Basic modding question

[Achilleslastand]

I would like to get into modding and im not sure where to start.Id like to mod the unit graphics of MTW,maybe more.....ive read a few of the guides and still feel lost.......any advice......and what tools do i need to download from the tools/download section?

[Raz]

Unit graphics as in sprites? I don't do too much of that, so I can't tell you specifics of what to do in a step by step guide... but I can tell you that you'll be needing the tool readBIF. I'm pretty sure it's somewhere in the downloads section.

What it does? Well it does what it's name suggests - it opens, reads and to an extent edits the .BIF files. BIFs are the graphics files that house all the unit's that you see on the battle-map. As I said, it is limited in it's use to edit them, but you can extract the frames (12 frames) as .bmp files and edit them using say Photoshop or GIMP. But other than that, I cannot tell you more. :shame:

Hope that helps. :thumbsup:

[TosaInu]

Hello Achilleslastand,

RSW's Readbif indeed to edit unit animations but also various pictures in .BIF

A paint program to edit TGA can be nice, PaintShop Pro or Gimp.

There's a FactionColorTool made by Lord Xelous http://www.mizus.com/files/files/Tools/FactionColourTool.zip

Duke John made a distribution of tools recently: http://www.mizus.com/files/files/Tools/mtw_tools_resources.zip
It's a 50 mb download and includes many tools you need: Lukemapmaker from Wellington, BIFReader by RSW, Gnome editor, Mithel Imageconverter..

[TosaInu]

And a nice guide about editing MTW: https://forums.totalwar.org/?q=node/45