The Harvest Moon Consortium

[Bannor Bloodfist]

The CTP, or Community Tileset Project is a compilation of many, many artists works from the vault as well as custom content that was created exclusively for the CTP Project.

What will the CTP Contain?

The CTP is a group of many tilesets, approximately 40, that have been bug tested, bug fixed (to the best of our ability) and renamed so that they will NOT conflict with other tilesets that you may have in your mod.

The CTP is NOT one big hak. It will never be one big hak. The purpose of the CTP project is to make all of these different tilesets work well together, but not at the same time in the same area. IE, you can have a Black Desert area in your mod and you can have a Bioware Desert area in your mod. These will NOT conflict with each other. Each of those tilesets contain their own, individual tiles. The do NOT conflict but they also can not be placed into the same area.

Currently, using the Aurora toolset, whenever you wish to generate a new area, you are asked which tileset you wish to use to build with. This will NOT change. What will change, is the number of tileset choices that you will have to build with.

All of the CTP tilesets will have CTP at the beginning of their names in your choices of sets to build from.

What do you mean, different haks?

What this gives to the builder, is the power to pick and choose which sets will be inlcuded into their module, while at the same time reduce the total number of downloads required for the player to be able to use that module.

So, when you go to the vault and download Mr Z's famous module, you won't have to download a whole bunch of custom tileset haks to allow you to view the world that Mr Z created. (Provided of course, that Mr Z decided to use the CTP tilesets! Of course he did, or he wouldn't have been mentioned here!)

This also means that you as the player and/or builder will need whatever tilesets from the CTP that have been included.

How you might ask?

By breaking up the release into seperate haks, even dialup users can grab it, piece by piece until they have the whole set. It also means that a builder could build a smaller module and not require as many of those tilesets.

Compare this to the CEP project that gives you so much power in what creatures, items, armour, NPC pics etc, that you can use to create your character and/or create in your module. You don't have to have custom haks for your players to download since they will all have the same content already! (Again, provided that they have already downloaded the CTP files).

Ok, I am a builder and I have the haks, now what?

When you create your module, you must include the haks for the tilesets that you want to use in the custom content fields. Just like you would with the CEP files. CTP haks can and should be loaded BELOW CEP content in the haks listings.

Don't worry, we have no files that will conflict with CEP and we are taking great pains to make sure it stays that way!

Now when you go to create your areas, you will see whatever tilesets from the CTP that you have chosen to include. Beware, it's a lot of tilesets to choose from!

Note: THIS IS IMPORTANT:

The CTP will contain at least 2 common files that must always be used when you add a tileset to your module. These files contain tiles, textures and fixes that are common throughout our sets. They MUST be included in the custom content and they must also be included above all other tileset haks from the CTP.

We will release the names of the sets and the common files as we get closer to release date. Some of those set names have already been released in the Adventures of Jerl Silvershield . So, if you wish to dig a bit, you can find some clues there! Big thanks to our Guest Writers from the West Sea Writers Guild

Ok I am a player, don't care about building, what does the CTP Offer me?

That all depends on how and what you play.

Will it affect OC or SOU or HOTU?

No

Will it affect the current PW that you play on?

Not until THEY decide to upgrade and add addtional totally NEW areas to their worlds. They will have to be NEW areas, created using the CTP Tilesets, as the tile sets from CTP will not plug and play with existing areas.

Will it affect modules that I have already downloaded from the Vault?

No

So, Why, you may ask, should I download the CTP files?

Well, having seen these sets, I can tell you that once our community of builders get their hands on them, those builders will be creating Totaly New and exciting areas or worlds for you to play in. Lots and LOTS of new and exciting areas!

Ok, you keep talking about these tilesets, what have YOU, the CTP Team, done with the sets that you have?

We have taken sets from the vault, sets that were voted by the community as being excellent works. We then took those sets, tested them, added content where we thought it might be useful, fixed the bugs that we could find, tested them again to make sure that they wouldn't break other works, documented them and finally released them to you. We have also garnered works by custom content creators, pieces here and entire sets there, and have included them as well.

So, say you like the Caravans from SOU, but you want them in a different environment so that you can write your module around that type of conveyance? Or maybe you prefer to have Airships in your Desert? Your City? Your Farmlands? All of these things and more will now be possible.

Some of the sets we release will have never been seen before. Some will have just had their major flaws removed or fixed. Others will have had different types of features or groups added to them. ALL will have been tested by as many people as we could get to test them. Real tests, does this doorway work? Can I walk to where I am supposed to be able to walk? Can I shoot an arrow over this wall and hit the zombie that I see standing on the other side? Many, many other tests that would probably bore you to tears. But tested none-the-less, because they needed to be tested.

Will you be fixing bugs in tileset 'x' from Bioware?

Usually not, however there are some exceptions. The bugs that we are fixing in Bioware original sets will NOT be overwriting fixes. IE, you can choose to NOT have those bugs fixed on your computer, simply by not including that one hak that contains the fixes that we have formulated together. The only fixes that we have made to Bioware tiles are fixes that cause something to break. IE, not fixing the way a tile looks per se, but how it functions in the game. A broken walk mesh can be a real pain.

Ok, ok, I understand all of that, but what I really REALLY want to know, is WHEN!

Well, that would be telling wouldn't it? It's a big project and we have a limited number of resourceful people that are attempting to complete the project. If you know of anyone that has and 3dsMax or Gmax experience, (no, they don't have to know how to create tilesets, just have some knowledge of using 3dsmax or Gmax,) point them in our direction, We would be glad to make use of their time and energy, as much or as little as they are willing to give.

So back to the original question... WHEN!

Ok, Ok, I hear you... "When it's done!" /me ducking for cover from the flying tomatoes...

I know, you all hear that a lot around the Bioware community. There are reasons for that sort of answer though. You wouldn't want us to release something that totally breaks the game would you? You also wouldn't want to download a whole bunch of large files just to find out that there was nothing new in them either.

We are thinking of releasing some of the sets that have passed muster as soon as we get a group of them finished, and that is not that far off. By the end of the year for sure.

There is a poll in this General Discussion forum, place your answer there. We are listening.

And again, if you know anyone that wishes to help out, especially to help squash the bugs, let us know. We can keep them as busy as they wish to be!