Tons of new graphics coming soon

Harlan · December 27, 2000, 22:35

Right now I'm taking a short break from improving my scenario to make some new graphics. Various people are making new mods, and I'd like to encourage that by having the proper wonder, building, and tech graphics. Basically I'm stealing from other sources, and converting. Its quite easily, and in less than 24 hours I've already got dozens of each. I'll post them in a modpack really soon.

If anyone has any requests for any of the above, now is the time to let me know, cos I'll soon be going back to the scenario.

Alpha Wolf · December 28, 2000, 00:05

YIPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

if you run across a davy crockett type that would be cool. And a seige tower.

Thanks.

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History is written by the victor.

Diodorus Sicilus · December 28, 2000, 00:32

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy...
Requests:
Sprites/animations:
1. Unit graphic for a Light Chariot, carrying a javelin-thrower or archer
2. Unit graphic for a 19th century rifleman.
Still pics:
1. Public Works-type graphic for:
Castle - to provide a new Defensive PW for Medieval period
Cattle - for an early alternative to Agriculture and farms
2. City Graphic for:
Vauban - style star fort-rampart defenses for a Renaissance - early modern alternative to City Walls

heardie · December 28, 2000, 01:15

Good Work Harlan.

I can't think of anything, but I may edit this when I get started on my Water World Scenario.

heardie · December 28, 2000, 01:18

Good Work Harlan.

I can't think of anything, but I may edit this when I get started on my Water World Scenario.

Harlan · December 28, 2000, 02:24

I should make clear, these are only graphics for techs, wonders and buildings. Those are easy to make- just take a regular picture and resize it, save it in the right format (no way in heck I could do wonder movies).

The other stuff is much harder, and PW changes currently impossible. Here's a list of all the ones I have done so far.

Buildings (the building graphic covers the entire space in the Great Library, like wonders do. This means the current ones need to be replaced to be consistent. The end result should be much more visually appealing):

Anti Ballistic Missile
Academy
Agora
Airport
Aquaduct
Aquaduct2
Arena
Ballista Towers
Barracks
Battlements
Battlements2
Capitalization
Capitalization2
Capitol
Capitol2
Cathedral
Church
City Walls
Dam
Dockyards
Factory
Food Silo
Forcefield
Forge
Granary
Gymnasium
Harbor
Lab
Library
Marketplace
Marketplace2
Modern Factory
Museum
Nuclear Plant
Nuclear Plant2
Offshore Platform
Oil Refinery
Pagoda
Police Station
Prison
Public Baths
Public Transport
Recycling Plant
School
Shrine
Skyscraper
Solar Plant
Superhighway
Supermarket
Temple
Theater
University
Ziggurat

Harlan · December 28, 2000, 02:41

Then, these are the techs (the techs use the same backgrounds as CTP2 does):

Alphabet
Astrolabe
Chronometer
Domestication
Engineering
Gear Cutting Machinery
Microchip
Mining
Photography
Pottery
Steel
Stirrup
Superconductor
The Vacuum (the concept, not the cleaner!

)
Zero G Industry

As you can see, there are far fewer techs than the other categories. That's cos I have fewer sources for them. I'm trying to maintain a high level of quality, most having a computer rendered or at least very sharp appearance. So at lot are converted CTP1 graphics (almost all the techs are), plus I've been stealing from great Civ2:TOT graphics, and the zillions of graphics collected over the years for making Civ2 scenarios, and still lying in my hard drive.

The choices were dictated mostly by what I had a graphic for. Soon I'll be done cos I'll have run out of raw material to work from.

[This message has been edited by Harlan (edited December 28, 2000).]

Alpha Wolf · December 28, 2000, 02:54

Got anything that I could use for a TVA wonder? Or Hoover dam, altho in practicality, I think the TVA was more important altho Hoover was the bigger accomplishment.

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History is written by the victor.

skorpion59 · December 28, 2000, 04:20

Pics are being posted in the Harlan's New Graphics thread.

