Editing banners

[uanime5]

Since there were no topics about this I decided to determine what each part of the faction banner represents.



Unit banners
Each of the blue numbered banners corresponds to a particular unit.

1) Non-spear infantry
2) The General (if the faction leader or the facton heir they will have the Royal Banner as well)
3) Spear infantry
4) Missile units (includes archers, crossbowmen, artillary and gunpowder units; except Cannon and Rocket elephants).
5) Cavalry (horses, camels, and elephants)

Experience flags
Each of the red lettered flags appears when a unit has some experience. The number of flags corresponds to the amount of experience. For example a unit with 1 bronze chevron experience will have 1 flag, while a unit with three gold chevrons will have 9 flags. I don't believe that the different letter flags are relate to the experience of the unit, however they do reflect the unit type.

Non-spear infantry: E, G, M, O
Spear infantry: B, D, J, L
Missile units: A, C, I, K
Cavalry: F, H, N, P

Also the cavalry flags are longer than the non-cavalry flags.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Many thanks!

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

where is the royal banner?

[uanime5]

The royal banner is contained in a seperate file. The regular banner (in the first post) is from the data\banners\textures\faction_banner_[faction].texture file, while the royal banner is in the data\banners\textures\royal_banner_[faction].texture file. I did not include the royal banner because it is the only banner in the file.

You will be unable to access these banners unless you unpack M2TW. Also [faction] represents the faction's name.

[Milovan]

I have a little problem: what does the b&w 'trans' file do? The reason I'm askin' is that I wanna edit the banners, and I don't know if I have to edit the b&w one too. I tried to open it in Photoshop (converted it to .tga) but the left half of the image is missing (!?), it's there when I open it in IrfanView. Do they have to be mirror images of each other ('cept one is b&w), or will it not be a problem if I make a new faction_banner_serbia and simply rename faction_banner_byzantium_trans to faction_banner_serbia_trans?

EDIT: Scratch that, I got the solution from TWC. Apparently, I just have to desaturate the faction_banner_serbia in Photoshop and save it as faction_banner_serbia_trans.