Custom faction question

[Zain]

Is it possible to create a brand new faction that is playable in the "new world"? That's what I've been trying to do with a few tutorials, but nothing's working. Let me know soon, thanks!

[Zain]

I got it working, I has put NE Bodyguards instead of NE Bodyguard as a unit. One little letter nearly screwed me over big time. Hehe.

All my unit soldiers have no textures, I haven't tried to fix it yet, because I must leave the computer, but anyone know off the top of their heads how to fix it? Thanks.

[alpaca]

Yes, create new textures and put them into the textures folder bearing the new faction name you have to create.

[Zain]

cool, i'll do so.

[Zain]

I've been trying to put in the symbol for the city banner by using slot number 23. I've been using Adobe Photoshop to add in my dragon symbol but still it isn't working. The symbol in-game is just showing a slightly darker shade of white blank square...

[alpaca]

Which file did you change exactly?

[Zain]

mymod/data/banners/symbols6.tga

i changed some stuff in decr_sm_factions as well

[alpaca]

Hmm can't really help you there, sorry. Did you try what happens if you assign slot 23 to somebody else or slot 22 to your faction?

[Zain]

i haven't tried it on another faction, but 22 and so on worked fine on them. I even tried to move on to 24 and added my symbol and it did the same thing. Seems like edited files don't work or something.

[alpaca]

i haven't tried it on another faction, but 22 and so on worked fine on them. I even tried to move on to 24 and added my symbol and it did the same thing. Seems like edited files don't work or something.

Did you think of editing the alpha layer to enable transparency for your new banner (i.e. if it's all black, it won't be visible)?

[Zain]

yes, i have, but i haven't and the banners are black. But right now I'm just trying to get this certain thing work, the symbols...

[alpaca]

Well what I meant is that if the banner is all black in the alpha layer, it won't be shown because it's transparent. If you look at the other banners you'll see that the alpha layer is white where the banner appears.
So in fact, you have to edit the alpha layer to make your new banner visible.

[Zain]

ah, i must've not understood that concept before. Would you just refresh me on what file i must edit? I don't want to mess this up... Thanks man.

[alpaca]

Well in the symbols6.tga file, open it with Photoshop, go to channels, make the alpha channel visible and the RGB channels invisible and you should see what I mean.

[Zain]

okay

[Zain]

I still don't know what to do. I tried to make the alpha layer invisible with Adobe Photoshop and the RGB layer visible, but I don't know how. Here are some screenshots so you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Here I'm showing the city with the blank banner and the faction symbol which is set to the saxons symbol.




Here are the black banners and textureless soldiers on the battlefield, which I don't know how to fix either.



I hate to be so stupid... but once I learn how to do this once I'll never forget.

Thanks.

[alpaca]

Hmm which file did you edit to change the image on the bottom right of the battle interface?

Anyways, to switch channels, first select channels (green), then make the alpha channel (blue) visible, then make the RGB channels (red) invisible.

This will produce the following:

You can see that the image is now white where anything is visibile in-game and black where stuff is invisible.
To edit it, you'll also need to select the alpha channel (by clicking on it in the channels tab).

[Makanyane]

@Zain,
are you sure problem with texture less soldiers is the actual texture (alpha etc) and not the folder structure its in?

I had the metalic soldier effect when trying to make changes in mod-folder. Think battle_models.modeldb and new textures have to be in main folders not mod-folder (unless there's fix for that) and use the --io.file_first switch

to double check before you play with texture too much, back up your version and copy and re-name an existing texture to it - to make sure that appears in battle.

(suspects she doesn't really know what she's talking about so runs away to hide in RTW section again....)

[Zain]

thank you, actually my version of adobe photoshop's 30 day trial is over and so i haven't been able to do anything with it. But thanks for the help, once I get it registered I'll be working with this stuff again.