How to change unit banners and faction icons

Modding Resource Header

Title: How to change unit banners and faction icons (formerly Total banners and symbols conversion)

Posted by: Monkwarrior

Modding area: Units (appearance), User Interface

Required programmes: Vercingetorix's X-Pak, an image editor capable of editing .DDS files (such as Photoshop or Paintshop Pro), Notepad (or other text editor)
Related links: xpak Tutorial, Nvidia dds plug-in
Summary: This guide details how to change the faction icons in the game - including the battlemap banners, strategic banners and user interface icons.


I had the idea of writing a guide for a complete conversion of all the symbols and banners in a given faction.
The first part for the faction selection menus has already been post here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=45150

This guide is not intended to be a step-by-step tutorial, and it is supposed that the modder is able to use PSP or Photoshop in a correct way.

BATTLE MAP

The most relevant banners in battles are that for the general unit and the banner for the rest of units. These banners are included in one single file: standard_factionname.tga.dds placed in Data\models\textures folder. This is the example for the celts faction I did (I remember this is not a very artistic work, it is only for general information):
http://img163.exs.cx/img163/1773/standardbriton7vl.jpg

On the right the banner for the general unit, on the left the common banner. I did these banners from the "white" banner standard_routing_barbarian.tga.dds in the same folder. There are also white versions for eastern and western factions.
Here you have the effect in game:
http://img163.exs.cx/img163/6517/figbattle15kp.th.jpg

Other banners appear in some units, but they are included in the textures of the units, in Data\models_unit\textures.
In the image (with a red circle) you can see also another banner, which is probably more difficult to find, as it is included in the packs.
Once unpacked, you can find these banners in the folder Data\ui\CAPTAIN_BANNERS, with the name CAPTAIN_CARD_FACTIONNAME.TGA. I did it simply by cutting the banner for the general unit, resizing to fit the new size and pasting it on the captain banner.

I hope this will help and next chapter will deal with the large amount of places where banners and symbols appear in strategic map.
Cheers.

STRATEGIC MAP

In these pictures have tried to show most of occasions when the faction symbols and banners appear in the strategic map.
http://img202.exs.cx/img202/1925/figstrat14zs.th.jpghttp://img202.exs.cx/img202/8049/figstrat27jr.th.jpg
http://img202.exs.cx/img202/5441/figstrat35fn.th.jpghttp://img202.exs.cx/img202/9675/figstrat48pv.th.jpg

The CAPTAIN_CARD_FACTIONNAME.TGA placed in Data\ui\CAPTAIN_BANNERS folder appears also in the strategic map. It is shown in green in the first screenshot, in the prebattle screen when the armies are commanded by a captain instead of a general.

In blue you can see the places where a big symbol appears, for example in the right bottom interface pannel, in diplomacy or to show the AI movements at the end of the turn. It is coded in the file STRATPAGE_02.TGA placed in Data\ui\ROMAN\INTERFACE folder. This is the aspect of this file:
http://img202.exs.cx/img202/1917/stratpage022kl.th.jpg
You must paste the new symbol on the old one. I use the symbol48_factionname.tga file (used for menu buttons) to copy, resize and paste the same symbol.

The small symbol also appears in many occassions, as can be seen in the screenshots (red marks), such as the prebattle screen, the battle results or the diplomacy screen. The small symbol is coded in the file SHAREDPAGE_01.TGA placed in Data\ui\ROMAN\INTERFACE folder. This is the aspect of this file:
http://img202.exs.cx/img202/2249/sharedpage016fq.th.jpg
The symbol must be pasted on the old one. I use the symbol24_factionname.tga file to copy, resize and paste the same symbol.

