Water textures

[Mechanical Man]

Is there a way to change water textures to change its visuals like northrend clean water or making it seem another liquid or something? The thing that interests me the most is if it's possible to change abyss terrain (the 'water' one) in outland tileset to something else, let's say you add blue background with clouds or something. It's that possbile?

 

[Vizel]

If you were to change the model of the tile it should work, but I'm not entirely sure that's.... a good idea?

 

[Matarael]

Tag for results.

 

[Mechanical Man]

Model of the tile? Where is located?

 

[Vizel]

Well, after a quick google search, I found this tutorial on how to do exactly what you're looking for, i believe!

 

[Mechanical Man]

Not really, I'm actually looking for how to edit water textures or something

 

[Vizel]

Well, as far as I know, water is a tile. So theoretically it should work with water as well. You just open it up and edit it as you wish, as long as the game can still recognize it as a tile. Or am I completely misunderstanding what you mean?

 

[Mechanical Man]

No, the water it's not tile itself. It's even animated.

 

[Dr Super Good]

There are a series of individual images that represent the water surface texture animation (each image is a frame of the surface animation). Importing custom images over these should change it but be aware that it might consume considerable space.

 

[Mechanical Man]

I think I located water textures, but where to get abyss "water" textures?

 

[Dr Super Good]

No idea, you will probably have to make them.

Do be aware that if you want nothing more than a simple recolouration of the water all you need to do is change the water tint in one of the various map options. I think you can even change water tint using script (such sa GUI).

 

[Mechanical Man]

Well, I'd like to have more than recolouration. But I don't seem to find how is outland "water done" with all that black waves you see on the borders.

 

[Dr Super Good]

The waves are linked to tileset if I recall. They are declared in an immutable database (cannot be overwritten).

 

[Vizel]

I think you can even change water tint using script (such sa GUI).

Wait.... seriously? How would that be done?

 

[Mechanical Man]

Environment - Change water tinting color to (100.00%, 100.00%, 100.00%) with 0.00% transparency

But this is not what I want.

 

[Dr Super Good]

You need to use 'OSha' water as that is the only water type in WarCraft III that uses the outload wave textures, models and sound. It also uses TeamColor for the water surface texture. This information is from "TerrainArt/Water.slk", an immutable data file used by WarCraft III.

Try changing the tileset to Outland for a test.

 

[sonofjay]

Just use another water model. UTM have many water models

 

[Dr Super Good]

Just use another water model. UTM have many water models

I do not think he is using custom water. I think he is using the water mesh layer provided by WarCraft III.

 

[sonofjay]

Then he have to do it manually, editing the water textures will do but I don't know how to do it so don't ask XD. But if you can't find a way to edit it, I suggest to use water models.

 

[Mechanical Man]

Okay, I opened water.slk file, some values I can understand, but what are smin, smax and other fields more at the right?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Okay, I opened water.slk file, some values I can understand, but what are smin, smax and other fields more at the right?

I have no idea, probably something to do with variety.

Changing them is not possible as the game loads those files before it loads the map file (so any modifications outside of a mod will not be applied).

Try changing your tileset to outland to see if the ater does what you want.

 

[Mechanical Man]

Okay, then I give up, I will do like Rao Dao Zao did, apparently altering water wasn't good idea.

But which slks are loaded before the map?

 

[Vizel]

Ah, so it does exist. Neat. Never really looked at environment too much, I forgot it was even there.

 

[Hashjie]

Okay, I opened water.slk file, some values I can understand, but what are smin, smax and other fields more at the right?

I think it stands for Shallow min Alpha, Shallow max Alpha, Shallow min Red, Shallow max Red, Shallow min Green, Shallow max Green, Shallow min Blue, Shallow max Blue.
Deep min Alpha, Deep max Alpha, Deep min Red, Deep max Red, Deep min Green, Deep max Green, Deep min Blue, Deep max Blue.

Minimum and Maximum ARGB values for shallow and deep water I suppose ^.^

 

[Mechanical Man]

Bah, since changes won't have effect, now it's pretty pointless :/

 

[Hashjie]

Isn't it possible to overwrite:

ReplaceableTextures\Water\Water00-44.blp

I clearly see the water textures with animation in there ^.^
The water.slk points to that path for the texture files.
If you can overwrite that with custom .blp files you might be abled to alter the water completely.

I haven't tried it yet, but what if you import it into the import manager on that path?
You can use a image editing program to create the animation for the water and then save each frame as .tga and then convert them to .blp
(It has to have 45 frames then though)