Due to the limits on our forum I have to delete threads farily regularly,
any usefull information found Tosa or myself, will 'drop' into this post
so far we have
Battle Historical or Tutorial
Change map used for a battle
reinforcements
what is a mod, and how to begin designing my own
sound acceleration causing lag in demo
customising flags, several authors
Create Custom Unit Icons lbm's
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Battle Historical or Tutorial
Konnichiwa,
The battle/batinit directory contains two folders. Historical battles and tutorial.
In my understanding only Historical battles is used for mods. It's possible to use the tutorial folder as well, so more mods can be loaded at once (it's also possible to play the tutorial battles without any wise advice).
This line makes a tutorial (of course there must be a file that script a given one):
BattleType::BATTLE_TYPE_TUTORIAL
This line (in the ADF file) makes it a normal battle:
BattleType::BATTLE_TYPE_HISTORICAL
in order to get the battle results display,
and to eliminate the comments and instructions text boxes
change
BattleType::BATTLE_TYPE_TUTORIAL
to
BattleType::BATTLE_TYPE_HISTORICAL
Have fun
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
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Change map used for a battle
edit the
MapName::"Jaffa"
line in the bdf file
Valid Maps are :-
FlatInland01
Jaffa
antioch_castle
antioch_practice
bulgaria
bul1_practice
bulgaria2
hillyinland06
sicily
Agincourt
change terrain
edit the
Terrain::ROCK_DESERT
line in the bdf file
valid Terrains are
ROCK_DESERT
LUSH
ARID
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deleted irrelevent section discussing problems with implementing unsupported units
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reinforcements
you can assign more than 16 units to an adf!
initial deployment is only the first 16 in the list,
the additional units come on as reinforcements!
also, unit honour max is 16
And from Target,
Place in a unit's 'parameters' within the ADF file's
(a units parameters are all lines between UnitStart:: and UnitEnd::
Reinforcements::300 delays a units entry onto the field,
where 300 is the number of seconds delay you want, can be set to almost any number
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what is a mod, and how to begin designing my own
All a MOD is a modifaction of an existing game. With this demo, it is possible just to go in to some simple text files located in the game itself, change numbers around,add more units, with more men and even change maps.
Now, this is simple stuff, but since its only a demo, some things don't work the way they should. However, most modders test what they've made to make sure it works well.
Take a look at the files on your computer. You do this (I hope you know this) by right clicking on the START button and clicking on explore. This opens up all the folders on your hard drive. You then find the folder where you installed the demo. It may be different for different people. Mine is in my Program files/Total War/Medieval TW DEmo. In that folder are all the folders contained in the demo. In the Battle Folder, theres a Batinit Folder. In that are the Historical Battle and Tutorial Folders. These contain all the battles in the demo. By changing the text files, we have changed the game. If you want to read those files, you'll have to assosciate them with notepad. Just click on one of the bdf files and when a box appears with various programs on your computer, just browse down to wordpad/notepand and you will then be able to see whats in them. Just be careful.
Then you need to download a MOD and place the files in those MOD's, usually a bdf file and two or more adf files in your. The MOds will/should have a read me docutment attached to tell you where to unzip the files.
THe bdf file contains a description the game uses to set up the battle and the adf files are the files that contain the armies. These are the files that have been "moddified". Always copy the original files in the folder should the game then start to act funny.
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sound acceleration causing lag in demo
in the main medieval thread there was a post about sound acceleration slowing the game, as soon as they turned it off the demo ran smoothly,
I don't have a sound acceleration option in my demo settings - maybe my sound card is too old,
but i did turn down to low quality and i think it improved some.
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customising flags, several authors
Maptextures are TGA files, so are the backdrops and thus editable. Flags are LBM files, thus editable, FacShields ('familycrests') are TGA files. It wouldn't surprise me if the very stratmap can be edited too, or that we are able to make a map of Asia and assign provinces to it.
That could mean that we can make a Sengoku mod and finally play STW as it should be.
Edit: Flags are in the Battle folder, textures in textures/Ground.
------------------
Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
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Celtiberos Shimazu
You have to go to this directory:
Medieval - Total War (Demo Version)\Battle\Flags
Here are all the flags. You can create your own flags in photoshop instead of the banners of the game. Yoy have to limited to...
1) The name of your banner have to be identical to one of the game.
2) Must to be a 32 x 32 pixel image, in TGA format, of 16 bits/pixel and a resolution of 72 ppi.
-If you want that your banner fits perfectly in the flag, add a new layer in photoshop, and paste the little scuare banner of the “Flags.tga” image. Add some contrast, and fuse it (multiply mode), with the rest of layers.
-You can also, change the graphics of battle shields. But remember, your image must to be same name, and format of the originals ones.
I think that all players must have the same banners to play in multiplayer. But we can to do a pack of flags, to multiplayer. Each clan could have their own flags.
---
The program only loads a few names. Load the banners of the Flags directory, but only recognognice a banner per faction.
I thinks the answer, is no, Magyarkhan. The banner for the units, it´s the SAME banner for the general (at least in the demo). They use the same grafic, but general use a square flag, and rest of units apply that graphics to their flags (a long vertical flag).
---
- I made the Text, and the light effect, in 3D, with 3dStudio Max 4.
- I save the animation in AVI format. After, I convert the .AVI to animated GIF. using Adobe Premiere.
- This GIF, was optimized to a right size, and cutted some keyframes, to publish in internet, using Adobe Image Ready.
I don´t know if CorelPhotoPaint have that option....but, you could try this:
- In 3d Studio (or other), save the animation in jpg, or bmp graphic. This will create one graphic for each keyframe.
- After, with Corel, or Photoshop (or another program that let you work with animated gif), build your own animated GIF.
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PSYCHO
Well ... just imagine MP.. the Clans could go into battle showing their own coat of arms!!!
Now that new feacture would add a whole new dimension to the online community!!!
Surely, in the connectup in MP, Creative could program in a banner swap thingy!?
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Create Custom Unit Icons lbm's
GFX2 (edit STW LBM files) http://www.totalwar.org/maps/Tools.shtml
and ms paint
Copy all available unit icon files to grfx directory,
before you run grfx READ THE READ ME
(VERY IMPORTANT - can fry monitor if not correct setting,
as soon as grfx loads click on the monitor piccy down bottom, and change mode,
I choose vesa 600x800 - is a safe mode!)
browse through the lbm files,
decide which ones you will 'edit'
tab out
create new notepad document,
rename document to newunit.bmp,
click yes to change file extension,
tab back in
select lbm unit icon you want to edit,
save unit icon as the bmp file you just created,
accept overwrite existing file.
tab out,
open bmp in paint and edit away,
do not change purples or fluro green's
(MTW displays clan colours on purples and fluro greens)
save file as bmp
then create a new notepad document
rename it to new_unit.lbm,
accept file extension change,
tab back in to grfx
and open the bmp you created and edited,
save it as the new_unit.lbm file you created,
accept overwrite existing
and all done!
Notes:- use the scroll box to find the file you want to save to, grfx can make errors if you try to type in name in the box provided,
easier , safer and less frustrating to create dummy files and overwrite them
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[This message has been edited by barocca (edited 08-23-2002).]
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