Finally, the banners in settlements and armies (white marks in screenshots) are specific for the faction only in the color (in descr_sm_factions.txt placed in Data folder) and the symbols, coded in the files symbols1.tga.dds to symbols8.tga.dds placed in Data\banners folder. The symbol for britons is placed in symbols4.tga.dds as shown in the figure.
http://img45.exs.cx/img45/9140/symbols4old9eo.jpg
What I do to modify the symbol is to cut the corner of the symbol, both in RGB and alpha channels. Then I paste the positive and negative of the new symbol in RGB and alpha channels, respectively and this is the final result:
http://img45.exs.cx/img45/4263/symbols4new0db.jpg

I hope this tutorial will help in some way for a total conversion of the banners and symbols of a faction.
Please if you feel that something is not clear enough or that something is lacking, post it here.
Thanks. :bow:

Do I have to repack the files, or even to delete the vanilla packs ?
Right now, the game crash while loading when I add the 2 tga files into Data\ui\ROMAN\INTERFACE

Edit : I achieved to have the game loading without a crash, but the symbols are still the same ~:confused:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Meneldil

Do I have to repack the files, or even to delete the vanilla packs ?
Right now, the game crash while loading when I add the 2 tga files into Data\ui\ROMAN\INTERFACE

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In fact all these modifications were done for RTW 1.1.
In that case I was working with a completely unpacked version, and the packs had to be deleted to get the modifications visible.

Does the crash take place while loading the game or the campaign?
I am now adapting my mod to 1.2. I can only say that the game loads without problems with the two modified files. I can play custom battles but I have problems in loading the provincial campaign. However the problem is completely different (I will post it in the general forum).

Good luck!

It now works (kinda, the large icons is showing, not the small one). I had to delete the packs in order to do so.

Anyway, thanks, that's a great tutorial :bow:

Have you found a way to stop the grey background from appearing on the flags in the strategic map? I can change the symbols ok but they always seem to have the grey square behind them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vetinari

Have you found a way to stop the grey background from appearing on the flags in the strategic map? I can change the symbols ok but they always seem to have the grey square behind them.

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Yeah, it is only a problem of the alpha channel.
What I did (I don't know if there is an easier way, I learnt it by myself) was to make a psd file with the positive (white background) symbol. Then I converted it into the negative (black background) with the symbol in white.
Then it is necessary to cut the symbol in both the RGB and the alpha channel. Then I paste the positive in the RGB channel and the negative in the alpha channel. Be careful that both are correctly placed. When the file is saved as dds everything seems to be OK.
If you have some problems (my English is not good enough), I will try to put some screenshots of the process the next days.

Cheers.

Thanks Monkwarrior. I did exactly what you said and I've got it now, thanks for the help.

I still can't get the small icons to work. I've tried by all means (copy/paste with resize, drawing the symbol from scratch, etc.), but it looks like something is messed up here (perhaps me ~;) )

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Meneldil

I still can't get the small icons to work. I've tried by all means (copy/paste with resize, drawing the symbol from scratch, etc.), but it looks like something is messed up here (perhaps me ~;) )

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Well, it is surprising that you succeded in making the big symbols to work but not the small ones. In fact I did the same in the two files and that was all. ~:confused:
Are you sure about the resolution of the final tga file?
After pasting I usually do "merge visible" to put together the layers generated by pasting. I don't know if this is important or not.
I hope you solve your problem.
In any case, I haven't found the way to show these modifications in case of an unpacked game. ~:confused:

If you're using the 1.2 patch, then you'll need to unpack (and rename) patch_0.pak. It has a couple of interface files in it, and it seems that it looks for the small icons (at least for the roman interface) there first.

Looks like it works, thanks :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Monkwarrior

STRATEGIC MAP

Finally, the banners in settlements and armies (white marks in screenshots) are specific for the faction only in the color (in descr_sm_factions.txt placed in Data folder) and the symbols, coded in the files symbols1.tga.dds to symbols8.tga.dds placed in Data\banners folder. The symbol for britons is placed in symbols4.tga.dds as shown in the figure.

