Feral Heart

Help & Guidance => Member Made Tutorials => Mapping Tutorials => Topic started by: Kastilla on September 12, 2018, 01:32:07 am

Title: Custom moons!? [TUTORIAL]
Post by: Kastilla on September 12, 2018, 01:32:07 am
Have you ever wanted a rainbow moon? Or perhaps you'd like a special celestial body within you map's sky? Read ahead as I instruct how to:

Customize your default moon
Add a special moon into your map using the Sky Maker




Custom Default Moon
I personally recommend backing up your default moon texture, just in case you want to change back!

Open the default moon texture (FeralHeart>media>textures>Moon.png) in some sort of image manipulator software (GIMP, Sai, Photoshop, etc.)
(https://i.imgur.com/3jSBwSp.png)

Let's make a rainbow moon, shall we~ So, grab your gradient tool...
(https://i.imgur.com/4PLsgRd.png)
and pull it across the moon!
(https://i.imgur.com/dnFTq33.png)
(here you can see I have a radial gradient and the opacity down a bit. Play around with layer settings (Screen, Overlay, Multiply, Invert, etc.) and have fun with it.

Once you have your new moon, overwrite the Moon.PNG and open FeralHeart. Go to your Sky Maker (or log on, depending if it's night or day in-game~) and select Night. Maneuver around the sky to see your moon!
(https://i.imgur.com/3wY0ocG.png)

(I went ahead and did some layer setting play, out of curiousity. Different transparencies and the Multiply setting.)
(https://i.imgur.com/3wY0ocG.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/iTk78GE.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/aDuHFK8.png)
(The clouds were in the way and I got impatient waiting for them, so it's an ominous rainbow moon.)

Special, Map-specific Moon
This is similar to above, but with some coding. Well, it's more copy-and-paste! Then again, that's what coding is sometimes... anyway!
I have decided I don't want the Earth's moon, I want Saturn! So I go to a royalty-free image site, such as Flickr, and find a nice image of Saturn. I like it, so I will use it.
(https://i.imgur.com/pLZMXi2.png)

So, I have opened it up in GIMP...problem is, it is a bit big compared to FH's moon.
(https://i.imgur.com/2OZPxXK.png)


I crop it and scale it down smaller.
(https://i.imgur.com/7rTBDXq.png)

Now that we finally have our soon-to-be moon image, we will save it to our My_Objects folder. I named it my_saturn.png. Since I already have a custom moon in this folder, I have the material file set up. All you have to do is make your own material file (Make a new notepad document and replace the .txt abbreviation to .material.) and copy this code into it, changing the text in white to the name of your image/name of your material:
Quote
material my_saturn
{
   receive_shadows off
   technique
   {
      pass
      {
         lighting off
         depth_write off
         scene_blend add
         fog_override true

         texture_unit
         {
            texture my_saturn.PNG
         }
      }
   }
}

Once you have it saved, open up FeralHeart and go to your Sky Maker. Once in your Sky Maker, scroll down and select Moon. This is where you color the moon, but also you can change the material!
(https://i.imgur.com/gqCJKqH.png)

Input your new material and wha-lah! It's a saturn-moon!
(https://i.imgur.com/5Y6YXVs.png)

(which you can also still color!)
(https://i.imgur.com/tuPXGvR.png)


IMPORTANT LINKS
GIMP - Free Image Manipulator (https://www.gimp.org/)
60 Royalty-Free Image Sites Free of Charge (https://zipbooks.com/blog/royalty-free-images-free-of-charge/)

And I believe that is it to show you! If you have any questions, feel free to ask. :)

~ Wolfie

Title: Re: Custom moons!? [TUTORIAL]
Post by: LadySigyn on September 12, 2018, 03:05:55 am
Ooh I love this little tutorial! Making custom moons have always fascinated me, and this is super helpful! Thank you for creating this and sharing it with us! I'm sure it'll come in handy to many users!
Title: Re: Custom moons!? [TUTORIAL]
Post by: Kahbloom on September 12, 2018, 03:13:37 am
This is SO COOL. I knew how to edit my moon for me to see in-game but I didn't know about the map-specific part! Oh my gosh! That's such a cool feature. thank you!
Title: Re: Custom moons!? [TUTORIAL]
Post by: Valar.Morghulis on September 12, 2018, 08:43:41 am
This is such a great tutorial, I am sure many people will love it and use it! I absolutely love customizing the game and playing with random textures that are in game too! Oh and I might download GIMP from your link because yours is pretty in black, mine is just white xD Got a little bit old tbh! +floof ❤
Title: Re: Custom moons!? [TUTORIAL]
Post by: Flurr on September 12, 2018, 11:57:00 am
Ooh, what a cool tutorial! It's always pretty neat it can do stuff like that. I've always wondered how to do that! Overall, Thanks for this tutorial wolvie! +floof :D!
Title: Re: Custom moons!? [TUTORIAL]
Post by: Ame88 on September 12, 2018, 07:37:12 pm
What a nice tutorial! I've always loved how you can customize almost everything in FeralHeart, granted you knew how to do it. I'm sure many members will find this tutorial very helpful~ Thank you for posting this!
Title: Re: Custom moons!? [TUTORIAL]
Post by: Kastilla on September 12, 2018, 08:48:13 pm
Thank you, thank you for the compliments! I am glad I helped you be even more creative with your game. ヽ(*・ω・)ノ   
(wasn't sure how to say that, tbh)

!!!! three more replies? o_o You're welcome for the tutorial.

What a nice tutorial! I've always loved how you can customize almost everything in FeralHeart, granted you knew how to do it. I'm sure many members will find this tutorial very helpful~ Thank you for posting this!
I am forever finding new ways to customize FeralHeart. Even if it completely crashes my game... but that's why you make backups, no? ^_^
Title: Re: Custom moons!? [TUTORIAL]
Post by: Ame88 on September 12, 2018, 08:51:24 pm
What a nice tutorial! I've always loved how you can customize almost everything in FeralHeart, granted you knew how to do it. I'm sure many members will find this tutorial very helpful~ Thank you for posting this!
I am forever finding new ways to customize FeralHeart. Even if it completely crashes my game... but that's why you make backups, no? ^_^

Same here! I've made so many things for my FH, and had so many frustrations on how to fix what I did X3 Backups are any creator's best friend, or else we'd all just be overly frustrated on so many things XD