A lot of the work in here was done by the modders at the Farming Agency. You can use this to modify maps for personal use, but don't release modified maps without their permission. They're pretty friendly people, and requests can be made at the MaizePlus discord if you want to release maps with HorseExtension support on the ModHub or other sites.
The modders at F/A would rather spend time making mods better than dealing with people stealing their work. Do the right thing by the people who make this game better for all of us.
DO NOT leave zip and extracted folder of the map you are going to work on in the same folder! The zip contents will be preferred by GiantsEditor as well as the game itself and as such the conversion of most files will FAIL!
Unzip this to a folder called HorseExtension in the main folder of your mod map. A lot of later steps depend on having these files there.
Before adding new fruits to the map, the maximum heightTypes needs to be increased to 128 (maximum fruitTypes only needs to be increased for more than 32 positions in FoliageMultiLayer, read below at § New Fruits).
We'll add multi-terrain angle support at the same time as increasing the heightTypes because they both use the same ModMap.lua file.
Find cultivator_density.gdm and terrainDetailHeight_density.gdm (generally under maps/mapDE or maps/mapUS or similar folder). You'll need the GRLE converter from the Downloads section of https://gdn.giants-software.com (registration required). The easiest way to use this is to have the maps/mapXX folder and the unzipped GRLE folder open side by side and drag the GDM files onto convert.cmd.
After using the GRLE converter, you should have cultivator_density.png, and terrainDetailHeight_density.png files (note the PNG extension) in the same folder as the original GDMs.
Delete the original cultivator_density.gdm and terrainDetailHeight_density.gdm files. This is important. The conversion will fail if these files still exist.
Find the main i3d file for the map (e.g. maps/map.i3d, maps/mapDE.i3d, or maps/mapUS.i3d, or sometimes in the root folder instead of maps/). Open it in a text editor like Notepad++, not in the Giant's Editor.
Find the line
<File fileId="206" filename="map/cultivator_density.gdm"/>
and change it to
<File fileId="206" filename="map/cultivator_density.png"/>
Then find the line
<File fileId="206" filename="map/terrainDetailHeight_density.gdm"/>
and change it to
<File fileId="206" filename="map/terrainDetailHeight_density.png"/>
To use the new shader files included find the line
<File fileId="217" filename="$data/shaders/groundHeightShader.xml"/>
and change the filename to
<File fileId="217" filename="../HorseExtension/shaders/groundHeightShader.xml"/>
then find
<File fileId="215" filename="$data/shaders/groundShader.xml"/>
and change the filename to
<File fileId="215" filename="../HorseExtension/shaders/groundShader.xml"/>
The fileId numbers might be different. Ignore them, don't change them.
IMPORTANT. This tutorial assumes that the map.i3d is in the maps/ folder. If it is somewhere else, you might have to change the filename entries to reflect this. Paths here are relative to the map.i3d location (e.g. if your map.i3d is in the root folder of your map mod, you would need to remove "../" from the start of the filname entries).
Find the line that starts <DetailLayer name="terrainDetailHeight" and change:
numDensityMapChannels="11"tonumDensityMapChannels="13"compressionChannels="5"tocompressionChannels="7"(or addcompressionChannels="7"after the numDensityMapChannels attribute if compressionChannels isn't there)combinedValuesChannels="0 5 0;5 6 0"tocombinedValuesChannels="0 7 0;7 6 0"heightFirstChannel="5"toheightFirstChannel="7"
Find the line that starts <DetailLayer name="terrainDetail" and change:
numDensityMapChannels="13"tonumDensityMapChannels="16"(for 3 more angle channels)combinedValuesChannels="0 3 0;6 2 0;3 3 1"tocombinedValuesChannels="0 3 0;6 5 0;3 3 1"(yes, just add 3 to the middle number)
Without some LUA script, this won't work. Luckily, the script is included, but you still need to let the map know to load it. Open the modDesc.xml file in the main folder of your mod, find the line like:
<map id="EmptyMap" className="Mission00" filename="$dataS/scripts/missions/mission00.lua" configFilename="xml/map.xml" defaultVehiclesXMLFilename="xml/vehicles.xml" defaultItemsXMLFilename="xml/items.xml">
and change:
className="Mission00"toclassName="ModMap"filename="$dataS/scripts/missions/mission00.lua"tofilename="HorseExtension/scripts/ModMap.lua"
Open the map’s i3d file in the Giants Editor. In the console you might see two lines saying DensityMap: failed to load image.. These are fine, but any other errors need to be dealt with.
Save the map, without changing anything. Wait for confirmation from the editor that it's complete, then close the editor. This should create new cultivator_density.gdm and terrainDetailHeight_density.gdm files in the same place they were before. Check they've been created, then open the i3d in a text editor again, change:
<File fileId="206" filename="map/cultivator_density.png"/>
...
<File fileId="216" filename="map/terrainDetailHeight_density.png"/>
back to
<File fileId="206" filename="map/cultivator_density.gdm"/>
...
<File fileId="216" filename="map/terrainDetailHeight_density.gdm"/>
and delete the PNG files you created.
