Couple of problems with new unit

I'm having a few difficulties getting my slinger unit to work properly. First, sounds. They don't say anything when I select them. I've looked for an events.dat file but it isn't there. How do I give it the voice of the mercenary rhodian slingers already in the game?

The other sound problem is the firing sound. When the slingers play the firing animation, I hear the archer's bow twang firing sound just before they throw the stones. The throwing sound is also there, but I don't want both to play! How do I get rid of the bow twang?

The last problem I have is with shields - the black square is around it. I've read the tutorials, but they assume you are using photoshop. I'm using the GIMP, so I have to currently save as .tga then use a converter to switch between the two. Either the alpha channel isn't being saved properly or the converter doesn't convert it. Can anyone think of a better solution? Thanks to anyone who can! :help:

I haven't explored this part of modding at all, but maybe the root of some of your problems are in the many sound text files in the data folder?

Ok, you are done with adding the unit, you only ask for tweaking.
If you really care fore the sounds, I can only suggest you dig within these files.
export_descr_sounds_soldier_voice.txt
export_descr_sounds_units_voice.txt
descr_sounds_units_fire.txt
I find it clever for a unit to be silent when selected then speak it's name with that idiot american accent. Your tastes though.
Now, I don't know GIMP that good, I use PS as many others do, but mainly your problem is because the alpha channel isn't saved properly. When using DDS Converter, select options and make sure you have the DXTc format selected DXT5. This might have been your problem. AFAIK in DDS converter DXT3 was the default and no, it doesn't save the alphas.

Arbaces.

Thanks. I had a look in the options and sure enough it was DTX3, with save alpha box unchecked.

It still didn't work. The box was still there. The problem is definitely non saving of alpha channels. I'll look for GIMP tutorials.

Sorry for double post (is there no way to edit previous ones?)

I've fixed a couple of my problems. The bow twang in the slingers was fixed by adding the unit into descr_sounds_units_fire. I also fixed the shield bug due to a lot of fiddling with options in GIMP. I'm not really sure I get it at the moment, but I probably will in the near future. Still working on the selection sound though - help would be nice. I don't want it to be silent as the rest of the unit in the game say stuff. It would be a bit of an oddity.