Client side only custom GFX (PNG replacements)

Post your ideas and suggestions how to improve the game.

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Taurondir
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Client side only custom GFX (PNG replacements)

Post by Taurondir »

TL;DR
Ability for each individual player to see the game world graphics as they see fit, without having a Server wide Mod installed that changes it for everyone

What ?
All the current graphics are flat PNG files that can ALREADY be manually messed with as long as you keep the X-Y pixel sizes. You can for example just go into the folder "\data\base\graphics\terrain\concrete", load up "hr-concrete.png" into Paint.net, paste a picture of a cat face, and now whenever you lay concrete, you are drawing a ... fractured cat face everywhere because Factorio cuts up that image into 4 slices then pastes it down randomly (this took research btw)

example of "normal" game vs MY game right now:
Image
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OK, so implementing a COMPLEX new system to manage custom GFX seems to be a pain in the ass right? Well, what about if we could start with a system that is close enough to something people already do. Now I dont ACTUALLY Know how Factorio loads assets, so I can only suggest what I THINK would be a very simple solution, and someone can tell me "well, no it actually is not" if they like.

* We already have a "Mods" folder, so how about a folder just called "Mods_GFX" (or similar), and anything in there that follows the same structure as the the normal "\data\base\graphics\" gets loaded OVER the top of the "normal" graphics after the first pass?

My current full folder structure of GFX changes looks like this atm:

Image

Examples of things I have done to "unclutter" and increase ability to easily spot things:

* Much easier to work on full Brick/Concrete paths re-do. With Concrete I now even get "grid lines" at Chunk quarters, because of how Factorio lays it down (I added a thicker black line at places in the PNG)
* ALL my terrain is snow-white landscape - REALLY easy to spoy anything you lay down
* Transparent Tree stumps, so when you cut them down the land is "visually clear"
* Transparent Biter corpses so I don't get all the ground mess for 16 minutes while they decay
* All my vanilla Belts TINTED all over in a very visible Yellow/Red/Blue, same for Assemblers, they now follow Yellow/Red/Blue convention.
* My rail lines look like the Space Rails in the Space Exploration mod as they look AWESOME
* Roboports are green tinted and have a bright ground Green square border so I can spot them from orbit.
* My stopped Labs are BRIGHT RED because when a Factorio lab STOPS, it defaults to the first frame of the PNG, so if you tint that one bright red ...
(lots of other WIP things as well ...)
Why ?
I started this because I can't see very well, and I needed a "high contrast" kind of game to stop my vision headaches. This concept would also allow anyone with color blindness issues to recolor the entire world as they saw fit. or even go the super extreme FactoCAD way that someone was working on (link below) if they wanted to. Seriously, the sky is the limit, since ... well ... there is no "sky.png"

Right now, every time Factorio updates I have to dump my custom "\data" folder and OVERWRITE ACTUAL GAME FILES PERMANENTLY, which is not a big deal, but its just extra work to undo if something goes wrong, and it would be much easier to have a proper system in place.

Thank you for reading my dumbass idea.

Oh yea, FactoCAD, check this out for extreme

viewtopic.php?t=5038

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Koub
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Re: Client side only custom GFX (PNG replacements)

Post by Koub »

Related enough for me to think it makes sense to add the link here, but not enough for me to merge the topics :
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=26176
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=24139
Koub - Please consider English is not my native language.

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