Changing the Zones/Roads for a custom map in the TERRA.p3d

Hi, I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but I'm unsure how to go about getting the game to load a specific map through the Terra file. I already have the zones/road files that i want to use however I've had to change the name as a variant of them is being used by another level.


So, my issue is my modified files of these are being used for level 1, I want to use a variation of them for level 4. I have the files i want to use but obviously the Terra file is set up to read the files for level 1 instead of my altered ones renamed for level 4. What program should I be using? I have Blender and the addon installed but I'm not sure if thats even the right way to go about it?

It's not a stupid question at all! That stuff can be a bit confusing honestly.

It's been a good while since I Level swapped, but Will did write a tutorial for it a while back. Based on your previous thread, you seem to be using Colou's Fully Connected Map mod. How are you using it in Level 1, if you don't mind me asking? Trying to see if I understand how it's being used.

Hey, yeah so I’m using Colou’s mod for the first 3 levels, I’m pretty sure I’ll have an issue with coin crates/vending machines unless I create more new versions ^^ but for now that’s not an issue as it’s playable, so for level 4,5 and 6 my aim is to use variants of that mod, so I renamed the files for the night variant, which is what I wanted L4_TERRA to use just as the other terra mods rely on l1/2/3… I was thinking about using a duplicated version of the “L1_TERRA” and changing the skybox however ti think I had issues with that when I initially tried it as it either force loads the first part of the original level 4 map, though that could potentially be fixed by editing the script that spawns that part in as you helped me work out in my last dilemma… I’ve had a break for a few hours so excuse me if I’ve just rambled, If you need me to try and explain again I’ll give it another go; I confused myself typing this ^^

Sorry, reading back on that I feel I should clarify I few things:

So when I was saying about the overlapping, I edited the spawn location for Marge to be outside the Simpsons house instead of inside of it, this loads fine, with I’m assuming the map that I renamed from l1** to l4** as that’s what the original game would do anyway, however it also loads the rest of l1/2/3 from Colou’s amazing creation, (Billboards look really weird), for example the night variant files I have have the open gates int he cemetery, but because it’s also loading the l1** files they are also shut ^^ I can almost get to the KwikEMart or the KrustyBurger by the cemetery before the game crashes, which is rather impressive I think actually ^^

Do you have a link to the tutorial you mentioned? I spent at least a solid hour looking for guides/videos but was unsuccessful so I don’t think I saw it, unless I did and got confused and dismissed it, thanks for the help ^^

My bad! I completely misunderstood the question and have been re-reading what you stated. So you're interested in using the night time variant of the map that Sparrow created a while back in Level 4's place, but use the regular daytime variant for the first 3 Levels? You have the first 3 Levels properly using the Fully Connected Map Mod? In which case, you can disregard what I stated earlier.

That'd be a fair bit trickier, unfortunately. I can see why you'd be using the Map Data Viewer tool in that case, but I'm afraid that doesn't accomplish what you're looking to do. The night time and day time variants would both conflict with their region/zone names left as-is. I'm pretty sure the best method of action then would be setting up a lua script to check what Level you're on, and then loading the appropriate P3Ds based on what Level you're in would work best? But even setting up such a lua script would require a little bit of work.

So I have levels 1/2/3 loading up the files from Colou’s version, As far as I know I believe there will be an issue with crates/vending machines as L2/L3_TERRA are duplicates of the original L1_TERRA provided in Colou’s files. I haven’t actually looked into it completely but I’m guessing that might be because they are duplicates, so if I collect coins on level 1 the game is still reading my stats from level 1 when I play 2 and 3, which isn’t the biggest problem as the amount of coins is still going to be equal to the original game. I could be completely wrong, for all o know there’s a p3d file that controls the spawning of crates/vending machines and coins but because I haven’t set it as a priority I haven’t looked for it yet.

I was using the Map Data to see what was showing up and I thought it would be the best visual aid to to try to help explain myself ^^

Would a .lua script override this? After looking at Map Data Viewer I stopped looking at scripts as I thought I would have to edit the TERRA file somehow to load l4z2 for example instead of l1z2. So I’ll take a look into that soon. I downloaded some other mods that use custom maps to check their files to see what they had done, as far as I could tell their L*_TERRA files just had more data in then when I checked using the Map Viewer, so I kinda got fixated that editing that file somehow is the only way forward.

I shall do more investigating once I’m fully coffee’d up.

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Actually, the 3rd part (specifically the "I thought I would have to edit the TERRA file somehow [...]" part) is quite correct. What you have to do is check the triggers that load these areas.
Best thing to do would be to enable the Debug Test setting in your mod launcher (Developer page) and scroll until you find the trigger you want to edit (it has to be inside a zone event locator)

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Once you check that, open your terra file, and search the chunk name of your trigger.

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Now you have your locator with the trigger inside. All that is left to do is edit the Dyna Load Data string inside the locator. change l1 to l4 or something.
If you're confused by the string's meaning, you can check out this documentation page for more information.

I hope this helps!

I havn't tried this yet but just looking at it makes complete sense. I will get to work now! I'll post an update here once i've tried it out. Thank you ^^

I have not yet completed editing all the files but this IS the answer! THANK YOU! Words cannot explain my gratitude right now ^^

So after developing some kind of dyslexia staring at what looked like gibberish after an hour, I finally managed to swap all the files that I needed to correctly. Apparently Level 4 has more triggers so thanks to Debug Checks I was able to find out how many it was going over by, a little edit to custom limits and a drive around the entire map three times and everything is working flawlessly.

Thank you SO much for the help!!

No problem, good luck with your project!