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Sorry if this is a stupid question (I'm new to modding), but I can't seem to find symbol for the Senate amongst these files. ~:confused:

symbols1.tga.dds contains the three Roman families, whilst 2 to 5 has the other factions. 6, 7 and 8 appear to be blank. Can anyone help? Thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Balbus

Sorry if this is a stupid question (I'm new to modding), but I can't seem to find symbol for the Senate amongst these files. ~:confused:

symbols1.tga.dds contains the three Roman families, whilst 2 to 5 has the other factions. 6, 7 and 8 appear to be blank. Can anyone help? Thanks.

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It's not a stupid question (at least the same problem happened to me at the beginning). I imagine you are not an expert in photoshop (as me ~D ) and you are not familiar with alpha channels.
Some of the symbols are only visible in that channel (germans for example), as they are white.
In the menu open Window>Channels. You will have a new window and your visible (eye on the left) channels are RGB and the individual red, green and blue. Click on the alpha and you will see the senate symbol.

If the problem persists I will try to post some screenshots.
Good luck! ~:cheers:

i successfully changed the battle banners and the map unit banners, but i'm having trouble changing the interface shields because i can't find this Data/ui folder your talking about, where is it? i found a folder called /packs and ui_0.pak and ui_1.pak files in it, but i can't open them. What do i do?

Download Vercingetorix' pak extractor, extract ui_1.pak (create a new folder, put ui_1 into this folder, then put the extractor and launch it) A DATA folder will appear, look into it and find the roman/interface folder, replace the files with your new ones, repak the file (there's a tutorial about repaking in the readme) and put the edited, brand new-repaked pak in your RTW pak folder.

IF you're using 1.2, you'll have to unpak patch_0.pak aswell, cause one of the required file is packed here.
To do so, put patch_0 in an empty folder with the pak extractor, rename patch_0 (ie : ui_0.pak or ui_1.pak), and launch the extractor.
Do not forget to repak everything once you'd edited the files (I think you have to rename it patch_0, but I may be wrong).

I hope I've been clear enough (I doubt it, but heh).

Mokwarrior: Do you know where the files are for the settlement banner that is used when no armies are present?, the larger, square banner? Is this possibly the captain banner?

Yes, I think so. But it is not 100% sure, as I tested it some time ago. :embarassed:

The banners that appear above a settlement on the strat map when there are no units there are models_strat\textures\#banner_symbol_{faction}.tga.dds

These textures are referenced from the models_strat\symbol_{faction}.CAS files. Which specific .CAS file is for which faction is defined in descr_sm_factions.txt.

Thanks for this important information. :bow: ~;)

I have a couple of additional comments about editing the banners that appear on the strategy map (displayed on armies and settlements).

The alpha layer behaves strangely in with these banners. It does not seem to be possible to create one with a white crest (logo), for example. If you add a completely white silhouette to the alpha layer and leave the RGB layer blank, the crest will be rendered in-game as a medium grey, as with the Senate banners.

Coloured crests seem to interact with the underlying colour of the banner, which is defined (as the primary/secondary colours of the faction) by settings in the file: "Data\descr_sm_factions.txt".

In my attempts to place a light yellow crest on a dark blue banner, the crest was always rendered in-game as a dirty green colour. I settled for grey in the end. :)

Yes, as you can see, I never say anything about colours.
The colours are modified in some way by the game as the banners contain the "level" of the corresponding armies.
It is related to the faction colours described in descr_sm_factions.txt. Even in the case the colour is white, the game shows it as grey and all the other colours are changed in the same way.

In another forum I've asked - but this is the best place to file this query I think:

I'm wondering how exactly the banners on the fortifications can be changed. Stone walls, the banners over those gates, for example.

Also asked here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=51613

I would think they would be the second set of banner textures (main set is in models/textures) that you can find in models_buildings/textures, but I can't get them to change yet. I've seen somewhere that they were hard to change - does anyone have any information on this at all?