[This message has been edited by skorpion59 (edited December 28, 2000).]

hexagonian · December 28, 2000, 10:22

Looks great - Make sure you put in the readme file instructions for the various files we need to change in order to use them correctly.

Harlan · December 28, 2000, 17:34

oops
[This message has been edited by Harlan (edited December 30, 2000).]

Harlan · December 30, 2000, 02:15

The wonders portion of my graphics changes is done, and already available at Wes' website (apolyton.net/wes). Markos, when are you going to have a CTP2 downloads section available?

However, I forgot to include the readme in there. Wes will add it in soon, but meanwhile here it is.

WONDERS GRAPHICS FOR CTP2 VERSION 1.0

by Harlan Thompson

This download allows you to replace the wonder graphics of CTP2 with your own. Thus you can have whichever wonders you want in the game, not just the official ones. There are 90 wonder pics here to add to those already in the game.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR CHANGING THE GRAPHIC AND NAME OF AN ALREADY EXISTING WONDER

Place the pictures you want to use in the Pictures folder within the Graphics folder which is inside the Default folder, either inside a scenario folder or the main game’s folder. Then open up the file Uniticon.txt within the Gamedata folder, located inside the same Default folder you’re using. At the very bottom is the wonders section.

Each wonder section looks like this:

ICON_WONDER_THE_SOLARIS_PROJECT { FirstFrame "UPWP030L.TGA" Movie "GW030.AVI" Gameplay "WONDER_THE_SOLARIS_PROJECT_GAMEPLAY" Historical "WONDER_THE_SOLARIS_PROJECT_HISTORICAL" Prereq "WONDER_THE_SOLARIS_PROJECT_PREREQ" Vari "WONDER_THE_SOLARIS_PROJECT_STATISTICS" Icon "UPWP030L.TGA" LargeIcon "NULL" SmallIcon "NULL" StatText "WONDER_THE_SOLARIS_PROJECT_STATISTICS" }

Replace "UPWP030L.TGA" with a new name, for instance "UPWP100L.TGA", and change the name both times it is mentioned. For the movie, you can create an .avi file of just the picture, or put “NULL” instead of "GW030.AVI", in the above example.

Don’t change the name THE_SOLARIS_PROJECT anywhere. Instead, open the glstr.txt file in the Gamedata folder inside the Default folder. Find the line dealing with the Solaris Project:

WONDER_THE_SOLARIS_PROJECT "The Solaris Project"

and change the text between the quotes to whatever you want. Now any and every reference to the wonder in the game will call it by your new name, even though it is still referred to as THE_SOLARIS_PROJECT in many places in the text files.

As for adding extra wonders to the wonder list, and not just replacing, you’re on your own with that one. I only want to provide graphics and get people started. Change the effect of the wonder in the Wonder.txt file, and the description in the Great Library by changing the Great_Library.txt file.

WONDER LIST
The name of the nearest city is listed, though in some cases this is a judgement call or a best fit if the wonder didn’t physically exist in a city (like Columbus’ Voyage). The name of the country that city is in today is also listed.

