Newbie questions...

[Latino210]

Hi guys

I have a couple of questions. Assuming that I want to change the Earth map on the geoscape, what file should I replace and how? I understand that I can change the culture, the nations and the terrain just by editing some files:
http://ufoai.org/wiki/index.php/Mapping/Terrain_Types
But I still cannot understand how to change the map of the Earth. I'd like to use a topographic map of Mars or Venus distribuited free of charge from NASA. Is it possible to do that?

[DarkRain]

Along with the culture/terrain/etc maps you should see: map_earth_day.jpg, map_earth_night.jpg and  map_earth_night_lights.png, you should try replacing them as needed

[Latino210]

I've already changed them, the only thing that changes is the splash screen at the start of the campaign.
EDIT: I've found an earth.jpg in the \base\models\sequence dir, but I cannot edit the .md2 file in the dir. Can somebody tell me how to edit that file with radiant or blender?

[H-Hour]

You shouldn't need to change the .md2 if you name your new skin the same thing as the old skin.

[Latino210]

You shouldn't need to change the .md2 if you name your new skin the same thing as the old skin.

Not true, I tried to change the skin with another skin of the same size, the game freezes. By the way, how can I import an .md2 file into Blender or any other 3d editing program? It looks like every program I try refuses to open the .md2 on the base directory...

[H-Hour]

If the game freezes, you did something wrong. Perhaps you should show some humility regarding what is or is not true, since you don't really know what you're doing.

[Latino210]

It's not exactly freezing, the game remains in "frozen time" and blocks the passage of time. I've tried reverting to the old earth.jpg image and the game ran just fine... BTW, I tried editing a little the earth.jpg and I got the same result.

Ah, I forgot, I am not a native english speaker. I thought that writing "Not true" was more polite than writing "You are wrong" or something similar. Please, forgive me if I was unpolite.

[DarkRain]

Ok, so earth_map_day and earth_map_night are for the 2D geoscape, for the 3D globe look in the same base/pics/geoscape you should see directories called low and med they contain the textures for the globe (map_earth_season_*.png) so you need to replace them (they have a very high transparency if you are wondering)

You can also create a new campaign (in campaign.ufo) and specify a new map name if you want (but you will need all the images)

[Latino210]

Thanks, Dark! Forgive my ignorance, but how do I set up transparency for an image? I've tried adding a transparency layer with GIMP, but I do not know how to make it work...

[H-Hour]

Our models don't support transparency.

[Latino210]

Sorry, H-Hour, I was talking about the pics in base/pics/geoscape/med, not about models.

[DarkRain]

Thanks, Dark! Forgive my ignorance, but how do I set up transparency for an image? I've tried adding a transparency layer with GIMP, but I do not know how to make it work...

Once you added the transparency layer, look at the top of the layer window, there should be an opacity slider.

Also you might want to know, I removed the transparency form one of the images, and noticed it is rather dark, like the night version, I'm not an artist, but I assume that the way the images are made is because the way the game blends them together, so you might want to adjust yours accordingly.

[Latino210]

Right, thanks. I am experimenting a little, but the wiki is way outdated and there is no help available anywhere. I tried to set up a new campaign with different background images but the result is rather strange. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be really grateful.

By the way, this: http://ufoai.org/wiki/index.php/UFO-Scripts/campaign.ufo could be updated. It talks about files in base/pics/menu that are no longer here.

[DarkRain]

I was curious so, I used an image from NASA, in GIMP I reduced brightness to the minimum and opacity to 1, dropped it in the game and got this.

[Latino210]

Strange... Look at what I got with a Mars map! Can you tell me exactly what you have done? You used the map from NASA as map_earth_day, then you've put the GIMPed map as map_earth_season00?