Editing unit textures

**Welshman25** · April 16, 2009, 08:49 PM

What is the best program to edit unit textures? I read PowerWizard's guide and he said to use an Nvidia plugin for photoshop. Is this the only way to edit unit textures?

I don't have photoshop and don't plan on spending hundreds of dollars on it. I could just use the free trial, but that would run out after 30 days and then I couldn't edit textures anymore...

**erasmus777** · April 16, 2009, 09:59 PM

I use GIMP and it's great. That doesn't make it the "best," but it's a very good program. It's also free, so you can't beat the price. There's a dds plugin along with one for normal mapping. It's widely used so there are a lot of tutorials and resources available online. Some people like Paint.net, but I haven't tried it. Here's the link for Gimp and the plugins:

http://www.gimp.org/
http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/~cocidius/dds/
http://registry.gimp.org/node/69

**Welshman25** · April 16, 2009, 10:33 PM

Thanks I'll give it a try.

**Tancredii** · April 17, 2009, 06:07 AM

Welshman25 can you let me know how you get on with it please. Thanks.

I got a photshop trial somewhere and just need to find the cd etc. But if the above is good will give it a try too.

**erasmus777** · April 17, 2009, 10:58 AM

I should note that there are some Gimp tutorials on TWC. They'll pop up in search or in Google.

**Demokritos** · April 17, 2009, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by erasmus777

I use GIMP and it's great. That doesn't make it the "best," but it's a very good program. It's also free, so you can't beat the price. There's a dds plugin along with one for normal mapping. It's widely used so there are a lot of tutorials and resources available online. Some people like Paint.net, but I haven't tried it. Here's the link for Gimp and the plugins:

http://www.gimp.org/
http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/~cocidius/dds/
http://registry.gimp.org/node/69

I tried to open an ETW diffuse dds file with GIMP 2.6.6 for Windows and its DDS 2.0.7 (Win32) plugin but it doesn't work (like previous editions of GIMP and its DDS plugins have done for previous TWs). Can't even preview the material. I wonder if I've missed something in the installation. What sort of (complete) GIMP setup is working for you, Erasmus?

**erasmus777** · April 17, 2009, 02:27 PM

Originally Posted by Demokritos

I tried to open an ETW diffuse dds file with GIMP 2.6.6 for Windows and its DDS 2.0.7 (Win32) plugin but it doesn't work (like previous editions of GIMP and its DDS plugins have done for previous TWs). Can't even preview the material. I wonder if I've missed something in the installation. What sort of (complete) GIMP setup is working for you, Erasmus?

I've got 2.6.6 with the 2.0.7 DDS plugin on an XP platform. I also run the normal map plugin along with one other. The only problem I had initially was that I had to open DDS files from within GIMP because Windows didn't associate the files with the application. Once I manually created the association, they open right up.

I'll attach the plugin I downloaded. Maybe it's been updated since you last tried it.

**Welshman25** · April 17, 2009, 05:05 PM

Anyone know how to add kilts to a custom unit? I download gimp and all plugins work but I have no idea how to change the texture to a kilt. Also if anyone has a link to a basic tutorial to texture editing in gimp that would be really helpful I can't seem to find one on how to edit textures like the ones in empire. I just end up with normal image editing stuff...

**erasmus777** · April 17, 2009, 06:31 PM

Originally Posted by Welshman25

Anyone know how to add kilts to a custom unit? I download gimp and all plugins work but I have no idea how to change the texture to a kilt. Also if anyone has a link to a basic tutorial to texture editing in gimp that would be really helpful I can't seem to find one on how to edit textures like the ones in empire. I just end up with normal image editing stuff...

You'll need to use one of the kilted Scottish units as your model. Then redo the corresponding textures. Normal image editing stuff will serve you well in that regard. What kind of tools were you looking for?

Here's a tutorial that refers to Oblivion, but there's tons of really helpful stuff in it. There are lots more like it out there. It touches on normal mapping too, though there are some tricks specific to the ones in ETW. Better wait until you get to that point though.

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Better_Retextures_:_Detailed_Guide_For_NifSkope_and_the_GIMP

**Tancredii** · April 17, 2009, 06:32 PM

The kilted model is there already - in the unit_stats_land_tables - use euro_highlander_regular under model name. That should do the trick.

**Demokritos** · April 17, 2009, 06:48 PM

Originally Posted by erasmus777

I've got 2.6.6 with the 2.0.7 DDS plugin on an XP platform. I also run the normal map plugin along with one other. The only problem I had initially was that I had to open DDS files from within GIMP because Windows didn't associate the files with the application. Once I manually created the association, they open right up.

I'll attach the plugin I downloaded. Maybe it's been updated since you last tried it.

Thanks for your advice, Erasmus, but it doesn't work for me. What sort of normal map plugin are you using? Your GIMP is the 2.6.6 i686 for Win32 variant, right? No other software is needed for it to work (in contrast to previous editions, where some GTK+ program was necessary)? And by opening up the DDS files "from within" you mean opening up GIMP and then open up the file in question from here, right? All I get is error messages from the plugin failing to open up those DDS files. Quite useless.

**harshman_chris** · April 17, 2009, 09:15 PM

paint.Net is a great choice, it can do tga and dds stock no conversions and it has a faily nice UI, easy switching between images to.