Adam Smith’s Trading Co London, England
AI Entity future
Al Azhar University Cairo, Egypt
Al Koran Mecca, Saudi Arabia
Al Mutawakkil Mosque Samarra, Iraq
Angkor Wat Angkor, Cambodia
Apollo Program Houston, USA
Arc de Triumphe Paris, France
Asoka’s Pillars Pataliputra, India
Bayeaux Tapestry Bayeaux, France
Big Ben and Parliament London, England
Church of the Holy Sepulchure Jerusalem, Israel
Colossus Rhodes, Greece
Columbus’ Voyage Cadiz, Spain
Confucius Temple Qufu, China
Copan Temples Copan, Belize
Cordoba Mosque Cordoba, Spain
Cure for Cancer future
Dar al Khalifat (House of the Caliphate) Baghdad, Iraq
Darwin’s Origin of Species London, England
Da Vinci’s Notebooks Milan, Italy
Dinosaur Park future
Disneyland Los Angeles, USA
Dome of the Rock Jerusalem, Israel
Edison’s Lab Menlo Park, USA
Eiffel Tower Paris, France
ESP Center future
Forum Rome, Italy
Ganges Pilgrimage Varanasi, India
Genius of Archimedes Syracuse, Italy
Global E-Bank future
Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco, USA
Grand Canal Shanghai, China
Great Library Alexandria, Egypt
Hagia Sophia Constantinople/Istanbul, Turkey
Hanging Gardens Babylon, Iraq
Hippodrome Constantinople/Istanbul, Turkey
Holy Mosque of the Prophet Medina, Saudi Arabia
Hoover Dam Las Vegas, USA
Immunity Chip future
Isaac Newton’s Principa Cambridge, England
J.S. Bach’s Cathedral ???
Kaaba Mecca, Saudi Arabia
King Richard’s Crusade London, England
Kremlin Moscow, Russia
Labyrinth Knossos, Greece
Leif Erikkson’s Voyage Trondheim, Norway
Lighthouse Alexandria, Egypt
Lighthouse2
Magellan’s Expedition Cadiz, Spain
Manhattan Project Los Alamos, USA
Marco Polo’s Embassy Venice, Italy
Mausoleum Halicarnassus/Bodrum, Turkey
Mount Rushmore Rapid City, USA
Nanopedia future
Notre Dame Cathedral Paris, France
Oracle of Delphi Delphi, Greece
Parthenon Athens, Greece
Pasteur Institute Paris, France
Picasso’s Paintings Madrid, Spain
Potala Palace Lhasa, Tibet/China
Pyramid of the Moon Teotihuacan, Mexico
Pyramid of the Sun Teotihuacan, Mexico
Roosevelt’s New Deal Washington, D.C., USA
Sanchi Stupa Sanchi, India
SETI Project ???
Shakespeare’s Globe London, England
Shakespeare’s Globe2
Sistine Chapel Rome, Italy
Solomon’s Temple Jerusalem, Israel
Space Station ???
Sphinx Memphis/Cairo, Egypt
St. Basil’s Cathedral Moscow, Russia
St. Marks’ Square Venice, Italy
St. Peter’s Basilica Rome, Italy
Statue of Liberty New York, USA
Statue of Zeus Olympia, Greece
Stonehenge Salisbury, England
Sun Tzu’s War Academy Wu, China
Sydney Opera House Sydney, Australia
Taj Mahal Delhi, India
Temple of Artemis Ephesus, Turkey
Temple of Karnak Thebes, Egypt
Theodesian Walls Constantinople/Istanbul, Turkey
Throne Hall of Darius Persepolis, Iran
Umayyad Mosque Damascus, Syria
United Nations New York, USA
Wall Street New York, USA
Women’s Sufferage Washington, D.C., USA
World Bank New York, USA

NOTES
The graphics have been stolen from many sources, I didn’t actually create a single one. I did do a decent amount of touching up to get them just right, however. For all the building wonders, these are very realistic pictures of what the wonders actually looked like, and not the ruins existing today. For instance, the Throne Hall of Darius is shown in many pictures as a few columns still standing in the desert, when in fact it looked very different back in the day. I’m lucky to have access to a good number of artistic reconstructions to make this possible. Sometimes we are so used to seeing the modern ruins, that we imagine that’s how they always looked. People don’t often realize for instance that the pyramids of Mesoamerica were usually painted bright red, or that Stonehenge used to be more complete. There are some wonders where I wanted a particular wonder but couldn’t find such reconstructions, so I didn’t include them. For instance it would have been nice to have more New World wonders. Luckily, such cases were very few. In a few cases of grabbing graphics from here and there, I came across more than one picture of the same thing, and both pictures were good. Thus there are two pictures for a couple wonders.

The only wonder I’ve included that isn’t based on a realistic picture is the Dar al Khalifat (House of the Caliphate). This is because it was later completely obliterated, and no one knows what it looked like. But it was apparently one of the most “wonderous” places on earth at one time. So the graphic is of its architectural floor plan.

