How come....

[Mithrandir]

TGA files more than double in filsize when you've edited them ?

and barocca, I mailed you a while ago ,did you get my mail ?

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[Mithrandir]

And does anyone know what the order is in which the unit grahics are placed?
f.e.
Dead -pic1
Marching-Pic 2-12
Marching Quickly- pic 13-22
Fighting- pic 23-45

This is very important...

Thanks,
Mithrandir.

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[barocca]

G'Day Mithrandir,

I'm sure I have got your email,
i'm not sure if i drafted a reply yet,
i've been rather busy in the real world,

I've not noticed TGA's doubling in size before,
but then i always convert them to BMP and convert them back to TGA after I've editied,

You asked what we could and could not modify,
we can edit just about everything,
terrain tiles, backdrops, units, stats, flags, shields...

when you ask the order for the pics, are you referring to the bif files?

[Mithrandir]

yes, the bif files.
There are about 45 frames ofr each unit, but I'm not sure which one is which in battle.

can you make a unit invulnerable to melee attacks, but vulnerable to melee ones?

Can you change the looks of projectiles?

Can you add 2 more factions when talking general portraits?

Can you change the little screen you get when MTW is starting, when you still see your desktop but a little square screen, with Medieval Total War in front of a range of black mountains?

Thanks in advance....

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[barocca]

Quote Originally posted by Mithrandir:
yes, the bif files.
There are about 45 frames ofr each unit, but I'm not sure which one is which in battle.
In the ationspage folder are the control files for the bif's,
..\Medieval\Textures\Men\ActionsPage\

each named for the unit type
ie AbyssinianGuard.txt

each line is a set of co-ordinates,
walk
10 43 33 130 56 178

10 43 is the offset for the center of the image, to ensure smooth rotation of view when you scroll "around" the image on the map

33 130 is the top left corner of the image
- note it doe not have to be the top left of the image in the file - it is where the game "looks" for top left, thus an image can be placed on it's side if required

56 178 is the bottom right corner of the image to be displayed!

see org/shogunfiles/documents for the unit_bif editing text file - written by me,
very little has changed, the Dev's simply made the actionspages easier to decipher.


can you make a unit invulnerable to melee attacks, but vulnerable to melee ones?
currently we are limited because the stats themselves are hardcoded - this is changing in the patch and we will be able to edit them


Can you change the looks of projectiles?
the arrows are stored in an image file, unsure wether catapult projectiles are also stored or generated on the fly -...i'll look for these file and get back to you.

Can you add 2 more factions when talking general portraits?
unsure at this time,
each culture appears to use it's own set of portraits, unsure of total number of sets

Can you change the little screen you get when MTW is starting, when you still see your desktop but a little square screen, with Medieval Total War in front of a range of black mountains?
I'll go look for this file right now...

[/QUOTE]


http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[barocca]

Quote Originally posted by Mithrandir:

Can you change the looks of projectiles?
still looking

Can you add 2 more factions when talking general portraits?
there are 4 cultures, but inside each culture are a vast array of catergorised portraits.
Perhaps, (and this would require you to experiment), when you create your units, if you reserve some unit types (and thus there portraits) for a particular race you may be able to squeeze in a few more races.
I have been unable to find a "determiner" for portrai yes/no in the file systme - i suspect it is hard coded


Can you change the little screen you get when MTW is starting, when you still see your desktop but a little square screen, with Medieval Total War in front of a range of black mountains?

the images are bitmps,
00000000.016
and 00000000.256
simply rename something else to these names http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif


[/QUOTE]

[barocca]

ok the Rocket Propelled Grenades are here
(arrows)

..\Medieval\Textures\Men\Xplopage.lbm

the Ballista bolts are there too,
but the polyhedrons for catapults appear to be generated on demand...

[Mithrandir]

*bows*
Thanks a million barocca,
you're now on my list for people to bow when starting a post and finishing one http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

Another question, is it possible for someone to rewrite the bifeditor so that changing the size of a frame is possible?
This way I could make a pesant f.e. 50% smaller and then just color his face green/brown/whatever and change the color of his clothes to make a goblin.

Any suggestions on how to easily make a new unit ? It seems very hard to make a decent animation without just painting over an old one...

