Total War: WARHAMMER II Guide

Changing environment lighting and other effects for Total War: WARHAMMER II

Changing environment lighting and other effects

Overview

Pack File Manager tutorial for editing environment and weather effects/lightingScroll to the pictures at the bottom to see what you can do with this tutorial.

Pack File Manager

For this you need PFM, there are other guides online where to find and how to install PFM, Once you have it, right click, add from pack;
select data.pack in warhammer 2 folder

Add weather section

The weather files

The files on the left are all the individual weather and environment types for the different types of maps in the game. Brt = Bretonnia, Emp = Empire, etc..

-=-=-=-=-=-UPDATE-=-=-=-=- [IGNORE THIS IF FIRST TIME READING THE GUIDE]

Some environments will get used more than others in campaign, while some may never get used. I still don’t know exactly how the game connects the maps to the campaign environments.
For example: Norsca has 7 environments;
nor_01
nor_02
nor_04
nor_05
nor_06
nor_07
nor_snowy_coast
But in the campaign, battles in norsca will almost all use nor_01 and nor_02

This means if you change for example nor_01 to rain, approximately 50% the battles in norsca (campaign area) will be rain, even if there are 6 other norsca environments.

The other norsca environments in this case only get used in unique settlements or chokepoint/ambush battles.

Some others examples

Emp_08 = Only appears in the ‘sigmar statue’ minor settlement map in campaign, nowhere else
Emp_fort = Only appears in the Empire forts, nowhere else

The Dwf_ files rarely get used. subterranean dwarf battles use deep_01, sub_01, sub_02, rift_01.
Overground dwarf settlement battles (the maps surrounded by mountains) almost always use the Pass_ files (pass_01 – pass_04)

Hope this helps.

-=-=-=-=-=- [CONTINUE GUIDE] -=-=-=-=-=-=-

Finding the corresponding maps in-game

To see your changes in-game you can use ‘Battles_Tables’ in DATA.pack
The names under screenshot path represent (normally) the names of the map in custom battles in-game
While the name under battle_environment represent which weather file it’s using

The values

Now for the values..

The highlighted ones are the ones I’ve noticed matter most/make the most difference

From top to bottom;
environment_prefab=’prefabssky____.bmd’

= The skybox that the map uses
The different sky boxes are found in data.pack / skyboxes

JPGs of the Skyboxes (converted by Hazard)
Bret_01
Bret_02
bret_03
bst_01
chs_01
chs_02
chs_03
chs_05
emp_01
emp_02
emp_03
emp_04
emp_05
est_01
est_02
est_03
bad_01
bad_02
bad_03
iod_02
lzd_01
mtn_03
nor_01
nor_02
vmp_01
vmp_02

Sun_colour_scale=’______’
= The brightness or range of the light coming from the sun. You can try different values but normally it’s between 10,000 – 100,000

Sky_colour_scale=’_________’
=The brightness of the sky, and brightness the sky emits on the rest of the map. Values normally between 40,000-300,000

Dynamic_light_scale=’_____’
= the power/brightness of other lightsources (lamps, torches, fires, also some underground maps have spotlights on units, this is also affected. Normally this is set to 0.25 (25%)

lut_texture_file=’______’
= Probably the most important one, this changes the overall tone of the lighting in the map. The different values are:

I’ve written some notes on these to save myself some time, you may use them as guides but they may not be 100% accurate.

Post Process
My notes
bright_sunny_day
Very high contrast

brt_01
Pale white lighting
mtn_01
mtn_02
High Contrast
chs_01
Orange/Yellow tint to lighting
est_01
Warm lighting
wef_01
Dark Contrast (green tint)
final_battle_01
Strange red lighting
hell_fenn_01
vmp_01
Blue Lighting
vmp_01_cw
Slight green tint
vmp_02
Green tint
vmp_02_cw
vmp_03_cw
contrast_01
batcave_01
Good for underground maps, similar to default lighting
filmic_curve_01
emp_01
Blue-ish dark lighting
emp_02
similar to default
nor_01
Very blue lighting
grn_01
fallen_gates_01
dwf_01
dwf_02
dwf_03
Bright
def_01
A strange white filter?
def_02
def_city_d
def_swamp_01
e3_01

Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation
= Pretty self-explanatory

Fog density=’______’
= The density of fog in the distance, lowering this value will allow you to see clearer maps

height_top=’_____’
= the height of fog in the map

height_density=’______’
= the density of the fog in the map (different from distance fog)

definition_name=’_______’
=The type of weather in the map. The different types can be found in weather_definitions file in PFM. For example:
‘rain stormy’
‘rain gusty’
‘dry breezy’
‘ash’
‘snow gusty’
etc..
Should have no effect on gameplay, it’s just particle effects for snow/rain/ash

sun_scale=’______’ and sun_flare
= the scale of the sun and sun flare (not lighting, this is the literal sun itself) Values are normally between 0.1 and 0.4

You can also alternate between sundisk1.dds and moondisk1.dds, by default there are no actual textures in the game for either, so you will have to create, or import one if you wish to have a texture.

render_skydome=’false/true’
= True/False depending on if you want the sun/moon to be visible or not. (sun scale must have a value greater than 0.0 for it to appear)

That’s mainly it. There are other values you can mess around with but i found them not worth the time.

EDIT*

A few other values:

‘materialsenvironmentbattle_ss_snow.xml.material’>
Used to add snow. Add the above after ‘post process=’ on the top of the file to enable snow textures in the map

snowing_Intensity=0.0000
This normally is set to 0. If you have snow enabled as post_process, this decides how intense the snow is.
0.2 = light snow on textures
0.4 = medium snow
0.6 + = full snow, basically the whole map will be covered white

deep_water_colour & shallow_water_colour
Affects the color of both deep water and shallow water. I recommend leaving this untouched..

Possibilities

With the different amount of things you can change and the options there are nearly endless possibilities of what you can do, heres just a quick example changing the sky, lighting texture file, and weather effects

——If there are things that others think should be added to this guide, let me know. I have other details i could probably share, but since few people edit environments, and even fewer see this guide, i’ll only put the effort if someone requests it.

I’m mainly waiting for Warhammer 3, since the environment files slightly changed from WH1 to WH2, i expect 3 to be the same. Hopefully it brings new skyboxes and weather options.

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