Sprite Generator... CA ?

[Lord Adherbal]

I guess all modders realise this is a problem: we need a sprite generator. This is not something that can (or will) be done by a community member such as vercingetorix, as it must be a hell of a lot of work (basicly writing a small 3D engine that can display the models and animations).

Now CA must have had some kind of tool for this job, so I wonder if they could consider releasing it *hopes a CA member reads this*. This doesn't need to be a userfriendly, nice looking application, just a stupid executable that uses a commandline would be more then enough. Or whatever CA used to get it done.


I hope I'm not the only one who thinks this is important

[JeromeGrasdyke]

Ah. Yes. The sprite generator. It's there already, but I'm afraid it's not all that user friendly. Like many of the tools used for Rome it's embedded in the main Rome exe, and you access it by starting up the game with "-sprite_script" on the command line. It was made available in the 1.2 patch exe, and won't be there in earlier versions.

What this does is cause the game to start up looking for a file called "sprite_script.txt" in the game's root directory, which it uses to construct the sprite pages and .spr files for the sprite imposters into the data/sprites directory. This process references data in the descr_model_battle.txt file to create sprites which correspond to the different faction colour / model texture pages. I'm including a chunk of the syntax below, so that you will have something to work from when creating the script:


barb_female_peasant no_faction
east_female_peasant no_faction
generals_horse romans_julii generals horse
generals_horse romans_brutii generals horse
generals_horse romans_scipii generals horse
horse_cataphract seleucid horse cataphract
horse_cataphract parthia horse cataphract
barb_cavalry gauls generals horse
barb_cavalry germans generals horse
carthaginian_medium_cavalry carthage generals horse
carthaginian_medium_cavalry numidia generals horse
carthaginian_medium_cavalry spain generals horse
persian_sparabara_merc no_faction
egyptian_peltast_merc no_faction
greek_elephant_crew_merc no_faction sprite_root


And so on... it's essentially a list of "descr_model_battle type id" "faction type" "mount type". You have to explicitly list all the factions that you want sprites for, since you could economise on space by sharing sprites among factions. The sprite_root keyword is used to indicate a model which is on a mount but is nevertheless standing up (chariot drivers, etc).

Be warned that this process can take a long time - a couple of hours for regenerating the complete set of sprites was not unusual - and requires a decent graphics card (128mb of video memory minimum, I believe). If you run with -ne on the command line you should be able to do other things during that time, although I wouldn't recommend running anything that uses DirectX.

After it completes you'll have to modify descr_model_battle.txt to correctly use the new sprite files.

Hope that gets you started...

[Lord Adherbal]

yes, thank you, thats excellent :D

a couple of hours for regenerating the complete set of sprites was not unusual

I hope you don't mean for 1 unit's sprite set :O either way, anything better then the alternative ways of making sprites :)

[Encaitar]

Fantastic. Thank you very much Jerome :)

[Vercingetorix]

Thanks Adherbal for finding that! And thanks Jerome for the explantion!

[Myrddraal]

Thanks Jerome, thats saved me a hell of a lot of time (believe it or not, I was going to recolour the existing sprites so they vaguely fit my units)

[WhiteWolf]

Ah I could just kiss you... except Im not that kind of wolf..

Anyway thanks for the great info!

[Monkwarrior]

Could I suggest somebody to make a "How To" about this question?
It would be great.

[Simetrical]

I tried doing this. I created a shortcut to my RTW.exe which went to "C:\Games\Rome Total Realism\RomeTW.exe" -sprite_script. I made a file in C:\Games\Rome Total Realism\ called sprite_script.txt. In that file, I wrote

generals_horse romans_julii generals horse

with that spacing, copied directly from Jerome's post. When I clicked the shortcut, RTW started up, went through the initial loading screen, and then returned me to the desktop almost immediately. The data\sprites folder doesn't even exist. I must be doing something wrong—but what? Jerome, [cF]Adherbal? Any ideas?

-Simetrical

[JeromeGrasdyke]

When I clicked the shortcut, RTW started up, went through the initial loading screen, and then returned me to the desktop almost immediately. The data\sprites folder doesn't even exist. I must be doing something wrong—but what? Jerome, [cF]Adherbal? Any ideas?

Are you sure the original Rome dataset is still completely intact? The fact that it returns almost immediately could indicate that it's not even getting to the sprite generator execution.

Also, you need to make sure there are no -mod options on the command line, and since it's a modded game, there's a risk that some of the typenames have been renamed or removed from descr_model_battle.txt or descr_mount.txt ... i'd suggest you make sure that the typenames are there, the cas models reference valid textures, and so on. And of course run with -show_err on the command line as well.

[Roman_Man#3]

Ah. Yes. The sprite generator. It's there already, but I'm afraid it's not all that user friendly. Like many of the tools used for Rome it's embedded in the main Rome exe, and you access it by starting up the game with "-sprite_script" on the command line. It was made available in the 1.2 patch exe, and won't be there in earlier versions.

What this does is cause the game to start up looking for a file called "sprite_script.txt" in the game's root directory, which it uses to construct the sprite pages and .spr files for the sprite imposters into the data/sprites directory. This process references data in the descr_model_battle.txt file to create sprites which correspond to the different faction colour / model texture pages.

