Scaled Down Planet Issue

[dEjavU]

Hello everyone, been away from a2 modding for a while life issues sort of pulled me away for a little bit but now I've just recently started playing this game again, starting from scatch with a clean install I've been tweeking it these past couple of days adding ships and station normaly not intended for this game along with modified versions of what can be found in the a2files archive.

Along the way I began adding the nano fx explosion effects and then the midnight universe. I then began looking into and eventually installing vanilla ultimate. I know, this should have been installed on a more clean install but I was very carefull..installing the files unto a seperate folder and then moving the mod in one file at a time. Along the way I suddenly noticed the new planets significantly scaled down to the point where its' glow SOD counterpart now looks more like a ring..

....my first reaction was to simply replace the vanila ultimate planet SOD's with that of the midnight universe ones(regress back)but that solution came to a halt when I noticed I can no longer extract any file from the midnight universe exe nor can I remove or uninstall it to reinstall it again. Can anyone out there who might have the midnight universe SOD files(and odf's)for the planets please please email me them(g0628dejavu1978 at hotmail dot com)I'm not sure if that's even a solution but at this point I can't think of anything else.

I've been doing allot of trials and errors trying to fix this with no success. I don't even understand why the scale sod entry in the planets odf file isn't even effecting the mesh model itself when viewed in storm 3d Since I can't view the original content lay outs of the midnight universe mod I'm not entirely certain if these files here even belong in this folder or should they go in the stations folder?

Can anyone please help me out.

 

[CABAL]

Have you tried scaleSOD=x in the planet ODFs?

 

[dEjavU]

Just tried that right now, heres how it looked in the ODF...

..still looks the same though.

 

[CABAL]

I meant x as in a variable. Try setting it to 3 or 4 and see what it looks like in-game. The ODF settings will have no effect on how it looks in Storm, by the way.

 

[MrVulcan]

Without looking at the Midnight Universe files, I'm not sure whether the SODs need a scaleSOD or not. However, your best bet would be to use all files pertaining to planets from either MU or from Vanilla Ultimate. The appearance of planets in Storm is probably misleading, and they should be tested in game.

When you are gathering files for the planets from either mod, you will need the following

ODFs
SODs
Textures
Sprites

The first two are trivial; you just need to locate the right files. The third you already know how to obtain as textures show up ok in storm. However, you will also need to find the correct sprites for the planets. Sprites are used to create the glow around the planets. Make sure that you use the sprites from the same mod as the planet SODs and ODFs. You may have to open the sprites files and try to locate the relevant lines to merge between the two mods.

Alternatively, you can add the scaleSOD line to the ODFs and test in game until you get the proper scale.

The techinal explanation for why you're having this problem is that sprites are scaled independently of the actual mesh. So, scaleSOD only changes the size of the planet, but not the size of the atmosphere/glow around the planet. If you are using the wrong set of sprites for the SODs, planets will not be scaled properly.

 

[dEjavU]

The planet sprite entries of course!(now why didn't I think that)thanks MrVulcan unfortunately I am unable to obtain the sprites entry for the midnight universe mod but that definintely explains it.

CABAL what I first thought when you suggested the sod scaling was a way to cancel out the scaling entry in the ODF altogether and hopefully the planets will just revert back to their original SOD size(LOL!)but the scaling works just fine in-game for the normal planets but I never got the chance to see if it was applicable to the new planets that came with the Upgrade Project because the map editor that I transfered from the upgrade project into this broke install was not displaying the new planets in the selection menu(basicly it wasn't working right)so instead of adding more problems for me to try and solve with this install, I just made a new clean one instead(stock a2 + patch 1.1 + patch 1.2.5)installed the Upgrade Project on top of that and am now in the painfull process of transfering all my custom installed mods from the broke one unto this. It's going to take a while but not as long as how long it would've taken me had I be trying to still figure this one out..and then further extracting more cool components from the upgrade project that will probably lead to more problems for me to get into try and figure out.

I was hessitant at first because of how extensively modded this install of mine is. I spent way too much hours sitting on this problem and it's just too time consuming..too problamatic to isolate each component of whatever mod I like from the upgrade project to try and transfer over to my old install without running into more problems like the map editor. Very much appreciated none the less CABAL for effort.

 

[MrVulcan]

Don't give up buddy It gets easier, and much more fun the more you mod. If you get those sprites extracted (or just find the ones you had in your mod), post them here, and I'll let you know which line to look into.

 

[Starfox1701]

The planet sprite entries of course!(now why didn't I think that)thanks MrVulcan unfortunately I am unable to obtain the sprites entry for the midnight universe mod but that definintely explains it.

CABAL what I first thought when you suggested the sod scaling was a way to cancel out the scaling entry in the ODF altogether and hopefully the planets will just revert back to their original SOD size(LOL!)but the scaling works just fine in-game for the normal planets but I never got the chance to see if it was applicable to the new planets that came with the Upgrade Project because the map editor that I transfered from the upgrade project into this broke install was not displaying the new planets in the selection menu(basicly it wasn't working right)so instead of adding more problems for me to try and solve with this install, I just made a new clean one instead(stock a2 + patch 1.1 + patch 1.2.5)installed the Upgrade Project on top of that and am now in the painfull process of transfering all my custom installed mods from the broke one unto this. It's going to take a while but not as long as how long it would've taken me had I be trying to still figure this one out..and then further extracting more cool components from the upgrade project that will probably lead to more problems for me to get into try and figure out.

I was hessitant at first because of how extensively modded this install of mine is. I spent way too much hours sitting on this problem and it's just too time consuming..too problamatic to isolate each component of whatever mod I like from the upgrade project to try and transfer over to my old install without running into more problems like the map editor. Very much appreciated none the less CABAL for effort.

Why have you just downloaded a new copy of the mod?

 

[dEjavU]

Greetings starfox1701, the reason why I never concidered persuing that option is the fact that everytime I try to reinstall, modify, or remove the midnight universe content..I always get this message poping up telling me the exe is not detecting the MU msi I think maybe that has something to do with me deleting the entire folder that the midnight universe exe deposited all of its' file contents unto in my programs files folder.

MrVulcan I'm not too sure but I think these are the planet sprites for the upgrade projects....

 

[thunderfoot]

So try this, DejaVu. Install MU into a temp folder and then zip the folder. It's what I did because I got tired of trying to harvest the parts I wanted. BTW, when you get the planets out, you may want to back to the Stock cloud textures.

 

[dEjavU]

Hey thunderfoot, yah it's like what I mentioned earlier....

..I am unable to install the MU mod nor can I put its' files on the temporary folder for me to zip up...its a good thought though thanks.

 

[MrVulcan]

You may have mentioned, but I'm not sure. Do the planets look ok in-game? If the scale is broken only in Storm, then you really don't need to worry. However, if the scale is messed up in-game, then you can either change ScaleSOD to a different value (scale up or down), or scale up/down the size of the sprites. The size is specified by two numbers: (495,495). Just make that larger/smaller to make the atmospheres fit the planet.

 

[dEjavU]

Yeah the planet sod scaling entry in the odf works in-game thanks MrVulcan.