Variety of MOD'ing Questions thread!

[Eldgrim]

I'm going to bungling my way through modding M2 over the next few weeks (months, years, etc) with creating a whole new faction, with a new religion and building tree. Pretty much everything i can, i'm gonna have a few Q's on the way.

Q's

• Is it possible to edit what plays when an agent assassinates or spies on something? Or when a merchant interacts, etc? As in replace the video with my own one or my own images?

• Can the buttons that show up after you take over a settlement/win a battle be changed? And can one change the effects of what they do? For example I would like to make the 'Execute' button after a battle into a 'Sacrifice' button which has a boost either on population happiness or somesuch thing.

• Is it possible to create formations for armies? I would like to create the 'boar' formation that the Scandinavians used, is there a system for creating new formations in the game?

• With the 2H axemen units specifically the animations are so slow that the unit itself is pretty much useless. What are the limitations on animation tweaking? I've got a fair bit of experience in animating in 3DS Max, could anyone link me to what has been discovered with editting animation so far? I would really like to see the 2h units become more of a powerful unit on the battlefield than they are now.

• With groups of units having varying faces & legs/arms/torsos etc, how does that work in the texture files? Do we create multiple texture files, or is it a matter of different layers for each unit type? Also with weapons are they on the unit texture file or on their own?

I apologise if these questions have all been asked before, but doing a few searches hasn't revealed any useable info so far.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers
Eldgrim

[KnightErrant]

Hi Eldgrim,

I can speak to point 4 at least regarding animations. There are tools
for merging an animation .cas file with a Milkshape .ms3d file. This can
then be edited in Milkshape and, as of yesterday, there's now an importer
and exporter for getting these files into 3ds Max. You'll need GrumpyOldMan's
converter to convert mesh files into the Milkshape format:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1276

Animation utilities for merging and extracting:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1469

.ms3d importer/exporter for 3ds Max:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1718

[Herkus]

* With groups of units having varying faces & legs/arms/torsos etc, how does that work in the texture files? Do we create multiple texture files, or is it a matter of different layers for each unit type? Also with weapons are they on the unit texture file or on their own?

There are two texture files for every unit (size 1024*1024) - one with unit's all body, arm, leg, face etc. maps - other one for attachments like weapons and accessories.

[CavalryCmdr]

Is it possible to create formations for armies? I would like to create the 'boar' formation that the Scandinavians used, is there a system for creating new formations in the game?

That requires modifiying the descr_formations.txt by hand. This thread contains some usefull information. Though Rome-specific alot of it still aplies. M2 is a little trickier and touchy then Rome was, but it can be done. A couple pieces of advice:
Do Not change/deleate the vanilla formations, lower thier priority only.
I'ts easiest, for me, to map a formation out on graph paper first, then translate to text.

[CavalryCmdr]

Sorry, I am curently unable to edit my posts.

It's the descr_formations_ai.txt file you need to edit if you want the AI to use the formation.

The descr_formations.txt is to edit the auto formations available to human player. You will, no doubt, wish to add your formations there as well, but I didnt want to cause confusion.

[Eldgrim]

There are two texture files for every unit (size 1024*1024) - one with unit's all body, arm, leg, face etc. maps - other one for attachments like weapons and accessories.

So when a troop of units have different hats, helmets, etc - do the multiple meshes fall into the same texture file? So with the Norman Knights for example some of the helmets are very different and have different meshes (i imagine) do they all share the same texture file?

(Hopefully my query makes sense...)

That requires modifiying the descr_formations.txt by hand. This thread contains some usefull information. Though Rome-specific alot of it still aplies. M2 is a little trickier and touchy then Rome was, but it can be done. A couple pieces of advice:
Do Not change/deleate the vanilla formations, lower thier priority only.
I'ts easiest, for me, to map a formation out on graph paper first, then translate to text.

Sorry, I am curently unable to edit my posts.

It's the descr_formations_ai.txt file you need to edit if you want the AI to use the formation.

The descr_formations.txt is to edit the auto formations available to human player. You will, no doubt, wish to add your formations there as well, but I didnt want to cause confusion.

Ah. Well i can't say i know exactly what you're talking about as i have yet to get into the real meat of M2... being more of an artist also makes me a bit lousy with the technical side. :P

Thanks for the help so-far guys.

[Eldgrim]

Also could someone point me in the direction of a quick breakdown into how i can access units from M2:TW and get them into 3DS Max/Milkshape? I can't find any walkthroughs on this... only on how to make M2 moddable.

Nothing that mentions where i can find which model/texture files, etc...

[KnightErrant]

If you've unpacked, the models are in data/unit_models/_units (not at home
right now but I think this is right) for the human models. The textures
are in subdirectories in each of the folders like es_mail, es_peasant_padded,
etc.

[Monkwarrior]

So when a troop of units have different hats, helmets, etc - do the multiple meshes fall into the same texture file? So with the Norman Knights for example some of the helmets are very different and have different meshes (i imagine) do they all share the same texture file?

(Hopefully my query makes sense...).

Each model has a number of heads (some of them have 8 heads), arms, legs, bodies, hands, shields, weapons and accesories (bags, helmets...).

They can be equal in shape or different, for example 2 round shields, 2 oval shields and one pavise.
The game recognize which object to pick because of some comments. In fact you can say that the game picks or not randomly an object, for example a helmet. In such case some men will carry helmet and others will have the head uncovered. And the game will pick only one element with the same "comment" about the type. For example all the heads have the comment "head" and the game will take only one of those elements.

The texture is a big file with the different elements in the same number. For example if the model has 3 bodies, in the texture file the three different bodies appear, and each mesh has a different uvw map, that is, each mesh is linked to a different part of the texture file.

All the elements are divided in two categories: figure and attachments. It is possible to assign a different texture file for each category, and in fact M2TW does in that way. All the textures for weapons and shields are in one single texture file, that is shared by several units (or even all the units of the same faction, I'm not sure).

I don't know if it is clear enough.

[Eldgrim]

Each model has a number of heads (some of them have 8 heads), arms, legs, bodies, hands, shields, weapons and accesories (bags, helmets...).

They can be equal in shape or different, for example 2 round shields, 2 oval shields and one pavise.
The game recognize which object to pick because of some comments. In fact you can say that the game picks or not randomly an object, for example a helmet. In such case some men will carry helmet and others will have the head uncovered. And the game will pick only one element with the same "comment" about the type. For example all the heads have the comment "head" and the game will take only one of those elements.

The texture is a big file with the different elements in the same number. For example if the model has 3 bodies, in the texture file the three different bodies appear, and each mesh has a different uvw map, that is, each mesh is linked to a different part of the texture file.

All the elements are divided in two categories: figure and attachments. It is possible to assign a different texture file for each category, and in fact M2TW does in that way. All the textures for weapons and shields are in one single texture file, that is shared by several units (or even all the units of the same faction, I'm not sure).

I don't know if it is clear enough.

Perfectly clear mate. Thanks! Sounds like a good system to me... i look forward to exploring it. I just managed to get the Mesh files into Milkshape... now to get those into 3ds Max and get fiddling.