HARDLAND Modding Tutorial #1 - Chicken Rampage
(We're working on a WIKI site with more extensive instructions and examples)
THIS IS A QUICK TUTORIAL TO SHOW YOU HOW YOU CAN CREATE AN ANGRY CHICKEN ARMY, MODIFY SOME TREE & GROUND TEXTURES AND CHANGE THE WEATHER.
Normally we use Photoshop but I wanted to demonstrate this with free tools.
In the video I'm using GIMP for texture editing.
(http://www.gimp.org/downloads/)
For text editing I'm using a free text editor called Notepad ++
(http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download...)
After you're equipped with a text editor you need to locate the asset files.
Instructions for locating the asset folder can be found in the video. The video also shows line numbers which have to be edited and what the changes are.
World configuration files are in this folder:
SteamApps/common/Hardland/Mods/Hardland/Config/World.txt
Weather configuration files are in this folder:
SteamApps/common/Hardland/Mods/Hardland/Config/Weather.cfg
All textures are in this folder:
SteamApps/common/Hardland/Mods/Hardland/Textures/
They're saved as TGA files and the game automatically converts them into DDS format. Depending on the situation there's two or three texture files for each 3d model. One ending with "Albedo" and another one ending with "Normal". For certain foliage objects there's also an "Alpha" texture.
Hardland uses physically-based lighting and that's why we have the following textures:
ALBEDO
Red, Green and Blue channels hold the color information of the object.
The Alpha channel holds the Metalness value, where white is 100% metal and black is totally non metal. You can use almost black (4% brightness which has RGB value of 10, 10, 10) for most objects if you have no idea what to use.
NORMAL
Red, Green and Blue channels hold the normal map.
RGB value of 127, 127, 255 is fine if you don't have tools to do a proper normal map.
Alpha channel holds the specular intensity. It defines how sharp the object highlights appear. Alpha value of 0 gives very wide and faint specular highlight, 255 gives a very sharp and bright specular highlight.
ALPHA
Red, Green and Blue channels of this texture hold the emission property. It's can be kept completely black because we might remove the feature in future because it's not used much.
Alpha channel is the more important channel as it can define the shape of your object. Black means completely transparent and white means completely opaque. You can use this to create tree leaf shapes etc.
The latest version is progressing very well, the town generator in particular has received a considerable improvement. Now the houses are aligned properly to the closest road, there's space for different house sizes, fences and foliage is generated next to the roads etc. (not on the road) There's also slots for towers on the city wall. You can see some of the improvements in these comparison screenshots:
Old Town Generator:
http://i.imgur.com/f8V6FXhl.png
New Town Generator:
http://i.imgur.com/2DBbokOl.png
(The very first shot and the latter half of the video was made with new town generator, the rest of it was old generator)
Hardland Early Access is available on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/321...