Theatrum Orbis Terrarum version 2.1

[Pishtaco]

This mod is for older versions of EUIII. If you have the In Nomine expansion pack, see this thread.


Features

-Inspired by the look of early atlases
-New textures and pixelshaders
-Hills and forests are shown on the political maps
-A more stylized, more informative terrain map
-Stationary water, smaller flags and less glaring terra incognita
-Optional new font (Aquiline Two by Manfred Klein)
-Optional dynamic minimap, which changes to show what has been discovered

Download (for older versions of EUIII): TOT21.zip or TOT21.zip
Download (for the In Nomine expansion): see here.

This mod demands more of your video card than version 1, and is not recommended for people who have performance problems with EU3's graphics. Version 1 is here.

Screenshots







Installation

** For EU3 version 1.3 (without the NA expansion) **

Place the TOT21 folder and the TOT21.mod file in the mod subdirectory of your Europa Universalis III directory, then activate the mod from the game launcher.

If you would like to use the new font: The mod switcher doesn't like new fonts, so you have to copy tahoma_60.fnt and tahoma_60.dds from the /fonts directory of this package into the /gfx/fonts subdirectory of your main EU3 directory.

If you would like to use the dynamic minimap: Copy minimap_bg.dds and minimap.dds from the /minimap directory of this package into the /gfx/interface subdirectory of your main EU3 directory. Open the file borders_2_0.fx in the /minimap directory of this package in notepad and change the two lines at the top to match your screen resolution. Then use this file instead of the /gfx/fx/borders_2_0.fx file of the plain TOT21 mod. There is a known bug with the dynamic minimap: province names and zoomed-out army flags will show in front of the minimap, rather than being obscured by it.

If you would like to use this mod permanently or to combine it with other mods, it may be simplest to overwrite the game files entirely rather than to use the mod switcher. In this case, copy the .fx files from /TOT21/gfx/FX over the files in the /gfx/FX subdirectory of your EU3 directory, and copy the .dds files from /TOT21/map/terrain over the files in the /map/terrain subdirectory of your EU3 directory. This will not change your checksum and you will still be able to play multiplayer games.

Please make backups of any files or directories you are going to overwrite.

** For EU3 2.0 and 2.1 (with the NA expansion) **

There is an issue with the mod-switcher in this version. It will not use the files rivers.fx and borders_2_0.fx from the mod (and possibly some other files as well). I recommend that you install the mod directly, overwriting the game files. Follow the instructions above and please make backups.

** For the Magna Mundi mod (with any version of EU3) **

In the /MM directory are two files, colormap.dds and colormap_water.dds, to use if you are combining TOT with the Magna Mundi mod. If you are using this mod I suggest you install TOT over the game files directly, as above. Then make a /terrain subdirectory in the /map subdirectory of the /mod/magnamundi directory (if there is not one already) and put these two files in there.

Other notes

If you don't like the dot texture on the sea, open water.fx in notepad and follow the instructions at the top.

If you are modding country colours and want to change a country's colour to a grey close to 50% grey, do not use exactly the same value for red, green and blue. E.g. use (128,128,127) rather than (128,128,128). Otherwise it will appear as a tan colour in the data map modes.

Changes from 2.0: fixed a bug; added MM files; made sea texture fainter; coasts are done slightly differently. The old thread is here.

[rcduggan]

two questions:

1. how is this different from 2.0?

2. any chance of making it compatible with MEIOU?

[Patje.lol]

I think it's the 2.0b version, perhaps with some minor tweaks.

Installed it and looking very nicely. Love the map, gives a good "feel" to the game.

[Pishtaco]

Originally Posted by rcduggan

1. how is this different from 2.0?

See the end of the first post. I cleaned the files up a bit and compressed the textures. The hatching and outline at the coasts is also done differently. It should be slightly tidier now and it should be easier to make the colourmap files for a different map.

[merlin2199]

Is there a way to disable the forrests and hills from the political map? Also, is there a way to have the country colors not be so distorted by FoW? Aside from that, great work, but those two are keeping me from giving it a swirl.

[Pishtaco]

Originally Posted by merlin2199

Is there a way to disable the forrests and hills from the political map? Also, is there a way to have the country colors not be so distorted by FoW? Aside from that, great work, but those two are keeping me from giving it a swirl.

Putting terrain on the political map was my main reason for starting the mod. But if you want to fiddle with it, deleting the commands that are commented //mountains, //hills or //forests in PixelShader_Map2_0_General and PixelShader_Beach_General, which are sections of terrain_2_0.fx, should work.

Country colours aren't distorted by FoW, they're just darker.

[merlin2199]

Originally Posted by Pishtaco

Putting terrain on the political map was my main reason for starting the mod. But if you want to fiddle with it, deleting the commands that are commented //mountains, //hills or //forests in PixelShader_Map2_0_General and PixelShader_Beach_General, which are sections of terrain_2_0.fx, should work.

Will do

Originally Posted by Pishtaco

Country colours aren't distorted by FoW, they're just darker.

The Swedish blue looks kinda funny in the screen shot, and in the older screenies, the French and British colors were a bit distorted with an orange tint. I am thinking that has to do with the FoW texture having a yellowish color to it, I'll try making it black and white and see if that helps. Thanks for your work.

[Pishtaco]

Originally Posted by merlin2199

The Swedish blue looks kinda funny in the screen shot, and in the older screenies, the French and British colors were a bit distorted with an orange tint. I am thinking that has to do with the FoW texture having a yellowish color to it, I'll try making it black and white and see if that helps. Thanks for your work.

The paper texture has a slight yellow tint, but this affects the visible things and the things in FoW the same. You can see the plain paper in the strip along the edge of the TI. The body of the TI has a very slightly darker yellowish tint; this is there to bring out the shape of the provinces at the edge of TI, which are partly hidden by my TI effect.