"game with "-sprite_script" on the command line", i dont understand what it means by this

[Makanyane]

Its same as where you put -show_err, right click on your desktop icon, select properties and in target box, add a space after ...exe" and add -sprite_script
so result looks like
"X:\blah\blah\RomeTW-BI.exe" -sprite_script

[Roman_Man#3]

thank you

[Roman_Man#3]

haha, I finally got it to work. Thank you.


ah, nvm, i knew it was too good to be true. the sprites were made no problem, bu the when i tried to play a game, this signal that said:out of area - came up. then i went to adherbal(?) preference thing on the second page, and just as battle was about to begin, it went to that stupid signal again. Please help!!

[zhumin1978]

I am wondering if this works with ver1.3 or it's a v1.2 only.
I can not even put "-sprite_script" on the command line of RomeTW.exe v1.3.

[wlesmana]

I tried this and got this error:

DATABASE_TABLE error found : unrecognised record id c requested

so I'm guessing this is not a video card problem but something else. I followed the instruction to the letter so I have no idea why this happened.

[Balbor]

does this work with 1.3

all i'm getting are black tga files that don't have alpha chanels

[Balbor]

i've been able to make sprites with 1.2 but not 1.3, has anyone tried 1.5?

[aazj]

I tried this and got this error:

DATABASE_TABLE error found : unrecognised record id c requested


Hi there. I've tried this sprite generator and it doesn't work.

I get an error message like this:

DATABASE_TABLE error found : unrecognised record id r requested

or this

DATABASE_TABLE error found : unrecognised record id m requested

I created the sprite_script.txt. If i open the file and write "barb_female_peasant" (without the ""), i get the first error message. If i write "camel numidia", i get the second error message.

It doesn't create any sprite files (i've created the sprites folder though).

I use a fresh installation of RTW with the 1.2 patch. I copied the preferences posted in this thread but it still doesn't work.

1-ran game/reseted my graphics on automatic in opptions/video
2-made a folder data\sprites
3-made a file in rtw directory - sprite_script.txt
4-put the descr_model_battle.txt inside the sprite_script.txt/desert_infantry greek_cities
5-run RomeTW.exe -sprite_script -show_err,
6-the errors are shown in the following picture. The letters after the wrong ID are the third letter of the file of "sprite_script.txt"



I'm chinese, english it's difficult for me, sorry for my bad langage .

[Jarardo]

I definetly tried that. I tried changing all sorts of options around. I was thinking my video card just couldnt do it. I have a saphire radeon 9000 128mb. Whats wierd is when I try to take a SS of it, the units look fine in the screen shot? I'm just using the print screen key, and they are saved as tga's I can view with photoshop.

Anyway thanks for the response man.

[killerxguy]

Will this work in BI, i tried to put the txt file in the BI folder but i get no sprites
EDIT:got it to work! Thanks for this amazing tool CA!

[Jumper]

hello, i am Jumper but doesn't jump jet

I do have a question and i am not sure if this is the right place to put my question.
So i sorry.

I wanted to ask for making Sprites.

what i have done is this.
put a txt file Sprites_Script under Map Rome -Total War
change AA in preference in AA_QUALITY:AA_OFF
change 32_BIT in STRATEGY_RESOLUTION:1024x768
STRATEGY_MAX_RESOLUTION:1280x960
STRATEGY_16_BIT:FALSE
BATTLE_RESOLUTION:1024x768
BATTLE_MAX_RESOLUTION:1280x960
BATTLE_16_BIT:FALSE

Placed a map Sprites under Map DATA
the unit i wanted to make a sprite is;
barb_cavalry thrace generals horse

did make a sortcut of Rome-total war icoon
and put in the propeties -Sprites_Script -Show_err

and i do have a clean Rome Total War install
Still it doesn't work what is wrong with me
Thank you and again sorry if i post this in the wrong place..

[Makanyane]

First in your preferences I think it should be
STRATEGY_32_BIT:FALSE
so effectively it is 16 bit - I think that's the correct way of writing it.

If you look at 1st / 2nd page of thread I think it shows that adding 'generals horse' at end is incorrect. You just need
(descr_model_battle)'type' faction
in script file, if that doesn't help post again as I could have interpreted the mount effect bit wrong!!

[Roman_Man#3]

did make a sortcut of Rome-total war icoon
and put in the propeties -Sprites_Script -Show_err

i do believe it is supposed to be -sprite_script, not sprites_script. but don't take my word for it, I can't get it to work either. and sorry about triple post.

[Makanyane]

Its definitely -sprite_script (singular)

Meghas Alexandros, haven't seen your error before

this signal that said:out of area

sounds a bit more like a graphics card glitch than a RTW error message, does that seem right? If thats possible have you done rest of process and converted the tga's the generator gives you to tga.dds files? Think game runs with them left as tga but they are bigger files that way so may overload something?????

Also check what it has generated as tga's for you to see if they look right. You should get roughly between one and five tga's for each sprite (depending on size of unit - guys with long spear get more files) and if you open tga in your graphics program you should be able to see lots of very small men per tga (well blobs really). Mainly just make sure you haven't got 100's per sprite or blank tgas. Finally check the DMB sprite line is correct.

[Roman_Man#3]

I doubt it is my graphics card, because I can run rtw and m2tw almost perfectly. I am going to put in my original preference text into the folder and see if it plays then. I will also try to take a screenshot of the message so you can see it.

It did generate the sprites. There was three of them. In the descr_model_battle text, i changed the sprite for my hastati from the original to whatever name the sprite created was called.

[Roman_Man#3]

which set of sprites do I use? I have 3 of them. I tried to take a screen of the error sign, but when I loaded the screen outside of the the game, it was the actual loading screen, except that wasn't what I saw. My guess now is maybe my moniter could possibly have gotten disconnected a bit? and can someone please post the vanilla preference text so I can see if that is it?


thanks.