Many of the wonders were taken from Civ2: TOT graphics. A number of Civ2’s wonders plainly didn’t exist, like Copernicus’ Observatory (there was no special observatory associated with him) or Sun Tzu’s War Academy (he wrote the book The Art of War, but there was no academy). Most of these I didn’t use, since I don’t want to further historical inaccuracy.

I am more interested in the past than the future, so the focus here is on historical wonders. The only future wonders are those from CTP1.

Some people may be surprised that I included the Labyrinth. That is a real wonder, though not in the way CTP1 envisioned it. The Minoan palace at Knossos was a multileveled building sprawled over 4 and a half acres. Greeks from the mainland were awed by this mazeline structure and the rituals conducted inside it, so the myth of the Minotaur was born. In ancient Greek, Labyrinth means “house of the double ax”, the symbol of the Minoans.

If picture shows up as gobblydegook in the game, odds are that it wasn’t saved in 16 bit format. I haven’t playtested every one out in the game.

People complain that the CTP2 wonders are too USA-centric. I hope this creates a more multicultural list for you. The below list shows how the wonders fall geographically. While the USA is first on the list, percentage-wise it doesn’t have so many. Asian countries by comparison have 25 and Europe 31.

USA 13
Italy 7
England 7
Turkey 5
France 5
Egypt 5
Greece 5
India 4
China 4
Spain 4
Iraq 3
Israel 3
Saudi Arabia 3
Russia 2
Mexico 2
Cambodia 1
Norway 1
Syria 1
Iran 1
Belize 1
Australia 1

Harlan · December 30, 2000, 07:40

I've also finished my tech graphics. I may do more of these, especially if someone expresses a strong interest and/or has a good graphic to use. There are others I would have done, but for lack of an easily findable graphic. 60 in all. Hopefully Wes will post on his website soon. This leaves only a few buildings to finish off, and I'll be done with all three parts of my graphics project.

Agro-industry
Alphabet
Archery
Armor (medieval) / Chivalry
Astrolabe
Astronomy
Automobile
Atomic Theory
Biology
Capitalism
Cartography
Compass
Conscription
Contraception
Crop Rotation
Crossbow
Currency
Domestication
Elephant Training
Engineering
Espionage
Firearms
Gear Cutting Machinery
Guerrilla Warfare
Immunization
Imperialism
Labor Unions
Laser
Literacy
Machine Gun
Machine Tools
Magnetism
Mathematics
Mechanical Clock
Microchip
Mining
Navigation / Chronometer
Perspective
Photography
Plastics
Pottery
Radio
Refrigeration
Republic
Rocketry
Sanitation
Satellites
Seafaring
Solar Energy
Steam Engine
Steel
Stirrup
Superconductor
Tactics (ancient)
Telegraph
Television
Wheel
The Vacuum
Zero G Industry

Oh, I should mention. CTP2 includes two unused age graphics. One looks satisfyingly Medieval, the other late Modern, thus moving the current Modern to Industrial. I have used backing of all seven ages, not just five. Next I will reclassify some of the usual CTP2 techs if they belong in the new age categories. Hopefully most if not all mods will follow suit and have the extra Medieval and Industrial ages.

[This message has been edited by Harlan (edited December 30, 2000).]

December 30, 2000, 12:34

thanks to Wes....
http://apolyton.net/wes/harlans_wonders.zip

Martinov · December 30, 2000, 15:14

Harlan

Just wanted to say . . . your're doing a great job.

The city & industrial age graphics & historical portraits you did for CTP1 were excellent.

I don't know who does the promotions around here, but you should be more than a "prince" - a king at least!

Dan PDX · December 31, 2000, 18:50

He always does. What programs do you use for making the graphics (even if you use other sources) for the game. PSP, Image Forge, what?

Harlan · January 2, 2001, 15:36

I am now done with my graphic project, for the most part. I've sent an updated version of the wonders graphics (with a few more wonders), plus the tech and building graphics to Wes to post hopefully soon. I'll be happy to send to anyone else. It seems like Apolyton's CTP download section isn't ready yet, so I haven't sent it there.

I didn't write a readme for the buildings section, since it isn't really done. But I have to stop for now cos I've run out of good raw material to work from. My ultimate goal is to have good graphic replacements for every building in CTP2, so one can get a bigger and better picture of the buildings. I'm still shy of that. Here's the readme for the tech graphics.

TECHNOLOGY GRAPHICS FOR CTP2 VERSION 1.0

by Harlan Thompson

This download allows you to replace the technology graphics of CTP2 with your own. Thus you can have whichever wonders you want in the game, not just the official ones. There are 128 technology pics here to add to or replace those already in the game.

To install these pictures over the existing pictures, follow the instructions in the wonderreadme that comes with the wonder graphics pack. The procedure is nearly identical, except you use the advance section instead of the wonder section of the Uniticon.txt, and so on.

TECH LIST

There were two motivations in making these graphics. One, to help people add techs to the regular tech tree, since it is a poorly designed tree in many ways. Second, replace the graphics for many of the existing graphics. This is because so many of them are simply repetitions of graphics used for buildings or units. If you replace all the pictures below, you should have an original graphic for every item in the tech tree.

In addition, these graphics make possible four new eras: Classical, Medieval, Industrial and Computer. The game will now have nine eras instead of a mere five.

Each age below is divided into two sections. The first section covers preexisting techs that need new graphics because of new ages or image repetition. The second part of each age, the extras, are new techs not in the game. Hopefully some mods will chose to use some of these graphics, to create a more complete game.

ANCIENT
Bronze Working
Composite Bow/ Ballistics
Horse Riding
Jurisprudence
Masonry
Monarchy
Organized Religion/ Religion
Plough/ Agriculture
Ship Building
Slave Labor
Stone Working
Toolmaking
Trade
Writing

ANCIENT EXTRAS
Alphabet
Aristocracy
Citizenship
Currency
Domestication
Mathematics
Mining
Pottery
Wheel

CLASSICAL
Alchemy
Bureaucracy
Drama
Engingeering / Concrete
Geometry
Iron Working
Philosophy

CLASSICAL EXTRAS
City State
Civil Service
Crossbow
Elephant Training
Infantry Tactics/ Tactics
Seafaring
Seige Warfare
Stirrup

MEDIEVAL
Cannon Making
Classical Education
Crop Rotation/ Agricultural Revolution
Feudalism
Gunpowder
Hull Making
Paper Currency/ Banking
Theology

MEDIEVAL EXTRAS
Astrolabe
Compass
Mechanical Power
Paper
Plate Armor
Theology

RENAISSANCE
Age of Reason
Cavalry Tactics
Chemistry
Economics
Firearms
Modern Metallurgy
Nationalism
Naval Tactics
Ocean Faring
Optics
Physics
Printing Press

RENAISSANCE EXTRAS
Anatomy
Atomic Theory
Capitalism
Cartography
Civil Engineering
Electromagnetism/ Magnetism
Espionage
Gravity Theory
Mechanical Clock
Navigation/ Chronometer
Perspective
Republic
The Vacuum

INDUSTRIAL
Adv. Infantry Tactics
Communism
Corporation
Democracy
Electricity
Explosives
Industrial Revolution
Internal Combustion
Mass Transit
Modern Medicine
Oil Refining
Pharmaceuticals
Railroad

INDUSTRIAL EXTRAS
Automatic Weapons
Biology
Conscription
Electrification
Fundamentalism
Gear Cutting Machinery
Guerrilla Warfare
Immunization
Imperialism
Labor Union
Machine Tools
Medicine
Photography
Popular Press
Railroad
Refrigeration
Sanitation
Steam Engine
Steel
Telegraph
Telephone

MODERN
Adv. Naval Tactics
Adv. Urban Planning
Aerodynamics
Criminal Code
Fascism
Flight
Jet Propulsion
Mass Media
Mass Production
Mobile Warfare / Tank Warfare
Naval Aviation
Quantum Mechanics
Radar