I'll check out the file you wrote,because I dont really understand what you said about the coordinates http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif.

Last thing : How do I give a ranged unit a specific arrow/projectile ?

I'm sorry, but a you can see I'm a newbie to editing, but willing to learn http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif.

Thanks!

*bows*



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Check out the Fantasy Total War mod! (http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000587.html)
Think about it :
"There is no alternative for death"-J van Baars,Book of lore.

[Mithrandir]

*bows*

Another question, is it possible for someone to rewrite the bifeditor so that changing the size of a frame is possible?
This way I could make a pesant f.e. 50% smaller and then just color his face green/brown/whatever and change the color of his clothes to make a goblin.

Any suggestions on how to easily make a new unit ? It seems very hard to make a decent animation without just painting over an old one...

Last thing : How do I give a ranged unit a specific arrow/projectile ?

I've look at the doc. but I dont think it said anything about the co-ordinates thing...
could you explain in very basic English (I'm Dutch http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif) how it exactly works ?

Last thing : I've done a search on my computer but I couldn't find the 2 bitmaps you mentioned, do you know where to find them exactly ?

Thanks again,
Mithrandir.

*bows*


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Think about it :
"There is no alternative for death"-J van Baars,Book of lore.

[barocca]

they are in the root directory of mtw,

ie ../games/maedieval total war/

at least in the asia/pacific version, which is the one my local EB sold to me.

they are the first 2 files in the list of files,
you may have to open a window,
select "view"
then "folder options" from the drop down menu,
select the tab labelled "view"
click "show all files"
and uncheck "hide file extensions"!

As for creating units and making the units smaller, thats a littel trickier,
your absolute best bet is overwrite the fameset with a samller image, make sure the units feet are in the same place as the current unit,
that way you won't have to re-edit the actions page, although you will have to experiment with the weapons pages,
(items/weapon(x) and item/shield(x))

HOWEVER, the absolute safest and easiest way to deal with weapons is leave them attached to the unit in the bif file, similar to the original shoggy units!

the projectile type is stashed away in the executable, time limits kinda made the Dev's leave those files hardcoded, they intend to remedy that with the patch.


the bif edit "how to" has examples, so you can see what happens,
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Omegamann]

Quote Originally posted by Mithrandir:

Any suggestions on how to easily make a new unit ? It seems very hard to make a decent animation without just painting over an old one...
[/QUOTE]

Hi,
you have already answerd yourself about the easy way of editing unit bifs.
Just take an existing one and resize/recolor it.

To create a completely new unit with animations you will have to do it just like CA did it:

1. Build the unit in 3D (using a programm like 3D Studio MAX most likely)
2. Texture and animate it in 3D (same Software as the above)
3. Export the animation frames to a 2D format (repeat for each perspective shown in the bif)
4. Cut and paste the individual unit animationframes into the bmps you get when bifreader exports to bmp.
5. Import the bmps into a single bif file
6. Create the txt file needed for the ActionsPage directory.

OK thats about it.
Now you wont probably own a copy of 3D Studio MAX and even then its very difficult to build a human/demihuman from scratch and animate it life like.

But there is a nice program called POSER that gives you the equivalent of a 3D dress up doll (male and female) that you can than pose/animate (like a virtual action figure).

The great thing about POSER is that there is a wealth of free resources (Weapons/Armor/Clothing...) available for download from the net.
So you only need one guy who knows how to work with POSER to create any unit you would like in your MOD.

[Mithrandir]

*bows
Quote As for creating units and making the units smaller, thats a littel trickier,
your absolute best bet is overwrite the fameset with a samller image, make sure the units feet are in the same place as the current unit,
that way you won't have to re-edit the actions page, although you will have to experiment with the weapons pages,
(items/weapon(x) and item/shield(x))

[/QUOTE]
So I cant just shrink the current frame to 50% it's size?

I've found the 2 bmp files, and edited them http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif.

Thanks http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

*bows*

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[Mithrandir]

*bows*
Sorry, figured it out myself http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif(how to use the edited bmp's), not the 50% unit size yet...
*bows*

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[This message has been edited by Mithrandir (edited 09-16-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Mithrandir (edited 09-16-2002).]