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Im just wondering if their is a guide somewhere showing a newbie how to mod the campmap peices ,, I very much like those peices made for Samurai and they have inspired me to learn as I would like to help out on two mods (( One recently released & another gaining interest )) .. I have the necessary MTW programs along with Paint Shop Pro but i can't find any info on how its done .... Any guidance is highly appreciated even in very basic point form ,, cheers ,, DTS
this is both complicated and simple
i dont have time to do this all at once, so i'll answer questions and add bits as i have time
BASICS
/campmap/pieces
there are two types of pallettes, those with flags and those without,
ships, armies and leaders have flags, and thus any replacement piece for them needs to be based on a pallette containing a flag
Agents are a lot easier to work with, but similar rules apply, there are several different agent pallettes, all i am going to look at today is armies and leaders.
These are all the different army/leader piece pallettes available
(those that carry flags on the map)
Medieval TW/campmap/pieces/units
#1 - army_ (ALL+LEADER ALL+CHRISTIAN ALL +MUSLIM LEADER ALL one pallette)
#2 - HCrus.BIF
Medieval TW/campmap/pieces/units/muslim
#3 - army_ (ALL one pallette)
Medieval TW/campmap/pieces/units/pagan
#4 - army_ (ALL one pallette)
#5 - army_ LEADER(ALL one pallette)
Medieval TW/campmap/pieces/Vikings/Units
#6 - army_ (ALL+LEADER ALL) one pallette
Ships pallettes will also work as army units/leaders (they have a flag)
Medieval TW/campmap/pieces/ships
#7 - ALL one pallette
Medieval TW/campmap/pieces/Vikings/Units/ships
#8 - ALL one pallette
Two more pallette's exist
#9 - Samurai Warlords will, (from the release of Beta9 onwards) have it's own pallette, modified from the
#10 - Shogun (original) pallette but with the primary and secondary faction colour strips altered.
a late entry,
#11 - Medieval TW/campmap/pieces/Agents/Jihad_held_acting.BIF
(and i am working on pallette number 12 for BKB's Age of Warlords mod campmap pieces)
There are some simple rules
- recommend Lose the shields, may look nice, but they ARE guaranteed to be a pain to get them to line up properly unless you get everything lined up perfectly and exactly like an original piece.
(personally i dont use them at all)
- Try not to ADD to the flag, try to ONLY take away (AND only a little bit)
(we do not know the rules for which index to add to a flag to get it to work - have a look inside the pallette and you'll see the problem - experiment and you may get it right, but it will take time)
- Try not to put your character in front of the flag
- use colours that are not the flag colours
- try to get the flag pole in the exact center of the image IF you want the little "active banner" that displays in game when you click on a statck to BE right on top of the flag pole.
- USE bifreader to extract the BMP files so you can work on them
- USE anything you like to edit the image, as long as you do not change file types and do not allow the pallette to change (256 colours max)
- USE either GDS (see download tools) or DPaint to convert your output into a TGA or an LBM - GDS for example makes great LBM's (256 colours)
- USE CA's utils to turn the TGA or LBM file into Bif's (and into Buf's)
- ONLY use BIF files as source files, you cannot get a bmp from a buf, convert it to something else, back through CA's utils. ONLY BIF sourced files will go through CA's utils.
- the colours in the first two index positions and the last index position in the pallette must NOT be changed.
more later if i think of anything
Cheers
B.
bif files are the "held" files, they dont have shadows,
buf files have shadows,
you NEED BOTH
i extract my source files from bifs and bufs (bifreader extracts them as bmp's),
choose a BIF sourced bmp, in photoshop i change canvas size to be larger than i need, this is my "master file"
make multiple copies of my "master" file
edit/add/mod my campmap piece as i desire,
COPY the shadow from the bmp that came from a BUF file
into my new files that i want to become BUF's (adjusting the shadow as needed)
convert the files from 256 colour bmp's into 256 colour lbm's using GDS
Drop the lbm files into CA's purpgrab 1 at a time
(which gives me all bif output files)
THEN those files that have shadows and need to beBUF's i then drop into CA's buffy (1 at a time)
CHECK the files by dropping them into CA's bifview
- if you made a major boo-boo here's where you will spot it.
rename the files as needed and put them where needed and test them in game.
Cheers
B.
Many thanks Barocca ! ..... :beam:
Now a lot of things can be done with just the basic pallettes and files above,
using bif reader i edited out the Pagan Leader,
tidied up the flag by using adjacent index colours so the levels stay correct as the unit stack fills up,
then exported as a bmp, opened in photoshop and imported Joan of Arc bmp's (Joan of Arc is in the agent folder) into the file,
(there are lots of blues in the Pagan Leader bif file pallette)
saved as BMP and remade into bif files!!
Voila
https://img407.imageshack.us/img407/...nsamplebw2.jpg
the trick is do NOT copy the flag/banner around anywhere,
you have to use the one in the file to keep it counting men in stack correctly.
(you can , however , change the colour range the flag uses)
now in this one if you were worried about Jon "inheriting" some blues that are used for faction colours on the base, then you would simply change the colour range of the faction colours - say to Bright Yellow, and then adjust Joan to remove any Yellow.
cheers
B.
Hello Barocca ,, Im figuring fortifications use the same principals you have outlined above for movable peices ,, But !! Is it possible for fortification to be faction specific ? so various empires look different on the campaign map ?
I think it is possible, BKB's mod Age of Warlords uses a different type of campmap's fortification for the eskimo and indian factions.
Great news Belisario !!! :smash: ... Do you have the mod installed ? Can you capture some screen shots of some of the new Castles alongside some of the older original ones ? this is awesome news .... :yes:
Have a look at this Age of Warlords' thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...t=50767&page=3
I uninstalled my copy of Age of Warlords due to its frustrating CTDs.
Hi Belisario ,,
I searched both threads and read nothing but i did see all of the nice screen shots ,, Great parchment screens and overall nice work ...... but !
I didn't see any evidence of what i want .
Perhaps I should explain it better .... ok
When looking at the campaign map i would like it to show the Italian castles , & citadels different to the German ones ! and the Turkish ones different again !!
I know its only cosmetic ... but wow ! if possible would look much better than having them all identical .
I'm afraid your idea isn't feasible. BKB designed new campaign map building pieces for indian and eskimo factions but he attached these settlements to these factions using a simple method. In the Build.txt file of Age of Warlords these buildings are defined in the same column that the original MTW fortifications, but "indian settlements" are only available to the mentioned factions and MTW fortifications to European factions. In fact BKB used the same principle that works with the Gunsmith line of buildings: the Egyptians can build the first level of gunsmith (and train mamluk handgunners) while the rest of the factions begin in the second level, the gunsmith workshop.