MODERN EXTRAS
Agro-industry
Automobile
Civil Rights
Combined Arms
Contraception
Literacy
Plastic
Radio
Rocketry
Television

COMPUTER
Advanced Composites
Computer
Conservation
Corporate Republic
Global Communications
Global Economics
Guided Weapons Systems
Nuclear Power
Space Flight
Superconductor
Supersonic Flight
Vertical Flight

COMPUTER EXTRAS
Laser
Microchip
Nuclear Fission
Nuclear Fusion
Personal Computer
Popular Entertainment
Solar Energy

GENETIC EXTRAS
Zero G Industry

NOTES:
The graphics have been stolen from many sources, I didn’t actually create a single one. I did do a decent amount of touching up to get them just right, however. Hopefully most additional techs people would want to put in mods will be found right here.

In some cases I thought I had a better name than the name used in CTP2, or had a tech that could have more than one name. In such cases the second name is after the /.

In making these graphics, I also had a bit of an agenda. I tried to add as many non-European graphics as I could find images for, to lessen the Western bias of the game. After all, China was the most advanced civilization until the last 500 years, and the Islamic and Indian civilizations were usually ahead of Europe until that time as well.

The graphics die out right about today. In the future I hope to finish off the Computer Age, and do some graphics for the Genetic and Diamond ages. Blanks have been provided if you want to make your own tech graphics.

Harlan · January 2, 2001, 15:52

Although I didn't do a readme for this one, here is the list of the buildings I've finished and sent off. If anyone has any ideas where to steal more graphics for this, let me know. Most came from Civ2: TOT. I don't really like the building graphics from the Age of Kings and Age of Empires (I hate how they're all square, and the viewing angle).

ABM
Academy
Agora
Airport
Aquaduct
Aquaduct2
Arena
Ballista Towers
Barracks
Battlements
Battlements2
Capitalization
Capitalization2
Capitol
Capitol2
Castle
Cathedral
Church
City Walls
Dam
Dockyards
Electirc Plant
Factory
Food Silo
Forcefield
Forge
Fortress
Granary
Gymnasium
Harbor
Infrastructure
Lab
Library
Marketplace
Marketplace2
Modern Factory
Museum
Nuclear Plant
Nuclear Plant2
Observatory
Offshore Platform
Oil Refinery
Police Station
Prison
Public Baths
Public Transport
Recycling Plant
School
Shrine
Shrine2
Skyscraper
Solar Plant
Sports Stadium
Superhighway
Temple
Theater
Tower
University

One last comment: now that these graphics are done, there is a crying need for all of them to have some Great Library text. Is anyone interested in writing that? Just as I stole the images and edited them, maybe we have a text pirate who could steal from www.britannica.com and other sources, and edit them down for a quick text fix?

[This message has been edited by Harlan (edited January 02, 2001).]

Darkknight · January 3, 2001, 22:27

So to use pics say from the internet all you have to do is copy it into PaintShopPro or similiar and save it as a TGA file?

------------------
" mind over body "

Paul · January 4, 2001, 03:38

You may have to do some editing on them. They need to be 160x120 pixels and 16-bit tga. It will take some more effort if you want to use the CTP2 backgrounds like Harlan did.

Harlan · January 4, 2001, 04:11

What Paul said.

I have good news- the files are finally posted. Scorpion has been kind enough to give me a webpage to put things like this up. Not exactly high in the artistic display at this point, but it gets the job done!

To download these graphics I've been blathering on about for the last few days, go to: http://ctpmaps.apolyton.net/harlan/.

The buildings file isn't so big, so there's just one version. The wonders and techs are pretty big though, so you can either download them all at once, or in pieces. Altogether its about 6 MB of download. Let me know if there's any problems, this is a brand new thing.

Oh, and to use the backgrounds, you'll find blank tech backgrounds in the downloads. Open one of those blanks, copy your image into that file using PGP or whatever, and then save.

[This message has been edited by Harlan (edited January 04, 2001).]

skorpion59 · January 4, 2001, 06:13

Harlan,
>99kok