EvilPolygons]

With this stamp, I tried drawing a small lake into one end of the river. Turned out well, I think.

 

[zztong]

Nope, none of that is needed. Just put the png files where they're supposed to go and it should work.

... and where are they supposed to go?

So it's a PNG of 512x512 or 1024x1024.

I assume the colors you use mean something? What represents "no change" to RWG's terrain? What means "make it higher" and "how much higher"? What means "make it lower" and "how much lower"?

I don't remember how I made my current Stamps, but...

canyon_zztong_01.png is 731x1000
canyon_zztong_02.png is 1000x400
canyon_zztong_03.png is 1500x1112
canyon_zztong_04.png is 1000x558

... and they all look like shades of grey where I think darker means deeper.

I think they're transparent. Is that how you signal "no change"?

 

[EvilPolygons]

... and where are they supposed to go?

So it's a PNG of 512x512 or 1024x1024.

I assume the colors you use mean something? What represents "no change" to RWG's terrain? What means "make it higher" and "how much higher"? What means "make it lower" and "how much lower"?

I don't remember how I made my current Stamps, but...

canyon_zztong_01.png is 731x1000
canyon_zztong_02.png is 1000x400
canyon_zztong_03.png is 1500x1112
canyon_zztong_04.png is 1000x558

... and they all look like shades of grey where I think darker means deeper.

I think they're transparent. Is that how you signal "no change"?

Oh, sorry. I'm an idiot. I forgot to include that (rather important) info. Oops.

New stamps go in your mod's Stamps folder.

Yes, they must be multiples of 512x512. So 1024x1024 works. 256x256 might work for really small stamps, but I haven't tried that.

The colors are rgb and control height:
River bottom: 14,0,29
Riverbank slope: up to 32,0,29
Terrain level: 32,0,0
Alpha channel needs to be set fully transparent outside of the riverbank's edge, and fully opaque at the river bottom.

I haven't looked at canyon stamps, but river stamps are not greyscale.

 

[zztong]

So the R and B values seem to matter, but the G value is always 0?

 

[EvilPolygons]

So the R and B values seem to matter, but the G value is always 0?

As far as I can tell, yes. The green channel seems to be unused.

 

[Cpt Krunch]

So today I started tinkering with adding new river stamps to the game. Results are promising, I think, but obviously producing decent results requires decent stamps. And I am no artist. But here's what I've managed so far.



View attachment 35748View attachment 35747



As can be seen, rivers added via stamps can be absolutely freaking massive when using 1024x1024 pngs instead of 512x512. I have no idea why there aren't any river stamp mods on the Nexus, because you'd think this is something that someone would have modded by now. Has anyone else spent any time modding river stamps for the vanilla RWG? I'd love to see some new stamps made by someone with actual artists talent because I am useless in that department.

Anyway, some of my stamps didn't turn out so well due to using the wrong colors in the stamp files. Another issue is smoothing the riverbanks instead of making jagged drop offs, but again that comes down to a matter of crappy stamps producing crappy results. Here are a couple of my really buggy stamps :



View attachment 35750View attachment 35749

These spike are a left over outline from something you had there before. open up the dtm.raw into png and scroll in and youll see it.

 

[EvilPolygons]

These spike are a left over outline from something you had there before. open up the dtm.raw into png and scroll in and youll see it.

Already fixed. I was using completely wrong colors for the riverbanks on a couple of my stamps, causing the terrain to go haywire. The spikes went away once I went in and corrected the riverbank colors in those stamps.

 

[EvilPolygons]

Riverbank slopes are much more gradual now.
River_04 riverbank view:


River_04 overhead:


River_06 riverbank view:


River_06 from orbit:


River_06 is pretty huge and a lot wider than what is probably practical for the game. But it's really cool standing on the shore of a huge river on a map that didn't require the use of Teragon to make!

 

[zztong]

River bottom: 14,0,29
Riverbank slope: up to 32,0,29
Terrain level: 32,0,0

R seems like the elevation, 0 being bedrock, 255 max height, 32 being the existing terrain height or maybe default ground level.
G is unused, could be anything or maybe must be 0?
B is the mystery.

What could 29 be?
The terrain block... 29 being the adaptive terrain block?
Maybe it means fill air with water?
Maybe it can be anything, just a bit of color for us humans to better understand the stamp if we looked at it?

 

[EvilPolygons]

R seems like the elevation, 0 being bedrock, 255 max height, 32 being the existing terrain height or maybe default ground level.
G is unused, could be anything or maybe must be 0?
B is the mystery.

What could 29 be?
The terrain block... 29 being the adaptive terrain block?
Maybe it means fill air with water?
Maybe it can be anything, just a bit of color for us humans to better understand the stamp if we looked at it?

I just assumed it was a regular color-based heightmap mask. The easiest way to experiment is to take a stamp and give it completely inappropriate colors, like the stamps I used in the first post that produced the crazy serpentine mountains.

 

[zztong]

I just assumed it was a regular color-based heightmap mask. The easiest way to experiment is to take a stamp and give it completely inappropriate colors, like the stamps I used in the first post that produced the crazy serpentine mountains.

Yes. I want to play with it, but I also started a movie I want to finish. I'll probably just start by converting my existing stamps to the right sizes and see if they have any effect, but those are canyons not rivers.