Can new biomes be created by the community?

This might sound like a silly question but was wondering if Uber has released a tool for the community to be able to create there own biomes? Or is there a thread for us to vote on what type of new biomes we would like to see?

I am a fan of the old Total Annihilation biomes, epically the Crystal, Archipelago and Barrier Reef biomes, but wouldn't mind seeing the return of the others as well such as Acid, Lush, Slate, Mars and Ruin City.

On another note, I notice there a biome in game that not a preset know as mountain. It can be create via the desert biome with water set to "zero." Would it be possible to have it as it own template?

Cheers in advanced,

We cannot create new terrain models (The one guy who figured out how vanished before he told anyone), but other than that we can do most anything we want with biomes.

It it possible; there are a couple of ones on PAMM that rearrange uber's elements. They are kind of a pain to use: you need a client mod for the editor and a server mod to play. There is a race condition between mod loading and planet generation, so you have to make sure everyone is in the lobby before you set a custom system, or some will crash on entry.

No tools. @raevn made some guified json editors a long time ago, so there is a chance they are not up with the latest changes.

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/rel-planet-type-biome-creator-v0-6.49945/

There are biomes (mountain, grass, etc) and biome types (aka planet types, earth, dessert, metal, etc) So it would be easy to make a mountain only planet type.

Also, you can use More -> Save in my planets, if you just want to be able to stamp out the existing desert based ones.

Regarding biomes i really hope we'll have this reworked à little bit to enable true coasts along océans and seas. This obviously belongs to the long term, but hopefully it will eventually be in game. I have no idea about the amount of stuff required to revamp biomes neither the overall impact on all the existing stuff. But yes, if uber bas enough bandwidth to work on it i will be more than happy !

I might revive the extra biome mod idea now i can do a lot more with the engine, especially now that server side mods are capable..
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/wip-alien-and-utopian-colored-biomes.52147/

I forgot about that and my other mod idea with adding cities and ruins to planets..
(unfortunately i lost all the models and papa files i made for the city and ruins mod so i'll need to start from scratch)

I started making new textures for biomes, and I think the best way to implement it is in 2 ways.

1 UI mod which pure;y changes textures and normalmaps for current biomes
1 Server mod for new biomes and CGS. (Problem with CGS is that its not supported)

But new textures and normal maps etc.. All viable and doable

I think CSG stuff can be done, but it needs to be manually installed, it wont work via a server/client mod.

If it was possible to easily do I'd straight away attempt to make a CnC style Tiberium infested planet

But yeah if any biome modification stuff becomes possible to easily do in the future let me know and I'll be all over it.

you can change textures, normal maps and replace existing CGS. so your Tiberium field planet (which I also want to make ) is theoretically possible.

If you have a new CSG file that works correctly with textures there is no reason why you should not just add it instead afaik.

Because that's the problem. Uber mentioned (also in the daily AMA) that implementing CSG's and by that I mean adding them to the current pool and not replacing another has some technical difficulties and most likely requires some support from uber to make it possible.

Now this is how I interpreted it when Jables said it. However, if you or any other modder finds a way to ADD new CSG's to the CSG list within PA's System Editor with correctly using Textures and Normalmaps, you will be my (any many others) HERO!

From my work on my custom map stuff and what I can see in the biome files there is no reason I can think of why adding new CSG to the editor would be any problem at all, I'd bet on it being a nonissue.... if you have a correctly textures csg papa file that is.

EDIT:
My old map editor hack basically worked by making tons and tons of new custom csg brushes btw, though they just linked existing papa files because I have no idea how to make new ones.

Adding a new CSG means modifying a biome, which creates a race condition when you use modified planets on non-local servers.

Not really the end of the world, also can be made stable by using a client mod.

If you want I can supply you with a Crystal.fbx, Crystal Diffuse and Crystal Normalmap both png's. If you think you can add the this to the CSG list in the System Editor it will be glorious.

If you replace existing files with those how does it look like?

I would first have to figure out how to get the papa files of the fbx.. and since I don't use 3ds max or blender that might be an issue.

You have to use the papatran tool that comes with PA anyway to convert from fbx to papa. I think you've already been playing with that. Did you ever get it to work? It works for both fbx for models as well as png for textures.

Oh wait a moment.. you are right..So I can convert a fbx to papa the sameway as png to papa. Let me try it.

To help you out a bit with conversion stuff.