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Animals refiltered and new map locations; Sharing my personal project with new filters and maps
Topic Started: Aug 20 2016, 02:48 PM (2,477 Views)
Strataro
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2017-02-14 Edit: Added info about s_uisort /edit
2017-01-07 Edit: Updated the map to the new version :b /edit

I've been spending a lot of time organizing the animals in my game for my private benefit, both original and downloaded/remade, and just felt like sharing :D

With over 400 animals it was kind of difficult finding what I wanted when I wanted it so I made a few filters. Yes, beeing nerdy is fun! :dance: I can now filter animals according to Continent, Family and Period (apart from biome, etc.), which makes building sooo much easier. Going through the .z2f files to find the animal .xmls (and copy them into another .z2f file for easier access in the future) was a drag, but now it feels so worth it. B-)

What's more interesting, and something I couldn't find online and am not sure a lot of people know of is the s_uisort. It bothered me that some animals weren't next to each other in the animal menu. I think an example would be easier to understand: european badger and japanese badger (both very nice downloads) weren't found next to each other due to their coding names: BadgerEuropean and MelesAnakuma. So instead of trying to rename the entire animal, I added s_uisort="badgerjapanese". Of course I also had to add s_uisort to all the other animals in my game but that didn't take too long. Voila! Now the animal list is properly sorted and I feel rather proud about it, haha! :sun:
I also hid a lot of the original animals that simply looks too bad to be allowed in my game, mostly the vanilla dinosaurs.

Filters in my filtertext file, if anyone is interested:
Spoiler: click to toggle


Now to the best part of this post!
With the filters out of the way I got annoyed with the map locations. The original ones were never very pretty, and I didn't like the inconsistency with animal modders creating their own maps, not to mention the missing ones on some not-to-be-mentioned downloads. I guess I'm silly that way. Order! :cello: So I thought it would be nice to make a map with 'proper' biomes, and show the actual distribution of each animal. Turns out to be a lot of work (many files to find, copy and edit) but I like the result.

For instance the aardwolf and ninebanded armadillo maps look like this:
Posted Image Posted Image

Again for those interested, here is the full map:
Posted Image

I've read so many posts everywhere while figuring out how to do this so I don't even know where to give credit anymore, sorry about that. Credit where it's due!

PS. I'm pretty new to modding and posting on forums, so please be nice to me :adowable:
Edited by Strataro, Feb 15 2017, 12:50 PM.
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bunteriro
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I also use my own filter system for continents, regions and family (and also filters for fame and nocturnal animals). It´s rather similar to your system.

Have you found a good way to code custom content animals automatically or did you add the new filter coding to every custom animal? I use the second way but with this sharing the filter system is not so easy.

The revamped maps also sound like a lot of work but I like them.
Edited by bunteriro, Aug 20 2016, 05:09 PM.
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Strataro
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I think you do have to edit the xml of each animal. I'm not sure how to, but I guess you could write some sort of script to do the editing automatically.

I manually copy all the main.xml files into a new z2f file and add/edit the filter coding and map icons there. That way I can remove my modifications in a flash if I want. It's also a lot easier/quicker to find a specific animal if I happened to put it in the wrong category ;)

I like the maps too, thank you :D
Edited by Strataro, Aug 21 2016, 02:32 PM.
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Strataro
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Updated the map to the new version
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Strataro
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Added info about s_uisort
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Siska-Coda
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This sounds like something I want to have, too. I will have to take a look at you said things to edit my files... will be a lot of work, I'm sure, but it is actually something (especially the filtres) I thought a lot about in the last months because I am always irritated when I want to find some animal in my list!

Sounds like great work and thanks for sharing what you have done!
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froy
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tomtebrolet
Feb 14 2017, 04:08 AM
Added info about s_uisort
I have tried the s_uisort thing but it didn't seem to work for me x_x The animals change their initial order but instead of the correct one the go to the very end of the list...

May I've been doing something wrong?

Edit: Also, how do you do the hidde the dinosaurs in the game?
Edited by froy, Feb 14 2017, 08:44 AM.
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Strataro
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froy
Feb 14 2017, 08:36 AM
I have tried the s_uisort thing but it didn't seem to work for me x_x The animals change their initial order but instead of the correct one the go to the very end of the list...

May I've been doing something wrong?

Edit: Also, how do you do the hidde the dinosaurs in the game?
I would guess that you haven't added s_uisort to ALL the animals (including the original ones). s_uisort is not used by default in the animal xml files, so the game regards the animals where you haven't added it as s_uisort="". Empty would sort before any other letter or symbol. So if you want to use s_uisort you have to add it even if the animal already has a good coding name.

To hide the animals I added <ZTDevComponent /> under <shared> in the main xml-file. Not sure how this affects campaigns and such, but I don't play them anyway so it doesn't matter to me.

I hope you figure it out :D

PS. I tracked down all of the animals' main xmls and copied them into another .z2f file where I make my edits. It was a bit of a drag to find them all and to make sure I had the latest versions but it's easy to make small changes now.
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