How to create a custom unit - a complete guide

[dutch musketeer]

When I have some more time (this weekend) I will try to create some more units for the United Provinces, especially some more "mercenaries" like Swiss grenadiers and Scottish line infantry and if people like them I can always upload them of course. Though first I would still like to improve the current unit by adding a unit card, text etc.

ok very nice
vet man

[Terafis]

I've tried to do this for a few hours now, making sure I fully follow the instructions - it's gotten to the point where i can create a new custom unit with new dds skins in a very short time, simply because of the times I've tried to redo it

Obviously I am doing something wrong in my process however, because the game fails to load

I am using a pack as a mod pack, the script is set up properly, every name spelling / typing is correct, dds and the script are saved properly

I noticed someone here mentioned 'you need to make sure your files are not named the same as those in the patch.pack, or it will cause them to overwrite the main files and crash the game upon loading' - which pretty much sums up what has been happening to my mods

So I tried renaming the directories by themselves (example db1, buildings_units_allowed_tables1 etc) no luck, tried renaming both the directories and files using the same process - no luck, tried renaming the files themselves - no luck

Can someone shed some light on where I am going wrong please?

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

Aw, man don't rename your game folders. I would highly recommend reupdating ETW on Steam before you have another smack at this. Make sure that you don't make all changes at once, but rather check the result in the game step after step. F.e. check if there is a new custom unit before modifying the texture. I'm not sure what you've done wrong, but usually modifying the original pack files or giving wrong descriptions in your pack file will cause CTD.

[Terafis]

So renaming the files or folders in my mod.pack is not the answer then i take it

I haven't touched anything in my patch.pack other than to export the directories for importing into my mod.pack - when i cancel the user script the game plays fine - it just won't work when i try and load any of my mods

I'll try doing it in stages like to say mate, and get the unit working before trying to apply the texture changes

[jarnomiedema]

I'm currently working on the retexturing of the Dutch officer and things are going pretty good.. I do have one question though: the officer's textures seem to have an alpha channel as well (the feather on the hat, the gold braid and lapelles on the shoulder, etc.). Unfortunately, if I save it in the regular "8.8.8. RGB 24bpp | unsigned" with mipmaps turned on, the feather, the gold braid and the other alpha channel stuff appears as a solid texture..

How should I save it to make sure that they do have transparent edges? Any ideas?

[Terafis]

Nope, same problem without having the textures included in the mod

Game crashes before the menu screen when trying to apply the mod

[Jams79]

Make sure the folder structure in your pack is the same as in the others. Make sure that any files that are not supposed to be replacing vanilla files (files not folders ) have been renamed. Check for spelling errors. And if all that fails it might be best to start again, slowly, checking as you go.

[MrThib]

So renaming the files or folders in my mod.pack is not the answer then i take it

I haven't touched anything in my patch.pack other than to export the directories for importing into my mod.pack - when i cancel the user script the game plays fine - it just won't work when i try and load any of my mods

I'll try doing it in stages like to say mate, and get the unit working before trying to apply the texture changes

Actually renaming the files is good but not the folders.
The game use them to know which informations it's loading.
There could be some trouble coming from the mod managr too, try editing the script filr by hand if necessary.

[Wolfgang von Zweibrücken]

I've got two questions, for anyone who knows, 1: Is it possible to create a new officer, in the same way as you would create a new unit? I.E., cloning "euro_officer_1" in a certain number of files, renaming it "custom_officer", then replacing "euro_officer_1" in the "euro_line_infantry" entry with "custom_officer" instead. I ask because that is exactly what I tried to do, and it didn't work(ctd when I try to play a battle); The only thing I can think is that there must be something relating to officers in "warscape_rigid_lod" and/or "warscape_rigid" that I can't get at. The only files I have found information relating to officers in are "unit_stats_land", "warscape_animated_lod", "warscape_animated" and "warscape_equipment_themes."

Question number 2 is a noob question: How do you rename files inside PFM? For instance, changing "unit_stats_land" to "my_unit_stats_land"; I tried exporting tsv, renaming the tsv, and then importing it back but that doesn't change the name...

[Jams79]

Cloning officers works fine, all you have to do is place an entry in battle_personalities. Also you can create an officer to use the model of any soldier (haven't tried anything but infantry) in the same way.