I'm having difficulties with this. I'm trying to give the scipii faction the symbols of the BI celt faction, and the brutii the symbols for the BI sarmation faction. I've followed your guide here and the select faction screen to begin playing the game works, the loading screen works, but once in game the flags above the armies and settlements are still the old scipii and brutii flags. I've not even gotten in so far as to check the battle screen flags, heh heh.

I tried changing the logo_index and the small_logo_index to match the lines in the corresponding BI factions, but unfortuneately those are already recognized by RTW as belonging to the Macedonians and the Britons.

And it seems that all that changed was some of the interface symbols and not the actual flags anyway.

Can someone give me a clue as to how I can go about making it work?

Thanks!

Please can someone help me to find out how to repack files. I can unpack them ok and have apparently repacked them but they do not appear.
I have only repacked the files edited by me and saved the pak file under my own filename.

If I unpack UI_1, edit 2 files and then want to repack it, do I have to make a text file listing every single file in UI_1 in its correct path? This will take forever! Or has eone posted up the list somewhere?

Or do I copy all the files unpacked from UI_1 into their correct places in the main data folder and delete UI_1? Vercingetorix's instructions are fine for unpacking, but very confusing (for me) on repacking.

Hoping someone can help me.
And/or point me to a guide on re-packing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Anarchon

Please can someone help me to find out how to repack files. I can unpack them ok and have apparently repacked them but they do not appear.
I have only repacked the files edited by me and saved the pak file under my own filename.

If I unpack UI_1, edit 2 files and then want to repack it, do I have to make a text file listing every single file in UI_1 in its correct path? This will take forever! Or has eone posted up the list somewhere?

Or do I copy all the files unpacked from UI_1 into their correct places in the main data folder and delete UI_1? Vercingetorix's instructions are fine for unpacking, but very confusing (for me) on repacking.

Hoping someone can help me.
And/or point me to a guide on re-packing.

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The best way is to repack only the modified files and name the pack as mod_0.pak. In this way the list is by far shorter and the game considers first the files in it.:2thumbsup:

Thanks Monkwarrior,

I have been able to kludge a way thru thanks to that advice.

Still massively confused and having to edit the sample files to do it rather than making my own, but at least have this work-around.

This is more of a Photoshop question, but it's only appeared when modifying these files, not any other tga.dds files. The files "standard_<factionname>.tga.dds" appear to be 86 KB in size as originals, yet every time I save a modified file using Photoshop/NVidia DDS plugin, it saves as 43 KB (incidentally, unit Texture files are 43 KB in size, which is why this problem hasn't occurred before for me). It appears the game does not like/recognize files sized at 43 KB, and defaults to the vanilla files at 86 KB.

This is using Rome 1.5/Pshop 9.02/NVidia 8.20Beta. Has anyone else run across this problem, or is there an option/setting I've missed?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Monkwarrior

The best way is to repack only the modified files and name the pack as mod_0.pak. In this way the list is by far shorter and the game considers first the files in it.:2thumbsup:

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Do files under 1.5 need to be repacked, or is this necessary only in 1.1/1.2?


ETA:

I've looked at a couple of mods I've downloaded, and they seem to NOT repack the tga.dds files, or copy over the .cas files. (However, they are all 86 KB, leading me to think there's a setting I have wrong in saving files I modify.)

You will not have to repak banners or faction symbols with 1.5. At least not if you are using a mod folder.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SubRosa

You will not have to repak banners or faction symbols with 1.5. At least not if you are using a mod folder.

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I thought so - Amazon TW was one of the mods I was looking at to confirm that repacking wasn't necessary. I'll keep playing around with it to see why it's not doing what it "should" - everything is in a mod folder, so it should work. Any thoughts about the file-size issue I ran into?

I have never run across that file size issue. But that does not mean it is not real. My texture files always come out to be 86kb so I would not have encountered it.

