A plot to kill green stars

from Sins Forums

Ok, I really can't stand green stars, idk why, i guess cause they shouldn't exist irl, but its to the point where i have to restart a large map to get it so there are only blue red and yellow stars.

I know DS has texture, icon and whatever else files for white stars, (i think they're called pulsars or something in game), so i have a question for all you smart modders out there (my skills are on par with a 4 year old =P):

How could I replace the texture and icon files to change green stars to white? Im looking only to replace textures, not entity files, so this shouldn't be to hard right?

modding
17,999 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

take a look in your .../Program Files (x86)/Stardock Games/Sins of a Solar Empire/Textures/...

stargreen.dds is the star texture that you hate... choose one of the other ( staryellow, starred, starblue .dds ) and copy it to your desktop... rename the chosen one "stargreen.dds" and move it back to the textures directory...

A other way is to open stargreen.dds in Gimp ( or photoshop ) and play with the colors>color_balance... this will allow you to create the star color that you wish... pink if you like...

For the icon, same procedure but the file is starcore-green.dds

If you change files in the game directory, it is very possible that you will not more be able to play online... best is to create a mini mod with your changes...

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

put a file called stargreen.dds in the textures folder of the mod(s) that you want to play, the personal stargreen.dds should contain the star colour that you want it to be.

harpo

 

Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

hmmmm, i tried this, and it worked to change the color of the star's surface, but its corona stayed the same... which file would corona information be in?

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

it is in the stargreen.entity in the gameinfo in line 3

and the ENTIRE stargreen.entity file (bolded the lines that effect/refer to colour)

 

TXT
entityType "Star"
coronaStartColor ff94c012
coronaEndColor ff217001
coronaStartColorDistance 0.000000
coronaEndColorDistance 1.000000
farIcon "HUDICON_SOLARSYSTEM_GREEN"
coloredSkyboxMeshNameCount 4
meshName "SkyboxBackdrop2"
meshName "SkyboxBackdrop3"
meshName "SkyboxBackdrop4"
meshName "SkyboxBackdrop6"
deepSpaceSkyboxMeshNameCount 1
meshName "SkyboxBackdrop7"
iconTextureName "starcore-green"
ability:0 "AbilitySolarRegeneration"
ability:1 ""
ability:2 ""
ability:3 ""
hudIcon "HUDICON_STAR_GREEN"
smallHudIcon "HUDICONSMALL_STAR_GREEN"
infoCardIcon "INFOCARDICON_STAR_GREEN"
minZoomDistanceMult 2.000000
moveAreaRadius 60000.000000
hyperspaceExitRadius 50000.000000
isWormhole FALSE
mainViewIcon "MAINVIEWICON_STAR_GREEN"
picture "STARPICTURE_GREEN"
MeshName "Star_Green"
MaxMeshVisibilityDistanceToCamera -1.000000
minShadow 0.000000
maxShadow 0.000000

 

of course you could just copy the starcolour.entity you like to the stargreen.entity file in your mod(s), which wil also fix the issue

harpo

 

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Green stars do actually exist in real life, fyi.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Sinperium, reply 5
Green stars do actually exist in real life, fyi.

It depends on how you look at it.

 

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Exactly.

:hrmph:

Nice reply though Thoumsin.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Ok so I've successfully edited the entity file to create a white star with a correct corona, and it looks great! =D

But I've still got some issues, there are no icons except for starcore (really zoomed out one). It's completely missing its info card, empire tree, in solarsystem icon, HUD picture, everything except for zoomed out. I'm using the data from Distant Stars to make this, so where could i find these icons?

Ty for the help so far and this (hopefully) should be the last thing i need to fix.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

I re-bolded the sections your looking for. These are brush links. Brushes tell the game which texture sheet to look at, where on the sheet and how big is the icon. The easiest way for you would be to replace the brush names with the brush names of the star you are using. If you are replacing this with white star then open the white star entity and use those brush links.

example for 1 brush link. I'm guessing here.

farIcon "HUDICON_SOLARSYSTEM_GREEN"

farIcon "HUDICON_SOLARSYSTEM_WHITE"

TXT
entityType "Star"
coronaStartColor ff94c012
coronaEndColor ff217001
coronaStartColorDistance 0.000000
coronaEndColorDistance 1.000000
farIcon "HUDICON_SOLARSYSTEM_GREEN"
coloredSkyboxMeshNameCount 4
meshName "SkyboxBackdrop2"
meshName "SkyboxBackdrop3"
meshName "SkyboxBackdrop4"
meshName "SkyboxBackdrop6"
deepSpaceSkyboxMeshNameCount 1
meshName "SkyboxBackdrop7"
iconTextureName "starcore-green"
ability:0 "AbilitySolarRegeneration"
ability:1 ""
ability:2 ""
ability:3 ""
hudIcon "HUDICON_STAR_GREEN"
smallHudIcon "HUDICONSMALL_STAR_GREEN"
infoCardIcon "INFOCARDICON_STAR_GREEN"
minZoomDistanceMult 2.000000
moveAreaRadius 60000.000000
hyperspaceExitRadius 50000.000000
isWormhole FALSE
mainViewIcon "MAINVIEWICON_STAR_GREEN"
picture "STARPICTURE_GREEN"
MeshName "Star_Green"
MaxMeshVisibilityDistanceToCamera -1.000000
minShadow 0.000000
maxShadow 0.000000

 

I would have just remove the GreenStar from the GalaxyScenarioDef.galaxyScenarioDef and entity.manifest and updated all the counts.

 

 

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

myfist, the simpler way would have been to COPY the text of the whitestar entity into the greenstar entity replacing all that was there, then no other changes would have been needed.

harpo

 

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Ryat, reply 7
It depends on how you look at it.

Right...and red stars give off more cold than blue stars...

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Seleuceia, reply 12

Quoting Ryat, reply 7It depends on how you look at it.

Right...and red stars give off more cold than blue stars...

Hehe---or is it better cold?

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

How about...hmmm...more refined cold...