To change filenames extract the file rename in windows and then replace it back in the .pack.

[Wolfgang von Zweibrücken]

Thanks very much, both answers were extremely helpful! One more question, is it possible to put more than one officer/standard bearer/musician in a unit? Oh, and I almost forgot, how do you edit a units campaign map description (info menu when you right click the unit)?

[Jams79]

The info is kept in the localisation.loc file and at the moment the officer/bearer/musician are limited to one per unit.

[Van Diemen]

I have one question regarding textures. The textures I made seem to cause some problems in the game. There are no crashes or whatsoever, however the textures seem to react less well to shadows and in shadow like environments are much brighter than the vanilla textured units. Here is a picture to show you the problem.



Please help me, so that I can continue to improve/enrich the game.

[Sorkenlol]

Does every faction have to use their own group? Say if I want to add a unit to Bavaria, what would I put in the military_groupings file? Or do I have to create a completely new group for Bavaria?

[Hrimfar]

I need help with 1 thing. When trying to save my edited file again selecting everything as you said. PS say that I can't save because image size need to be a multiple of 4. HELP!

EDIT: problem was I had opened MIP mapping as well, I pasted everything I did over the original opened again without MIPs and it worked.

[aronnov]

In the unit_required_technology you can set prerequisite technolgies.

Aronnov - The units_to_exclusive factions does set it up so that only the single faction you put can create the unit, you can put more than one faction per unit in that file or add an entry in unit_to_groupings which adds units to groups.

very nice. so i dont have to put anything in unit_to_groupings if i put i populate a single faction in units_to_exclusive? very nice.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

So renaming the files or folders in my mod.pack is not the answer then i take it

I haven't touched anything in my patch.pack other than to export the directories for importing into my mod.pack - when i cancel the user script the game plays fine - it just won't work when i try and load any of my mods

I'll try doing it in stages like to say mate, and get the unit working before trying to apply the texture changes

Good luck.

Does every faction have to use their own group? Say if I want to add a unit to Bavaria, what would I put in the military_groupings file? Or do I have to create a completely new group for Bavaria?

You mean the units_to_groupings_military_permissions table, right?
I don't think you can create new groups, but I may be wrong, haven't tested it. As you can see in that table, only major factions have groups, and even some of them share on group like sweden and denmark, russia and poland.
I'm not sure which group does Bavaria belong to, it may be Austria or Prussia. Try Austria. I'm still having problems making my own unit recruitable in the grand campaign though, it only works in custom battles.

I'm currently working on the retexturing of the Dutch officer and things are going pretty good.. I do have one question though: the officer's textures seem to have an alpha channel as well (the feather on the hat, the gold braid and lapelles on the shoulder, etc.). Unfortunately, if I save it in the regular "8.8.8. RGB 24bpp | unsigned" with mipmaps turned on, the feather, the gold braid and the other alpha channel stuff appears as a solid texture..

How should I save it to make sure that they do have transparent edges? Any ideas?

I don't know the answer to that question, sorry, try asking the pros here.

Nope, same problem without having the textures included in the mod

Game crashes before the menu screen when trying to apply the mod

Have you reupdated your game on Steam?

I have one question regarding textures. The textures I made seem to cause some problems in the game. There are no crashes or whatsoever, however the textures seem to react less well to shadows and in shadow like environments are much brighter than the vanilla textured units. Here is a picture to show you the problem.



Please help me, so that I can continue to improve/enrich the game.

I think this has something to do with gloss files. Have you modified them?

[Van Diemen]

I think this has something to do with gloss files. Have you modified them?

Yes, I did mod them, however when I checked whether this problem occurred with vanilla gloss files the problem was still present.

jarnomiedema also tried to help me already, he also tested the texture (diffuse and gloss) and had the same problem, however once he used my textures and used them normal vanilla line infantry (in other words used my textures to re-texture a vanilla unit in game) the problem disappeared. This could thus mean that there is something wrong with the way we add custom units.

EDIT: I found the solution, I didn't include a normal texture, besides the diffuse and gloss textures, as I thought it wouldn't matter. Well it does matter! Otherwise you will end up with the same problems as I did. Now it is working fine again. Finally I can continue my work again in the next couple of days.

[aronnov]

populating localisation.loc is not required to have everything work correct?

[MrThib]

Yes, localisation is just for in game name, that works well without.