deadpage coords.txt

[ME:TW - Team]

Does anyone know how the deadpage coords.txt are made?

I'll first write up my findings. A line consist of three pairs of coordinates:

27 13 232 108 283 130

* The blue coordinates are from the topleft corner of the image-rectangle.
* The green coordinates are from the bottomright corner of the image-rectangle.
*The red coordinates are measured from the topleft corner of the image-rectangle and is used for the image-origin.

You can also see that some coordinates exceed the value 256 while the deadpage image file is only 256x256. I've found out that each coordinate should be divided by 1.3 to have the correct values for coordinates on the actual image.
Why is this done? Well, there are alot of dead bodies, too much in fact to have them placed in normal size. That's why CA resized the dead bodies and used these altered coordinates to avoid using different scaling values for in-game presentation (I know that was a bit difficult...)

Question:
But how do you alter the deadpage coords.txt and which image file should be edited, DEAD256.tga or DEAD256.LBM?

Cheers, Duke John

[Duke John]

Does nobody find this interesting? It seems that modding MTW is restricted to editing the startpos files, but that's not all there's a whole world of other things that can be done

I guess I'm all on my own then... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

[GoldenKnightX2]

If I were you I would ask the Lords, they might know.

[Wellington]

I explained all of this 10 months ago.

Read the "Animations ..." stickied thread in the "Edit2" forum for full details about this.

There is a full section pertaining to "The Deadpage". All should be clear after you've read it ...

Welly

[Duke John]

Shame on me I should have read your guide first. I will look into this problem now, but the reason I posted again was because something strange occured. I altered the deadpage.lbm. Saw that it didn't work, edited the deadpagecoords.TXT back using existing coordinates and still the dead bodies are very weird; showing numerous legs and bodies from different dead bodies.

But I think I will solve that. Your guide at least proves that my thinking was correct since we independently have the same theories.

Cheers, Duke John

[Wellington]

Quote[/b] (Duke John @ Aug. 24 2003,05:40)]Shame on me I should have read your guide first. I will look into this problem now, but the reason I posted again was because something strange occured. I altered the deadpage.lbm. Saw that it didn't work, edited the deadpagecoords.TXT back using existing coordinates and still the dead bodies are very weird; showing numerous legs and bodies from different dead bodies.

But I think I will solve that. Your guide at least proves that my thinking was correct since we independently have the same theories.

Cheers, Duke John
Hi DJ,

The coords in the TXT file do not corresspond to the positions of the dead images in the LBM (you have the multiply the positions in the LBM by a factor of 1.35 - or something like that - in order for them to match).

Because these dead images are so small, if the TXT coord's are incorrect by just a couple of pixels it all looks weird.

Also, note that the colours in the dead page never match the units in the BIFs. WHy? Because the deadpage LBM is a 256-palette - and it can never contain all correct colours for images that represent 30+ BIFs

Why did CA do it like this ... hhmmm .... Shogun I expect

If you have prob's let me know. The original intention for the METW mod was to make UM_LoTR build a deadpage.lbm file and txt file, based on the final frame of the dead action for all your BIFs (resized and positioned accordingly). I can do something for this if you wish - let me know.

Welly

[Duke John]

I know about the multiplying. Maybe I wasn't clear, but I used existing deadpage coordinates and not animation coordinates.
I copied them from some random unit and I expected to see that units dead body but instead it's still all messed up. Because of this I was curious wether anyone actually changed the deadpage.LBM succesfully.

Cheers, Duke John

[Wellington]

Hi Dj,

To my knowledge no one has ever changed the deadpage - the reason being most previous "new units" used existing BIF images (changed slightly) and so the deadpage stuff would still work fine.

However, maybe the Nap mod guys have done this? Check with LoS or LK.

As far as I'm aware, as you are the only person to have created entirely new BIFs, this may be the 1st time anyones tackled this problem


but I used existing deadpage coordinates and not animation coordinates.

This should'nt matter. The reason is the deadpage stuff is totally unrelated to the images in the BIFs. However, if your creating new BIFs you'll have to somehow resize all the dead action images (the 12th frame probably) and recreate this deadpage using such images. We can automate this quite quickly if you wish.

[Norseman]

I'm adding some units to my mod, but for some reason none get any dead bodies in battle even though I'm only using existing coordinates.

I did some tests and found that after EarlyVarangianGuard in deadpage.txt, no unit, including those made by CA, left any dead bodies in the field...

Is there a limited number of how many units the deadpage_coords.txt can have coordinates for?

[Duke John]

I believe so, that is I read in other occasions that there is a limit on the amount of entries for the dead bodies. I have never noticed this since I always add new units to the top of the list.

- Cheers, Duke John

[barocca]

i made a direct copy of this thread in the Repository - seeing we keep sending people to look at it every week
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif