pick6's FieldBuilder framework

[mee]

Yeah, but the field texture is in TEZ1 slot. I did experiment a long time ago with that weird afc endzone and got it to show in-game, so I'm guessing I must have set some teams's TEZ1 to point to it, instead of the regular TEZ2 usage.

Click on the "show spoiler" button in the first post for more on that. It has weird characteristics alright, but that's why I chose it: it fitted my needs perfectly, as well as made compatibility with other mods a cinch.

It's probably one of those "Hard-Coded" things if its in the endzone 2 slot, to allow teams to have one endzone. Not sure why they didn't put a transparent TMdl in that slot and ignore the whole added code to ignore the file if its in the endzone 2 slot.

[pick6]

Not sure why they didn't put a transparent TMdl in that slot and ignore the whole added code to ignore the file if its in the endzone 2 slot.

Yes, agree absolutely! It seems to be EA's default logic in this version of the game at least. I've noticed similar flawed logic in the way the endzone TMdl is implemented. In fact, this was part of the reason why I finally decided to release FieldBuilder v3; I didn't want to follow their "band-aid on top of band-aid" approach, and instead chose to fix the initial problem.

[pick6]

Final thoughts: how I've been using FieldBuilder myself.
I quickly realised that I enjoy playing on a "wide hash" field way more than on the NFL's narrow one, as there's just so much more you have to consider when playing. I created my own 10 team mod, based on the teams in the Irish league (which follow NCAA rules).

I started by using a bare-minimum roster I had previously created for the World Cup mod, which has everything removed except the Colts (the team with TGID=10 is needed for practice mode to work). [EDIT: this is wrong! The default home team for team selection (and practice mode) is initially set to 10 (Colts). Change this to a different team's TGID, and practice mode will still work fine! See HERE here for more details.]

When it came to moving from CustomArt-based to dat-based, I changed each team's TTYP to 7 (Europe)

For team logos, I inserted logo placeholders into elguapo's eXpanded UIS_LIB_TEAM_LOGOS.dat, and overlayed with higher-quality logos in my tpf. For the uni's, I created them using the in-game editor, ripped them with MUER, and then inserted them into UNIFORMS.dat. (The plan was to have tpf uni's, but I never got around to that. For the time being anyway, I'm happy enough with the custom-created dat-based ones!)

So, it's a fully working "college mod", that uses FieldBuilder as its base. It's very easy to add new fields, endzones, or midfields, and looks great in-game. My roster has many real players (and some teams are 90% real players), but it's a bit of a slog changing ratings etc. I enjoy making the field art the most, and am happy enough playing against Madden-generated players for the most part.

As I said before though, unfortunately I can never release this. That's because the Irish league are a growing league, and therefore take themselves seriously. (They even ran into some trouble with the visiting Navy team a few years ago, and eventually took them to court!) I'm not worried about lawsuits personally, but I know they wouldn't want their logos used without their permission. I've always respected that viewpoint on this forum in the past, and I'm not going to change my stance now. But it is slightly disappointing that I can't show you what I've been working on!

(BTW, there will be no exceptions, so don't ask! PM's will be ignored and deleted.)

On the other hand, it WOULD be possible to remove all references to (and logos of) real teams, and make it a generic 10-team college mod! In that way, people could use it to quickly build their own mini college mod.

So what I want to know is this: is there any interest in having a FieldBuilder college mod? It's the only project I'd be interested in working on, and could easily get it to a stable and playable state (but ultimately would let others finish).

I've started a new thread under "mod ideas" and will take it from there.
Follow the progress at: College mod (FieldBuilder-based)

[pick6]

That above thread is now dead. Anyone interested in playing on wider-hash NCAA fields along with the best bits of the Heisman mod, this is what you need to do!

1) Download and install the Heisman 14 mod from HERE, as well as the Heisman 14 Add-On from HERE.
2) Download and install elguapo's NCAA Add-On from HERE, making sure you follow his ReadMe installation instructions. (For my take on what benefits his Add-On gives you, read HERE)
3) Download and install my FieldBuilder from the first post of this thread.

If you load elguaupo's included roster, you'll notice that the 32 NFL teams are visible, as well as the 128 NCAA teams. As an example, here's how you get that down to something more manageable, like 10 teams in total.

1) Load the roster in Madden DB Editor, and export the TEAM table to .csv
2) Find column AX, the "Team Type" field (TTYP).

• 0 = NFL team
• 7 = Europe team (used for the NCAA teams in this roster)
• 1 = hidden

3) So, any teams you DON'T want visible, just set that value to 1. The quickest way to do this find a nearby column of "ones", and copy and paste it (but making sure it doesn't overwrite the last 5 rows). Then go back and manually set the teams you DO want visible to 7.
4) Following the instructions for my FieldBuilder, also set the team's TEZ1 to 84, TEZ2 to 0, and TMFL to 103. You can do this for all NCAA teams now if you like, as it won't take effect until step 5. Or you can just start with CLEM and LSU. (Ignore the STAD table and ST35 value for the moment)
5) For just the FieldBuilder teams, also blank out column BH (the CART field). Leaving the entry unchanged will still use the Heisman CustomArt field art; removing it makes it use the FieldBuilder field art instead.
5) Save the .csv, and import back into the TEAM table in DB Editor.
6) Save roster under a new name.
7) Start Madden and load roster.