[Creature]

Thank you again.

This time all is well.

Only small issue with colouring:

I think some colours of the political map are too bleak, i.e. Sibir, but maybe a few other too. It doesn't look like colour at all, more like some semi-transparency. Not really different from uncolonized provinces.

Also, for me, the colours for Atjeh & Malacca are indistinguishable.

[Pishtaco]

Originally Posted by Creature

Thank you again.

This time all is well.

Only small issue with colouring:

I think some colours of the political map are too bleak, i.e. Sibir, but maybe a few other too. It doesn't look like colour at all, more like some semi-transparency. Not really different from uncolonized provinces.

Also, for me, the colours for Atjeh & Malacca are indistinguishable.

Thanks for the feedback.

I can tell Atjeh and Malacca apart with no trouble, but Ayutthaya and Pegu are tough. Hm.

[gigau]

My friend Pishtaco, i tried to change the colormap files for MEIOU. When i did it for MagnaMundi, i had no problems. Now, for MEIOU, rivers appear green and brown.... the green and brown colors being much like on the colormap file. What did i do wrong ?

[Patje.lol]

Originally Posted by Pishtaco

Thanks for the feedback.

I can tell Atjeh and Malacca apart with no trouble, but Ayutthaya and Pegu are tough. Hm.

Some colours are tough, but some colours were tough in Vanilla aswell.

I've been using the map the last few days now and it does look marvellous. Had to get used to it, of course, but now I just can't do without.

[Pishtaco]

Originally Posted by gigau

My friend Pishtaco, i tried to change the colormap files for MEIOU. When i did it for MagnaMundi, i had no problems. Now, for MEIOU, rivers appear green and brown.... the green and brown colors being much like on the colormap file. What did i do wrong ?

That sounds like you're using paradox's rivers.fx rather than mine. Maybe it's the problem with the mod switcher for NA?

It sounds like you're not having any problems with it, but I'll say how the water colour map is made. Start with a file that has good information about coastlines. I've been using topology.bmp, but have had to fix bad pixels by hand afterwards. Maybe provinces.bmp is better, or maybe it's a combination. Then I've been using dilate/erode and gaussian blur in gimp, as follows.

Let A be black land and white sea. Let B be A with the land made one pixel larger; let C have the land one pixel larger still; let D be A with the land made one pixel smaller. Then for the sea you want 0.5+0.5*(radius 2 gaussian blur(0.5*B+C)). For the land you want (12/255)*(radius 1 gaussian blur(D)). Use the combined image as the blue channel for colormap.dds and as a greyscale image for colormap_water.dds.

[gigau]

Originally Posted by Pishtaco

That sounds like you're using paradox's rivers.fx rather than mine. Maybe it's the problem with the mod switcher for NA?

It sounds like you're not having any problems with it, but I'll say how the water colour map is made. Start with a file that has good information about coastlines. I've been using topology.bmp, but have had to fix bad pixels by hand afterwards. Maybe provinces.bmp is better, or maybe it's a combination. Then I've been using dilate/erode and gaussian blur in gimp, as follows.

OK, thanks, i'll check the river.fx file

Originally Posted by Pishtaco

Let A be black land and white sea. Let B be A with the land made one pixel larger; let C have the land one pixel larger still; let D be A with the land made one pixel smaller. Then for the sea you want 0.5+0.5*(radius 2 gaussian blur(0.5*B+C)). For the land you want (12/255)*(radius 1 gaussian blur(D)). Use the combined image as the blue channel for colormap.dds and as a greyscale image for colormap_water.dds.

Well... you got me lost there
I'll look into Gimp when get home...

[Gaute65]

I'm running EU3 in Linux. As you can see from the pics the borders doesn't look good. Do you have any tips for how to make the borders looking better?

EU3, 1.3:



EU3, 1.3 +tot21:

[Pishtaco]

The funny-looking borders, and the funny-shaped forests, look to me like your computer is having problems doing some of the less basic pixelshader operations (remainders and if...then... statements). Probably these are the ones that you need pixelshader 2 for.

You also have a funny shaped province highlight. I don't know what that is. Maybe the highlight object is being drawn funnily, or there's some problem with the z buffer?

Overall, I would guess that you have pixelshader 2 implemented badly.

[Wittmann]

Pishtaco, this is absoluty amazing..... great job.

[Gaute65]

Originally Posted by Pishtaco

The funny-looking borders, and the funny-shaped forests, look to me like your computer is having problems doing some of the less basic pixelshader operations (remainders and if...then... statements). Probably these are the ones that you need pixelshader 2 for.

You also have a funny shaped province highlight. I don't know what that is. Maybe the highlight object is being drawn funnily, or there's some problem with the z buffer?

Overall, I would guess that you have pixelshader 2 implemented badly.

The hardware is good enough (ati x800) Wine is probably not doing good enough job with the pixelshader 2.

I will try some different settings in the registry.

Thanks for the help

[Enoch Root]

This is just beautiful; something I never expected to say regarding the EU3 map.

However, the dynamic minimap won't work for me. I copy the 3 files in the /interface folder, edit Borders_2.0_fx to match my screen resolution (1200x800), but when I run the game I still see the old static map.

[Pishtaco]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

This is just beautiful; something I never expected to say regarding the EU3 map.

However, the dynamic minimap won't work for me. I copy the 3 files in the /interface folder, edit Borders_2.0_fx to match my screen resolution (1200x800), but when I run the game I still see the old static map.

Thank you.

Are you sure you have copied the .dds files correctly, overwriting the original game files? They should replace the minimap with something featureless and semi-transparent, which borders_2_0.fx then fills in. Also it should only be the two .dds files that go into /gfx/interface, the borders one goes into /gfx/FX.