**erasmus777** · April 17, 2009, 09:44 PM

Originally Posted by Demokritos

Thanks for your advice, Erasmus, but it doesn't work for me. What sort of normal map plugin are you using? Your GIMP is the 2.6.6 i686 for Win32 variant, right? No other software is needed for it to work (in contrast to previous editions, where some GTK+ program was necessary)? And by opening up the DDS files "from within" you mean opening up GIMP and then open up the file in question from here, right? All I get is error messages from the plugin failing to open up those DDS files. Quite useless.

Yep, that's it exactly. Have you tried reinstalling everything? This is the Normal Map plugin I use: http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/~cocidius/normalmap/.

**Demokritos** · April 18, 2009, 06:03 AM

Originally Posted by erasmus777

Yep, that's it exactly. Have you tried reinstalling everything? This is the Normal Map plugin I use: http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/~cocidius/normalmap/.

Yes, I've tried to reinstall everything, 3-4 times now (with Antivirus off last time, since it's been known to conflict with some installations). It seems I got exaxtly the same GIMP setup as you, Erasmus, and still I can't open those damn dds files. Tested on RTW files, too, and, while some tga.dds files in the banners folder and Data/textures folder here worked fine, the (PAK extracted) tga.dds files in the DATA/MODELS_UNIT/TEXTURES folder did not (in contrast to previous GIMP versions I've used - but I don't have the DDS plugins for them anymore). Like it's all jinxed, I'm not supposed to get into the modding business...

Originally Posted by harshman_chris

paint.Net is a great choice, it can do tga and dds stock no conversions and it has a faily nice UI, easy switching between images to.

Thanks for the tip, Chris, I was aware of that option. Paintnet seems my only alternative here. But its critical selection tools (i.e. "Magic Wand") appear too crude (they don't work with the same precision as Photoshop CS3 anyway) and the stupid bluish highlight on the selected item(s) forces you to make tonal changes for colour blindly, and wait for the result until you've deselected the work (not like the simple and effective What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get solution of Photoshop). It's taxing on my patience. But I'll see if I can find some plugins that improves the working conditions here. Still, GIMP would probably work far better...

PS. Erasmus, there's nothing more to "manually associating the files with the application" than just select "Open" from the menu inside GIMP, browse to the files in question, and then click "Open" here, is it?

**erasmus777** · April 18, 2009, 08:22 AM

Originally Posted by Demokritos

PS. Erasmus, there's nothing more to "manually associating the files with the application" than just select "Open" from the menu inside GIMP, browse to the files in question, and then click "Open" here, is it?

Very strange that Gimp has given you such a hard time. Sounds

I was referring to the process by which you correct the problem of Windows not knowing which program to use to open a file type. Sounds like you know computers pretty well, so I'm sure you would have thought of this yourself. Anyway, when you get the window asking which program you'd like to use to open an unknown .extension, you browse, choose Gimp and permanently associate the file type with the program. But that's pretty basic stuff and I'm sure you've done that long ago.

**Demokritos** · April 18, 2009, 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by erasmus777

Very strange that Gimp has given you such a hard time. Sounds

I was referring to the process by which you correct the problem of Windows not knowing which program to use to open a file type. Sounds like you know computers pretty well, so I'm sure you would have thought of this yourself. Anyway, when you get the window asking which program you'd like to use to open an unknown .extension, you browse, choose Gimp and permanently associate the file type with the program. But that's pretty basic stuff and I'm sure you've done that long ago.

I knew about this procedure, but had forgotten that it might make a difference. So I went ahead and found out that it...didn't. It's so funny, I can even see these dds files as miniatures in the Windows Explorer, but in GIMP...naah, nothing of the kind. Yeah, I've been swearing a lot at PCs and the multitude of invisible incompatible software lately. Don't get much of these kind of problems on Macs. I guess I'll have to wait with the unit modding until a new GIMP comes out along with a new set of DDS plugins...

I appreciate your helpfulness, Erasmus. I'd rep you if you hadn't been the last person I commended in this way (for your Equipment Tweak Mod), so gotta "spread" my repping a bit first

BTW, I've got Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installed. I wonder if my GIMP is geared for this environment...

**33orion77** · April 18, 2009, 10:56 PM

When I first started to mod texture I was using dds converter 2.1 to tranforms dds in jpg, edited with gimp and converted back in dds but I had no means to edit the alpha channel and some time I had funny results...

Now I use dxtbmp and use gimp as editor. Using dxtbmp solved many texture problems and both are free!

dxtbmp:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multime...s/DXTBmp.shtml

**Demokritos** · April 19, 2009, 07:41 AM

Just discovered the strangest thing. I have my own PC computer divided into an administrator account and a guest account for Internet security reasons (the former account is password-protected, so as long as I work inside the latter account, any potential hacker out there who manages to break through my firewall would also need to break my password before getting to my system files etc). However, some games can't be played inside the guest account, and I set up my Steam account inside the administrator account. Here, I can normally do anything possible on a computer. But not open up a simple DDS file with the latest edition of GIMP. So imagine my surprise when I found out that I could open those damn files in GIMP when logged in on the guest account!! Problem solved - somehow - how about that?

Orion, will check out your tip - thanks for sharing!