Big Note! Got bugs? Give me a ping in the Donut Team Discord server or feel free to reply to this thread. Discord is the best place to get me as I am on there almost all the time (excluding work of course, my manager wouldn't like me using discord during a shift :D)
Hello, it's me. That one modder who hasn't posted a mod in years.
Introduction:
So as someone who absolutely adores the new Connected Map Mod by Colou, I realised that we needed ourselves a night version. I planned to make my own version for my upcoming mod this year: A Christmas in Springfield 2. I knew from the start how annoying and fiddly it can be to do this, so I wanted to give people the option, up until/if Colou works on his own nighttime version. I wanted to make it asap for my mod as I plan to start editing the map to fit my mod, which may take absolute months.
Features:
- The entire map now has a Level 4-esque lighting to it. The interiors have been done too, as well as some of the gags.
- Re-added Bart's Room (l4i07.p3d) to the map.
- Re-added Burns' Mansion, fully working.
- Opened the Graveyard to access and use in your missions!
- Lit up windows
- Lamps with light beams
- Interiors edited by me to be nighttime
Screenshots:
Spoiler: Screenshots!
Video:
Spoiler: Video
Note:
This mod uses more files than the original map, as Colou's original map used some vanilla regions, which he did not include (As there was no need to), hence this will be bigger than his mod, if you intend to use it.
Give me the download, Sparrow!
Mirror Links
Google Drive | Dropbox
Spoiler: How Night/Day works in SHAR
So how do Radical do this you ask?
Vertex Painting
Vertex painting is what Radical used to make their maps look daytime/nighttime/sunset. You paint a colour onto every mesh in order to give it "Lighting" of sorts, without needing to make a proper lighting system. It was a good idea, and Radical did a good job with it. It works.
The original maps had different colours used for the time of day they needed, be it orange for sunset, blue for nighttime, or yellow for daytime. Unfortunately, I felt it wouldn't be as easy to just realign a lot of the maps, because the colours used vary from level to level. In the spoiler is L4 compared to L5.
Even if they're similar, I like giving myself more work to do. So I decided to try and make the entire map use a similar colour to the original Level 4.
Because of this, my mod comes with a hex.txt file that tells you the hex colour code used as the base for the mod and can be used if you choose to make map edits for your own mods. In future versions I will be including a more detailed version with lighter/darker colours and colours used for lighting in various parts of the map, be it the lighting from a building or such. I want to make this mod as easy to blend with edits as possible, so please make use of this text file if you can! The text comes inside the mod, so when you decompile it, you'll see the file, alongside any change logs
Vertex Painting
Vertex painting is what Radical used to make their maps look daytime/nighttime/sunset. You paint a colour onto every mesh in order to give it "Lighting" of sorts, without needing to make a proper lighting system. It was a good idea, and Radical did a good job with it. It works.
The original maps had different colours used for the time of day they needed, be it orange for sunset, blue for nighttime, or yellow for daytime. Unfortunately, I felt it wouldn't be as easy to just realign a lot of the maps, because the colours used vary from level to level. In the spoiler is L4 compared to L5.
Even if they're similar, I like giving myself more work to do. So I decided to try and make the entire map use a similar colour to the original Level 4.
Because of this, my mod comes with a hex.txt file that tells you the hex colour code used as the base for the mod and can be used if you choose to make map edits for your own mods. In future versions I will be including a more detailed version with lighter/darker colours and colours used for lighting in various parts of the map, be it the lighting from a building or such. I want to make this mod as easy to blend with edits as possible, so please make use of this text file if you can! The text comes inside the mod, so when you decompile it, you'll see the file, alongside any change logs
Changelog:
- 1.0
- Initial Release
- 1.1
- Fixed an issue where meshes in l1r2.p3d were missing and causing gaps in the map
- Re-added the magnifying glass to l2z4.p3d, not emitting rays.
- Fixed an issue where the Krusty Burger sign in l2z4.p3d was painted as daytime.
- Fixed an issue where the animated "hanging" grate in l2z4.p3d was missed and lit as daytime.
- Fixed an issue where the Scratchy/Krusty/Itchy float meshes were still daytime.
- Fixed an issue where the gas station sign in l3r1.p3d was still daytime.
- 1.2
- Fixed an issue where the map would disappear behind the Kwik-E-Mart glass in l1z2.p3d.
- Fixed an issue where an un-needed wall from l1r2.p3d was sticking out of the hospital in l2z1.
- Changed the ambient noises from their daytime versions to their nighttime versions to better suit the map.
- Changed the peds to the ones used in Level 4/5/6
- 1.3:
- Fixed an issue where meshes in l1z2.p3d were still daytime
- Actually fixed the issue with the glass in the kwik-e-mart
- 1.31
- Fixed an issue in l1r2.p3d where the Krusty Burger sign was replaced with the wrong mesh, causing a weird floating spinny sign
- 1.4
- Fixed fence normals that were reversed in the map, most notably in l3r5 and l2r1.
- Fixed painting issues in l1z2 that was not matched to the other pieces.
- Fixed a missing texture issue in the graveyard, due to the fact L4_TERRA has a texture for one of the tombs that is not present in L1_TERRA.
- Fixed a missing texture with oak trees being white when destroyed, due to the fact L4_TERRA also has a texture for those trees that is not present in L1_TERRA. Readded Oak_splinter.tga as a texture.
- Re-added a missing fence to l1r2.p3d, should be present now.
- Added CustomText that the original FCM uses, to tell you where the warps go to.
- 1.5
- Fixed more fence normals, most notably in l3r1's area (Specifically by the bridge) [Edited L1_TERRA.p3d]
- Fixed a lot of flashing meshes, caused by duplicate meshes that contained multiple areas of the map (some from vanilla). Most notably in l1z2.p3d. [Edited l1z2.p3d,l1r2.p3d]
- Fixed incorrect vertex painting. e.g the rocks by the dam, replaced with a correctly done mesh. [Edited l2r4.p3d]
- Fixed a loader locator issue in front of Burns Mansion, Loader 22 was set to unload l1r4a.p3d rather than load it. [Edited L1_TERRA.p3d]
Known Issues:
- The lamp inside the Simpsons House is not lit, this is due to a shader issue I am still trying to fix, this should hopefully be fixed in a future update after I've fixed it.
- All the L4/5/6 exclusive-gags are missing (e.g. Flanders in the Simpsons House), I will hope to re-add these in a future update but for now they have just not been included.
- Bart's room does not have the "doorstar", so it is not obvious that you can enter, but you are able to as the trigger is there.
- From Colou's Thread:
This map contains considerably more Triggers than any of the base game maps, meaning that it is much easier to hit the Trigger limit (500) when designing missions. If you plan on making complex missions using this map, or encounter a crash as a result of having too many triggers, you should extend the limit using the CustomLimits hack. - For some reason, the banner streetlights by the highway have the light-beam slightly above the lamp, trying to figure out a fix to this.
- The shortcut arrows lead through the cemetery, despite it being marked as a shortcut. Am trying to figure out a fix for this, but upped intelligence for now on that road to avoid cars going through it even on dumb ai
Due to the list of known issues being so large, I am likely releasing an update in coming weeks no matter what.
Special Thanks:
- Colou for the Original Connected Map
- Weasel on a Stick for his amazing Map Data Editor for Blender
- Borb for testing it for me :)
- All the tools used, including Lucas' array of tools and Blender, Photoshop