The map should be usable now. Try loading it with several mods that add heightTypes at the same time (seasons, strawHarvest, etc) to make sure you don't get an error for too many height types. Then get a plow and do some donuts on a field to check if more terrain angles are supported (there will still be some tearing in the texture, but it won't change 45 degrees at a time).
By default FS19 maps don't support enough fruitTypes, so we have to fix that first.
Like the heightTypes and MTA support, find fruit_density.gdm, convert it to a PNG with the GRLE converter, make sure the new fruit_density.png file is in the same directory as the original GDM file, and DELETE the original fruit_density.gdm.
Some maps have bugs resulting from what we do next, because we're changing what bits in the fruit density image mean. I've had grass patches become withered potatoes, and soybeans instead of flowers in people's gardens. I've included an image converter to deal with this at support/fruit_density_converter.exe (adapted from work on the LS-ModCompany forums). There are also some problems with maps that have errors in their fruit_density.gdm files (e.g. No Man's Land has entries for foliage that doesn't exist). It works a little differently because it needs to examine the map. Drag your map's modDesc.xml onto support/fruit_density_converter.exe and it will do the work for you, creating fruit_density_new.png. Delete fruit_density.png, rename fruit_density_new.png to fruit_density.png. There's also a Python script version of the converter if you're comfortable with that.
Open your map's i3d in Giants Editor, and change:
<File fileId="219" filename="mapDE/fruit_density.gdm"/>
to
<File fileId="219" filename="mapDE/fruit_density.png"/>
Find the FoliageMultiLayer line, e.g.:
<FoliageMultiLayer densityMapId="219" numChannels="10" numTypeIndexChannels="5" compressionChannels="5">
change:
numChannelsto12numTypeIndexChannelsto6compressionChannelsto6
Save the i3d and open it with Giants Editor, checking for errors.
Go back in and change:
<File fileId="219" filename="mapDE/fruit_density.png"/>
to
<File fileId="219" filename="mapDE/fruit_density.gdm"/>
Then save and exit.
Your map now supports 64 foliage types.
This stage is a lot of copying. In the HorseExtension support folder you'll find all the things you need to set up ALMOST everything else.
There are several files with entries you need to copy to your map's files. The comments in them tell you where everything goes, and some things to watch out for.
map_i3d_additions.xml contains entries you need to add to the map's main i3d file. The comments tell you where. These entries add the new crops to the map.
map_xml_additions.xml contains the entries you need to add to the map's main xml file. This is normally in the same folder as the main i3d, with the same name, except for a .xml extension. If you're not sure where it is, look in modDesc.xml for the map element. It will have an attribute like configFilename="maps/xmlLua/mapDE.xml" that tells you where the file is. These entries link up all the visual stuff like displaying crops on the ground, in trailers, what they look like being cut and unloaded and baled. They also link the new animal feeding system.
modDesc_additions.xml contains the entries you need to add to your map's modDesc.xml. This adds scripts like FruitDestruction 2.0 and vehicles for harvesting the new crops. There are also balers, but I've never needed them since MaizePlus adds support to the base game balers (these are apparently just to support people not using the MaizePlus mods for whatever reason).
sellingStation_additions.xml contains examples for adding support for the new crops to the BGA and sellpoints so that you can sell the new crops. You might want to chop and change this depending on what makes sense for your map. Maybe you want to add rye to a bakery sellpoint but not onions, field_grass, or miscanthus. Maybe you want to sell carrots and onions to a supermarket. Maybe your map has separate sellpoints for grains and root crops.
Copy the maizePlus folder from HorseExtension/support to the main folder of your map. Edit the animalFoodAdditions.xml file inside if you want to change the way animal feeding works with MaizePlus.
The support/seasons folder contains an example GEO that supports the new crops. You can copy it to your map's main folder, then edit it for the environment you want. There are also MaizePlus GEO mods starting to appear on ModHub if you want more inspiration.
Okay, this is difficult. Most silos don't support the new grain crops. Multifruit silos usually support everything, including root crops, woodchips, and other things that don't make sense in a grain silo. Giants actually fucked this one up, because they have a fillTypeCategory called FARMSILO that lists things that make sense to go into a silo, but they don't use it and manually list what silos support.
If the map you're on has custom silos (e.g. in a placeables folder), you can add support yourself.
Find the specs element
<specs>
<capacity>100000</capacity>
<fillTypes>wheat barley canola maize oat sunflower soybean</fillTypes>
</specs>
and add the new crops
<specs>
<capacity>100000</capacity>
<fillTypes>wheat barley canola maize oat sunflower soybean rye triticale spelt field_grass</fillTypes>
</specs>
then find the storages element
<storages>
<storage capacityPerFillType="100000" fillTypes="wheat barley canola maize oat sunflower soybean" node="0|2"/>
</storages>
and add the new crops there too
<storages>
<storage capacityPerFillType="100000" fillTypes="wheat barley canola maize oat sunflower soybean rye triticale spelt field_grass" node="0|2"/>
</storages>
I'm pretty sure haylofts from Giants actually use the HAYLOFT fillTypeCategory and should work since HorseExtension adds the new crops to that category. There are a few details I still need to work out. Will confer with F/A.
This is something I haven't added. Having things like horses and chickens produce manure requires changes to placeables that are beyond this tutorial. Hopefully some are released as placeable mods instead of being added to maps individually.