Guide: Editing battlemap buildings

[Seth Krn3ll]

are you sure you're actually unpacking the patch_0.pak ?

I don't think it was in verc's unpacker .bat file by default as it came with a patch that was later than the unpacker.

If you're not sure, rename the .bat file to .txt and have a look to see what's being extracted.

Anyway Thor is right, you shouldn't need to delete the packs.

Safest method is unpack them to the default folder - data/packs/data and leave any contents you don't want to change there for reference.

Then make any changes to copies of those files and put them in mod-folder. (in your case add changes to the alexander/lotr folder)

Well of course first thing I did was to make my own .bat file to unpack the fiels I need to. So, yes, I am positive I unpacked patch_0.pak. Actually, I unpacked it about ten times during my tries.

What I'm missing is why the game may crash if I rename the pack - once all its contents have been unpacked and are available in data folder.

The reason why I was renaming that pack is that I read that to have the game creating your own building from my newly made .cas files it must not have original sources to find - or it will just ignore the .cas files.

Given I have my new ROMAN_IMPERIAL_PALACE.cas files ready, the idea was to have them rebuilded by the game engine in a new ROMAN_IMPERIAL_PALACE.ITEM file.

But if I try to make it, game CTD during campaign loading, and there is no ROMAN_IMPERIAL_PALACE.ITEM made.

:(

[Makanyane]

apologies - I wasn't sure how far you've got with any of this before... so might still be telling you things you already know

I thought .items were only in the buildings pak, but not 100% sure...

anyway to get game to make new item you need in the mod folder a
descr_items.txt but no descr_items.db
that causes the game to try and make the .items from any .cas it can find and also re-make the .db file - I think you need alpaca's vanilla descr_items.txt file to start with and add your additions, that method I think was found to be easiest one. https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=60818

to make the game look for your new .cas and not the old one you can path the descr_items.txt to another folder, to generate stuff for eod2 I used.

type roman_town_wall_joiner_diagonal
lod
max_distance 4000.0
model_rigid ../../bi/eod2/data/models_building/roman_town_wall_joiner_diagonal.cas

which will make it look in the mod folder even if a .cas with same name exists in the packs.

You start the game once with the items.txt file and you get a whole string of error messages while it tries to find the .cas files (which aren't actually included in packs anyway, CA only sent .item files for most things) it will make a new .db file and your new item. (you should probably make an /items folder in your mod-folder first) and a load of junk items for the vanilla .cas it can't find.

You then need to combine your new item, with all the old valid .items from the paks in a /items folder in your mod-folder. All the items have to be in same folder.

[Seth Krn3ll]

Done :)

I workarounded the damn patch_0 file, just modding an ITEM which was not included in patch_0.pak file :)

So now I have my orthanc tower in my settlement:



But still there are some weird flaws:
1. at least two of the objects of the tower are just missing at all. How come?
2. at ground level meshes are flickering, I guess its because they are at very same level as ground, maybe I'll have to use boxes instead of planes.







Anyway, I go on with experimentation :)

[Wundai]

Hey All,

So here's my problem then :)
(I hope it belongs in this topic)

I have made a building and cassed it.
I also edited the descr_items.txt already for it to be put ingame, then when I try to export the building as .item file it gives me this error:

if $LOD_1!= undefined and isGroupHead $LOD_1 then

(for i=1 to $LOD_1.children.count do append lod1_group $LOD_1.children[i].namelodcount+=1)

Any idea's?

(If this has something to do with LOD levels it would be strange because I succesfully itemized quite some buildings already without this error.)

thanks for any help

[Thor the Bassist]

Export as a cas not an item. The game creates the item automatically.

[Wundai]

Sorry for the late reply Thor, thanks for your answer!

The building I was trying to make an item of though was an item file that was already ingame, a Roman House kind of building if I remember correctly.

Strangely enough though exporting it as item worked the next day when I started 3dsmax again, so it was solved

Well thanks for your help in any way