It only takes a few minutes to do this, and then you have your own FieldBuilder-ready roster!
If you load my CLEM or LSU (or mee's Auburn) in TexMod, you'll then have the wider NCAA field in-game, which you can utilize fully by using calhoupe's NCAA scripts. You can still load the (higher quality) Heisman .tpf uniforms, and Heisman stadium files, to fully maximise the experience.

At that point, the only thing it's lacking is real player names and numbers.

N.B. I haven't discussed the ST35 fields which are used for endzone2 or 25yd logo, but you can figure that out for yourselves. Only thing to bear in mind is that in the Heisman mod, CLEM and LSU both used the same stadium (Bills), and therefore must have had an additional line in the STAD table, more or less duplicating the stadium's values. CLEM use ST35 for the 25yd logo, while LSU use ST35 for endzone2, therefore two entries for "Ralph Wilson Stadium" will be needed.

I don't see any need in uploading a demo, since this is really quite simple to re-create yourselves! Once you've got your roster in this form, you can concentrate all your efforts on just making NCAA TrueTurf fields, and maybe putting in some real player names and numbers. I won't be doing any more here though, as this fully achieves what I wanted to demonstrate with my Irish league mod. This way also has far more scope for expansion too!!

So, I'm going back into my shell again, as I was actually functioning quite nicely with less (not more!) screen time a few weeks ago, and I want to go back to that again! To be clear, I will NOT be releasing a full or even mini version of this. I will definitely pick away at it (very slowly) in my own time, and will enjoy making new fields when the new season starts. I have no plans for offering anything more up at this time, but I am extremely grateful to elguapo for putting this together.

Now, go make something!!

[Austinmario13]

How to you make the full field and not just half of one. I know there's a midlfield that let's make a full field, but I don't know how to make a full fieldart.

[pick6]

How to you make the full field and not just half of one. I know there's a midfield that let's make a full field, but I don't know how to make a full fieldart.

I'm not sure if you're asking about my massive TMdl midfield, or confusing my FieldBuilder method with BelieverInTeal's method. FieldBuilder uses one half-field exclusively, so creating a field from one image of two joined halves is simply not an option. If you wish to replicate BiT's full fields, then you'll need to talk to him in a separate thread.

On the other hand, it is possible to use my massive TMdl midfield and super-impose it on the TrueTurf field to create baseball diamonds, or different colored player areas etc.

You would need to make your own size 7 midfield template that contains rough field markings (as I did for size 3 / Better Midfields). Bear in mind that the whole field area will be contained within this midfield texture, so the actual midfield logo also needs to be present in this texture.

It would help here if I knew what you're trying to do. If you were trying to do different coloured player areas for example, you'd need to place two rectangles and midfield logo roughly in their respective positions in the massive midfield texture, with the surrounding area transparent. Then take an aerial screenshot in-game.

For my size 3 template, I was able to then use the screenshot as a guide to help me place the field lines more accurately, but for size 7, that will be harder (as it's too big to fit into a single screenshot). The idea though is to keep moving and tweaking the components (and lines) until you have them all lined up correctly.

It's time-consuming, but once it's done, it's a cinch to use afterwards. That's how I made my Better Midfields template, but I have no plans to make any templates for the other sizes. The hard part was hex-editing the TMdl which I did so that others wouldn't have to. Creating your own template is time-consuming but definitely do-able if you're patient and persistent. Good luck!

[Austinmario13]

BiT's full fields...

That's what I'm talking about.

[pick6]

BiT's full fields...

That's what I'm talking about.

Sorry dude, you're in the wrong place. I suggest you start a new thread, as that's not part of FieldBuilder.

[pick6]

FieldBuilder v4 RELEASE!

This contains 2 important changes to the framework (.dat files).

The first change is regarding the location of the standalone endzone. In v3 I moved it to the other end of the field, as I felt that made it "more intuitive" when creating fields. However, I've since discovered a better reason to move it back! Very briefly, practice mode always faces the right endzone (as in "opposite of left"), and the midfield logo is also aligned this way. Version 4 now means that for fields with 2 endzones, practice mode will show the correct endzone to the right. (Version 3 would show the wrong endzone). It won't be hugely important to most people, EXCEPT when it's "your team", as you'd most likely notice it to be wrong then! To be clear, I have reverted back to the original endzone placeholders (files 634 & 635) that were present in v1 and v2, but not in v3. If you downloaded v3, please delete that and download v4 instead!

The second change is the addition of file 417, which helps in the creation of this:

OHST field.gif (511.01 KiB) Viewed 1607 times

When a field has 2 different endzones, that usually means the 25yd logo has to be "painted-on" to the field texture itself, and so won't face the same sideline. However, since Ohio State's logo is a simple block O, I was able to paint half of that onto to the field texture instead, freeing up the regular midfield slot for the standalone (left) endzone! Right endzone is painted directly onto the field texture, and 25yd logos are in the ST35 slot as usual. So file 417 is simply the "endzone2 type2" inserted into a midfield slot, which can be accessed by setting the TMFL to 99. In the above gif, the Big10 logo now faces the same sideline, which is kinda neat to play on.

However, it's worth bearing in mind that this won't come up very often, as the midfield logo must look the same upside-down for this to work correctly. The only letters of the alphabet that this would work for are: H, I, N, O, S, X, and Z.

Unfortunately it isn't necessary for Oregon & Stanford since they only have one endzone, but it should work great for Syracuse!

Please note the above Ohio State field is not included in v4, as I haven't finished it yet! Hopefully will be released in the future though. FieldBuilder v4 can be downloaded from the first post.

[Austinmario13]

You know how in the super bowl there's a logo at each of the 25 yard lines? You should add that as an option.