[Modding] Tutorial: Editing Character Names

[jimkatalanos]

Author: Aradan
Original Thread: Tutorial: Editing Character Names

Tutorial: Editing Character Names

Modding Resource Header

Title: Editing Character Names
Posted by: Aradan
Modding area: Text (character names)
Required programs: Notepad (or other text editor)
Summary: An explanation of the descr_names.txt and names.txt files, which are used to modify the names of characters.

Editing Character Names for Rome: Total War:



Understanding & Coding the descr_names.txt and names.txt files

by Aradan

• Intro

Seeing as many people like to play around with their character names and that that aspect of modding can create some irritating errorless CTDs, here's a simple tutorial that covers that stuff. I tried to make it fool-proof, but some things might have escaped me, so if you have any comments, suggestions, corrections or additions, feel free to contribute.
Here goes:


Contents:

1. Necessary Files
2. Know the files
3. Add a name
4. Change a name
5. Remove a name

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1. Necessary Files:

• data/descr_names.txt
• data/text/names.txt

* The data/descr_names_lookup.txt file is no longer needed in 1.5/1.6 versions.

==================================================================================

2. Know the files

• descr_names.txt

Open descr_names.txt. An example of what you will be looking at is:

faction: romans_senate

    characters
        Amulius
        Augustus
        Aulus
        ...
        Marcellus
        Asinius

    surnames
        Acilius 
        Aelius
        Aemilius 
        ...
        Volesus
        Vulso

    women
        Metella
        Domitia
        Gratidia
        ...
        Vipsania
        Vistilia

As you can see the names are listed per faction and then each faction's names are sorted into 3 categories: male names, surnames and female names. If a name/surname exists in multiple factions then it must be listed in each faction's list.

Important notes: The entries in descr_names are the internal character names, the ones the game's engine and all text files use, not what you will be seeing on screen. So you can have no spaces, tabs or special characters in an internal name, use underscores to connect multiple-word entries.

• names.txt

Open names.txt. An example of what you will be looking at is:

{Amulius}            Amulius
{Augustus}        Augustus
{Aulus}            Aulus
{...}            ...
{Marcellus}        Marcellus
{Asinius}            Asinius

{Acilius}            Acilius
{Aelius}            Aelius
{Aemilius}        Aemilius
{...}            ...
{Volesus}            Volesus
{Vulso}            Vulso

{Metella}            Metella
{Domitia}            Domitia
{Gratidia}        Gratidia
{...}            ...
{Vipsania}        Vipsania
{Vistilia}        Vistilia

On the left side you see the internal character names inside brackets (they must of course correspond and be identical to the entries that exist in descr_names.txt) and on the right side you can see the corresponding on-screen name of each internal name. The internal name may be identical to the on-screen name or it can be totally different. For example

{Vibius}        Gerrard
{of_Rome}        of London

is a perfectly fine entry. The engine will be seeing the name as "Vibius" but what will appear on screen is the name Gerrard. Likewise, a general (let's say Julius) might have the "of_Rome" surname, but what you'll be seeing is "Julius of London".

Important notes: Even if an entry/internal name appears in multiple factions' lists in descr_names.txt, it must only appear once in names.txt. Also, there is no need to organise entries here into factions, forenames, surnames etc.

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3. Add a name/surname

If you want to add a new name to the game you have to:

• Add a new internal-name entry in descr_names.txt in the appropriate faction(s) list, like this:

faction: romans_senate
    characters
        Amulius
        Augustus
        Aulus
        ...
        Marcellus
        Asinius
        John_R

     surnames
        Acilius 
        Aelius

• Add a new line in names.txt for the new internal entry, like this:

{Amulius}            Amulius
{Augustus}        Augustus
{Aulus}            Aulus
{...}            ...
{Marcellus}        Marcellus
{Asinius}            Asinius
{John_R}            John R.
{Acilius}            Acilius
{Aelius}            Aelius

Done - now the Senate will be able to have characters named "John R." (on screen). If you add the internal name to other factions' lists in descr_names they will have that name available as well. Of course, you must only have 1 entry in names.txt, regardless of the number of entries in descr_names. Note that the name in brackets must be exactly the same as the internal name I defined and that the external name can have spaces and special characters in it.

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4. Change a name/surname

If you only want to change how a name appears on screen, then simply open names.txt and change the right side entry of a name to whatever you want, like this:

{John_R}        Jonathan Rick

Now all 'John_R' characters will now appear on screen under the name "Jonathan Rick" instead of "John R." that we had set it earlier.

==================================================================================

5. Remove a name/surname

If you want to remove a name from the game you have to:

• Remove ALL instances (ie from all factions' lists where it is available) of the name from descr_names.txt

 faction: romans_senate
     characters
         Amulius
         Augustus
         Aulus
         ...
         Marcellus
         Asinius
         John_R
         ;John_R    ; The ";" symbol makes whatever follows after it invisible to the game. You can alternatively just delete the whole line as I did right above.

      surnames
         Acilius 
         Aelius

• Remove/replace ALL references of that name in descr_strat.txt (and any other files that may contain one, like campaign_script or other scripts). If you do not, the game will CTD with no messsge.

*You don't have to remove the name's entry from names.txt

==================================================================================

Always make sure that the names you are using in various text files are properly defined in descr_names.txt and names.txt.