Guide to the Weather System and other full screen animations

[youngneil1]

[youngneil1]

Big update to the guide, reflecting the current state of the weather system. Nearing completion of weather system and guide rapidly now.

[youngneil1]

1. Changing the graphics of weather types: clouds, fog, sandstorm and lightning (full screen images overlaying each other, yet moves as sprites)
The files below can be found in your module's graphic folder - just keep their name and size and exchange them with a fitting graphic matching your module's style:
(Note: I think lightning has a bug, must investigate later)

lightCloudLayerA.pnglightCloudLayerB.pnglightCloudLayerC.pngcloudLayerA.pngcloudLayerB.pngcloudLayerC.pngheavyCloudLayerA.pngheavyCloudLayerB.pngheavyCloudLayerC.png

lightFogLayerA.pnglightFogLayerB.pngfogLayerA.pngfogLayerB.pngheavyFogLayerA.pngheavyFogLayerB.png

lightSandstormLayerA.pnglightSandstormLayerB.pngsandstormLayerA.pngsandstormLayerB.pngheavySandstormLayerA.pngheavySandstormLayerB.png

lightningLayerB1.pnglightningLayerB2.pnglightningLayerB3.pnglightningLayerB4.pnglightningLayerB5.pnglightningLayerB6.pnglightningLayerB7.pnglightningLayerB8.png

2. Changing the graphics of weather types: rain and snow (single little sprites drawn many, many times by an algorithm varying position and speed)
Thes files below can be found under Default/NewModule/graphics - just place a .png (matching your module's style) with the same name and size in your module's graphic folder:

rainDrop.png
snowFlake.png

3. Weather Editor
Note: The weather effect editor is not supported anymore - it was very powerful for finetunig, but also based on an older weather approach without sprites (which was too slow).

The weather editor is still working though:

It has three sections, like layers of an onion:
Weathers, WeatherTpyeLists and WeatherTpyeListItems.

a. Weathers
Weathers can be defined per each area via the area property areaWeatherName (just enter the name of the weather). You will find seven premade weathers:
spring: Fast changes of rainy and sunny, occassional ligthning storms. No snow or fog.
summer: Mostly sunny and light clouds, but can go all the way down to rainy thunderstorms. Light fog rarely. No snow.
autumn; Very foggy, often rain. Sometimes snow fall.
winter: Often snow, sometimes hard rain. Thick clouds and stormy, but sometimes clear or lightly clouded intervals, too.
desert: Just clear, light clouds and various degrees of sandstroms. No snow, rain or fog.
swamp: Foggy almost all the time, very rainy. No snow. Can also be used for e.g. jungles.
iceland: Extreme Version of winter, dire weather conditions with raging storms and snow very often.

The premade weathers can be directly used or serve as examples and starting points for the custom creation of further weathers.

b. WeatherTpyeLists
WeatherTpyeLists are the different states a weather like e.g. "spring" can go through over time. Like "lightCloudsA" (few clouds favouring cloudswith the lightCloudLayerA.png) or lightRainWithCloudsAShowers (medium cloud thickness favouring clouds with the cloudLayerA.png and medium amount of rainDrop.png). When a weather is entered the first time it always begins with the special WeatherTpyeList entry. This one branches to other states, who in turn branch into each other, creating a continous flow of weather states.

c. WeatherTpyeListItems
The WeatherTpyeListItems of a WeatherTpyeList are the exit options of a weather state. They contain a chance to be rolled (always addign up to 100% within a weather state), a duration defining how long the rolled new weather state will last and an effect to play for this rolled weather state (from drop down list).