DJ's Beginner Tutorial To Modding: Creating Your Own Unit Card

[Dee Jay]

A Modding Tutorial by Dee Jay

Getting Started

This Tutorial will tell you everything you need to know about how to make your own mod; I’ve tried to make this simple, short, resourceful and with lots of pictures for a beginner modder. Im assuming that you have already read my "Making a Simple Mod" tutorial for this one.

You will also need Gimp (I like it better than Photoshop, and only Gimp can use the format that we need) and you can click here to download it.

You will also need this, I made it to make our job alot easier. Download it here. Then extract them to the desktop.

Making a Unit Icon

Once you have downloaded all that stuff, open up, with Gimp, both the pics you downloaded from the above link.
One is just a uniform plate of a Grenzer, and the other is a template to get it the right shape.

Now, first thing we are going to do is, using the box select tool

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We’re going to select the right amount of the Grenzer uniform plate that we want, I usually select from the waste to above the hat but it’s your choice.

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Then we’re going to press Ctrl+C and then Ctrl+Shift+V. This will paste it in another window.
Now were going to have to resize it, so go to "Image" at the top, then "Scale Image"

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And change the top number to 66 (the bottom number will change itself) and click Scale.

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Once that is done, were going to press Ctrl+C and then click back on the mask, then in layers click on "Background"

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Then press Ctrl+V to paste it on the background. Now just move it around till it’s in the right spot for you. Then just click on a blank spot to make it stick there.

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After that were going to 'Save As' it to the desktop and call it "Grenzer.tga", then click "Merge Visible Layers" and then click "Save".

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Once you've done that, cross out of it, then open it back up on the desktop, now all the layers have merged together, which is what we want. Click on the colour select tool and change the threshold to 1.

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Now click on the black frame on the outside of your unit card (it should have a jaggered outline now)

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Pick the eraser tool, make it as big as it can, and erase all of the black frame.

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Then with the box select tool, click on a blank space just to deselect the frame outline. Now pick the blur/sharpen tool change the “Scale” to 0.3 and the “Rate” to 80

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Then zoom into 400% and trace around the edges of the unit card and to make it smoother.

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It’s all done, so save it. Now you will have to extract the original Grenzer unit icon to the folder you made on your desktop called "Mod" (the same one from my "Making a Simple Mod" tutorial). You can find the original Grenzer unit icon in the data.pack, open the data.pack with the PFM and follow this: data.pack > UI > units > icons; and find the one called "austria_inf_light_austrian_grenzers_icon.tga".

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Extract it to the "Mod" folder on your desktop, then rename the unit icon you made to the exact same as the one you just extracted and copy yours over that one.

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Then create a new mod, add your folder into it and then save it.
Make sure that you have a user.script for this.
All Done!

Hope you liked this tutorial and learnt some good stuff, Cheers DJ

[md1453]

This is great! One of the key steps to make them very nice is to "sharpen" a bit at the end just before saving. I usually sharpen from 19-25 or so; if you overdo it they look too bright!

[Dee Jay]

Yeah, some pictures dont need to be sharpened though because they are already a bit bright.

I'll put that down at the bottom for people to optionaly use

[md1453]

I often find when I resize in GIMP the image gets blurred, hence the sharpen. I dislike this blurriness so I correct it! Some may like this fuzziness though. . .

[Dee Jay]

Is there anything else anyone wants me to add to this tutorial? And what other tutorials do you all what to see?

[EmperorBatman999]

A little explanation on how to find some of the Gimp tools would be nice.

[Dee Jay]

I do have that, it shows you were they all are in the pictures...

[Dee Jay]

This is everyone's last chance to request a tutorial, just post something that you want a tutorial for here and I will try make one.

Cheers DJ

[Aomari]

Hi Dee Jay, i have read all yours modding tutorials and is very good.
Could you add how to make a unit info card into this tutorial with mod tools, please ?

[ordoprinceps]

DJ,
I want to try your tutorial, but megaupload is locked up by the FBI so is there a way you can make whatever your second bit is available please? I already downloaded gimp.