Models with Weapons?

[Raz]

I swear I saw a thread about this somewhere in these long forgotten, dark, evil, endless archives... but for some reason I can't find it. Maybe I thought I'd found a thread about it but in fact I hadn't.
(probably the case, but still... . .)

Anyway, in the model's text files there's a category named weapons, I fiddled with them (well, just looked at them) but I can't seem to find a link between the weapon's number and the projectilestats.txt entry. Can anybody help me?

Thanks for any info.

[macsen rufus]

You won't find a link, as there isn't one

The weapons.txt defines the coordinates of the weapons drawn on the texture BIF file (in the low-res version), and incidentally the shields.txt does the same for shield images.

If you have BIFReader, open up one of your low-res BIFs, and select the pointer tool (makes sure you don't do anything untoward by accidentally clicking anywhere ), and then point it at the image and read off the coordinates in the main box. Compare this to the weapons.txt. This will show you which weapon is which in the list, obviously numbered 1 to whatever from the top.

The format is:

x1,y1,x2,y2,w,z

where x1 is the left-hand end, y1 is the top, x2 is the right-hand end and y2 the bottom. This effectively describes the image rectangle that contains the weapon. The the unit's own file unit_name_W.txt will contain a number (or possibly two) which says which weapon from this list is to be used.

w and z define the proportioning of the weapon, so you will often see a pike and a spear both using the same image rectangle (ie a long stick with a sharp bit on the end), but the spear will have x1,y1,x2,y2,3,1, whereas the pike will read x1,y1,x2,y2,5,1 - this tells the game that the respective lengths are in a 3:5 ratio. The same process is used to define different sized axes for eg crossbowmen and militia sergeants etc. The weapon is then placed on the animation in battle according to the coordinates defined in the textures/men/items/weapon#/unit_name folder

The projectile stats just defines the properties of things flying through the air, so the projectile type is defined by name in the unit_prod "projectile type" column, and read off the list in the projectilestats.txt.

And yes there is a thread about this somewhere, but it has lost its images which illustrate it all.

EDIT: This one

[Raz]

No, I know all that!

I was talking about 3D models - towers, walls, gates, keeps, houses - those sort of models... Sorry if I didn't make myself clear in my first post.

[macsen rufus]

Ah... in that case I don't honestly know, all I know is that projectilestats includes entries for things like "arrow_from_model" which I always assumed to be those which fire out from walls and towers etc... but I've not delved there. There was a discussion about modding the models (walls etc) in the Samurai mod sub-forum, as I seem to remember a report of trees that started firing arrows during someone's experiments

[Nikodil]

Perhaps this post in the repository,
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=64335

Are you interested in modding the 3d models or just the stats?

I've taken a quick look at the 3xx format and it seems sort-of straigtforward, consisting of
- two lists of vertices (count + n * x,y,z)
- a list of triangles (count + n * 3 * references to verices + texture positions)

All numbers are 32 bits, but there's something odd about them, I'll have do some more research.

[TosaInu]

Fenir wrote a nice guide about editing MTW, there are also chapters about weapons: https://forums.totalwar.org/?q=node/45

Edit: sorry for not reading better first, that's the same content from Wellington, but put together into one document by fenir.