Davide's Tutorial: how to edit/change building models skins

[DAVIDE]

i m davide.cool, modder of RTW Casus Belli. i chose to create a tutorial with part of my immense knowledge in modding, as a gift for the community.. so mods could be more beautiful and realistics

here i will teach u how to change the skins of the buildings viewable in battle map...

tools/softwares needed: 3ds max, Photoshop CS2/3, vercingetorix scripts for 3dmax, packs unpacker and packer

Step 1: extract xpak files inside ..data/packs - then double click on xpak.bat to launch the unpackin procress.. after that operation is done, a brandnew data folder will be automatically created in ..data/packs/data

Step 2: editing the skins of the roman house - u dont know yet, what skins the roman house is using.. so u have to open 3ds max..

open 3dsmax and run vercingetorix script called : CAS_IE_b69 ........ ok now the operation is the same of loading a unit, but instead of click on "import cas", u click on "import item" as shown in pic below



then go to ..data/packs/data/items/ROMAN_TENAMENTA (it's one of the roman houses)

ok, now that u can see the loaded item on 3dsmax, u have to see what skins he is usin for the house... now press M to open the material window, then maps to see the textures... in this case, the skins attached to the item are: roman_tenament_1.tga and roman_tenament_3.tga

now open photoshop. item skins are present in ..data/packs/data/models_building/textures.. find and open the roman_tenament_1.tga

this is how the vanilla skin looks like:



and this is how it became, after my modification



Save this tga, overwriting the old one.... remember to edit and then save, even the roman_tenament_3.tga

now, you have to repack the skins in their pack.....

download this file http://rapidshare.de/files/39140421/...tures.txt.html and put it into ..data/packs

now right click on xpak file....the one i circled in pic above



create a copy of that file (u can rename it as u want)... right click on it

find the destination strings
this is how it ends: ..Data\packs\xpak.exe"
now add the string: -pf models_building_textures.txt

here's how it must be the final part:
Data\packs\xpak.exe" -pf models_building_textures.txt

now click apply and then ok....

now double-click on the icon of the file u copied, to launch the repack process... when it ends, close photoshop, close 3dsmax and run the game

the final score of the edited house, will be this:

[Worm]

Very useful, thanks

[MasterOfNone]

No need to repack them. Just rename them and put them in the counterpart folder of your modfolder and edit the dbb.txt (descr_building_battle.txt) file to accommodate these new names; here's a snippet from that file in FATW which mods these very textures:

roman_tenament_1.tga
{
hun greek_tenament_1.tga
empire_east gondor_tenament_1.tga
empire_east_rebels gondor_tenament_1.tga
slave gondor_tenament_1.tga
}

roman_tenament_3.tga
{
hun greek_tenament_3.tga
empire_east gondor_tenament_3.tga
empire_east_rebels gondor_tenament_3.tga
slave gondor_tenament_1.tga
}

Coding by Tittils & Palantir.