Upload a banner, then. I would suggest that it is strange to not have the same filesize as vanilla. Probably something wrong with it.

Sir_Lysander have you selected 'generate all mip-maps' when you save the DDS?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dol Guldur

Upload a banner, then. I would suggest that it is strange to not have the same filesize as vanilla. Probably something wrong with it.

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I'm not entirely sure how to do so; let me look and I will, or send directly to you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Makanyane

Sir_Lysander have you selected 'generate all mip-maps' when you save the DDS?

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Yes; NVidia settings: DXT1 ARGB 4 bpp | 1 bit alpha, Generate All mip-maps, 2D Texture. These are the same settings I've used to edit unit textures wit no problem.

I'm putting the files in "mod\Data\models\textures," but it's defaulting to the Vanilla ones.

I use DXT5 ARGB 8bpp interpolated alpha

have a go with that

(if you need to 'upload' something here, normal method is actually to upload it in a zipped folder to somewhere like Megaupload or FileFront and post the link)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Makanyane

I use DXT5 ARGB 8bpp interpolated alpha

have a go with that

(if you need to 'upload' something here, normal method is actually to upload it in a zipped folder to somewhere like Megaupload or FileFront and post the link)

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I'll try that setting.

Odd though - the setting I was using works perfectly fine for editing unit skins, but doesn't appear to for faction standards. I wonder what the rationale was behind such a change. I'll let you know if it works.

Nearly all the tga.dds files in RTW should be saved in the same format (the only ones that differ are not related to units or banners or buildings). You must be doing something wrong. I use Nvidia and have never had a problem. I do not have it installed now so cannot help but if you upload it I'm sure someone else will have a lok at the file information for you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dol Guldur

Nearly all the tga.dds files in RTW should be saved in the same format (the only ones that differ are not related to units or banners or buildings). You must be doing something wrong. I use Nvidia and have never had a problem. I do not have it installed now so cannot help but if you upload it I'm sure someone else will have a lok at the file information for you.

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I hadn't had a chance to update here, but - it's working. I'm doing banner skins using the "DXT5 ARGB 8bpp interpolated alpha" (86 kb file size) setting and unit skins at "DXT1 ARGB 4 bpp 1 bit alpha" (43 KB file size). (that and the banners txt file threw me with the "../modfolder/data" directory reference rather than simply "modfolder/data"). I'm not sure why banners are one way and units another, but so long as it works, it works, so why mess with it :yes:.

For the record, I tried a 43 KB/DXT1 tga.dds for the banners and got a pure-white banner (with the proper "../modfolder" setting); when I tried to open the file to save it as a 86 kb/DXT5, Photoshop said the file was corrupt. The original "WIP" file I had "wasn't" corrupt, so I went from there.

Unit skins should be at DXT5 too - are you sure they are working correctly at DXT1? My own experience is that there are problems if they are nto saved exactly right (sometimes with alpha layers)?

I have always saved everything like so:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...ileexample.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dol Guldur

Unit skins should be at DXT5 too - are you sure they are working correctly at DXT1? My own experience is that there are problems if they are nto saved exactly right (sometimes with alpha layers)?

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No problems to report with the DXT1/ARGB for unit skins; I may go back and see if it was simply a text file error that prevented the DXT1 version of the banners from working. Since I deleted the file Photoshop called corrupt, I'm not sure exactly what the nature of that file's problem actually was.

I originally figured that it was a file saving problem that I ran into - I did that once with a unit card (saved a .tga at 32bits/pixel rather than 24.) That lead me to check the file sizes, and my original post on it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SubRosa

I have always saved everything like so:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...ileexample.jpg

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I just checked my models_unit\textures folder and my file sizes runs from 43 to 171 kb - so the file size, in and of itself, is not a problem as I had earlier thought. All my unit skins are done with the DXT1/ARGB setting, so at least that portion of the game engine can digest those files without too many hiccups.