New utility -Sprite generator

**Dark_MadMax** · August 06, 2006, 10:43 PM

I stumbled across several mods missing sprites or having wrong ones to rectify this problem I wrote this little utility. I generated whole set of BBW 7.0 sprites with it , so I hope it is ready for use .If you find any bugs let me know.

Sprite Generator Helper Tool for Rome Total War ver. 1.2+ .

Requirements: .Net 2.0 (can be downloaded trough windows update if not already installed)

What it gives: Your own shiny new complete set of sprites referenced in descr_model_battle.txt with a few mouse clicks !

How to use:

• Copy preferences.txt.sg into your preferences.txt – this is necessary for RTW to actually generate non blank sprites
• Launch program. Select directory where “descr_ model_battle.txt” and “export_descr_unit.txt” are located. Select units you wish script generated for .Click “write script”.
• Click “write descr_models” to generate descr_ model_battle.txt.ag. Warning – if you did not click “select all” in previous step this file will only contain sections for selected units.
• Copy sprite_script.txt (it will be in same directory as executable) into your rome directory. I also recommend deleting everything from data\sprites (assuming you generate for all units)
• Start RTW with “ rometw.exe –sprite_script –show_err”
• It will start generating sprites. This is lengthy process and complete set takes about 1-2 hours depending on your hardware . As a result you will have bunch of .tga and .spr in \data\sprites. However those need to be converted to .dds and renamed .
• Click “Rename and Batch Convert. –Select \data\sprites\ subdirectory. It will launch nvdxt converter (about 5 minutes to convert whole set) , then prefix files with AG_ - necessary as newly generated sprites do not work if have same name as default ones, then makes .dds extension .tga.dds and after that deletes all *.tga.
• Copy descr_ model_battle.txt.ag into descr_ model_battle.txt .

That’s it! – complete set of all sprites for all models. So no more performance loss due to non existing sprite or weird coloration changes due to use of non matching sprites. Whole set of compressed sprite files is around 140 mb.

Disclaimer: This program is free for use for anyone willing to do so. If this program fries your computer, destroys your sexual life , gets you fired , starts WW3 or does anything else, not described in this readme.txt, I have no liability for it whatsoever – use this program at your own risk.

**Maced0n** · August 07, 2006, 01:51 AM

Great tool.. it will save a lot of time when making a sprites
I make some sprites and when i run "Rename and Batch Convert'' the bat file rename all .spr ,byt instead to convert .tga files , they was deleted. - OR I do something wrong.....

Another thing it can't be select only one faction

**Stuie** · August 07, 2006, 06:50 AM

Wow! Just wow! You've taken what for me was one of the most boring and painful parts of making a mod and made it easy. VERY nice!

**Kaweh** · August 07, 2006, 06:55 AM

Erm... I love you? +rep.

K.K

**Dark_MadMax** · August 07, 2006, 12:52 PM

Originally Posted by Maced0n

Great tool.. it will save a lot of time when making a sprites
I make some sprites and when i run "Rename and Batch Convert'' the bat file rename all .spr ,byt instead to convert .tga files , they was deleted. - OR I do something wrong.....

Another thing it can't be select only one faction

It deletes source .tga files after conversion. Did you see nvdxt running?- it should have created .dds files (subsequently renamed to .tga.dds)

Not sure what you meant by only one faction. -Sprites are generated per model, and each model has their own faction set (e.g. for one model there can be many factions) .

**repman** · August 08, 2006, 05:36 AM

@dark_madmax
Ahh now i have found your hint about the tool
thanks a lot, will try it

repman

**makanyane** · November 28, 2006, 03:38 AM

Dark_MadMax thanks for this tool - works great for me as far as generating sprites and tga.s

I ran the rename and batch convert, it re-named the sprites, deleted the tga's but didn't give me and tga.dds files! Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Or does anyone else have any idea how else I could do the batch conversion?????

**MasterOfNone** · December 02, 2006, 04:06 PM

Yep, same here - it generates all those sprites after all that time and then promptly deletes them all in the batch deletion

Anyway around this? I could use another tool to do it I guess.

EDIT: The text file was generated wrongly too - it left out many lines altogether and did not insert the correct path.

EDIT2: Mak, use "DDS Convertor 2" to batch convert TGA to DDS - and "Lupus Rename" to batch change filenames

EDIT 3: This will be a great tool when it is polished up! Kudos to the creator!

**makanyane** · December 03, 2006, 02:32 AM

Originally Posted by MasterOfNone

Yep, same here - it generates all those sprites after all that time and then promptly deletes them all in the batch deletion

As it wasn't just me, worth repeating that one.... After waiting a few hours for computer to generate sprites make a copy of them before attempting batch conversion

In the end I tried every batch DDS convertor I could find on web on my computer - all of which crashed, so there is something funny with my system - gave up and sent files to friend who did conversion fine!

Did discover text file didn't work for me either so did it manually.

Lupas rename is wonderful:
http://www.azheavymetal.com/~lupasrename/
think I picked that up from one of your posts on .org

- highly recommended.

This tool would be great too if it was fixed slightly...

**MasterOfNone** · December 03, 2006, 10:50 AM

Yep, the tool is listed on the addition culture tutorial I believe. It is vital for culture filename change!

There's an old dds convertor around whcih would not work on my pc, there's also the latest one (which I did not try) and then the last version before the latest (I believe) which is at:

http://files.filefront.com/DDS+Conve.../fileinfo.html

This did work although you have to set it to dxt5 in options and not choose too many sprites in one go (try half the lost at a time). It tends to close down after you finish and so you need to start it up again to do the second half of the list.

**sam26051** · October 12, 2008, 05:41 AM

After following the instructions carfeully I still cant get any sprites, after about an hour and a half rome closes and the message DATABASE-TABLE error found: unrecognised record id horse required. The sprite folder stays empty. Does anyone know what I might be doing wrong?

**Halie Satanus** · October 12, 2008, 06:37 PM

This tool, if the rest of thread is anything to go by, didn't really work to well. The tried and trusted method isn't that hard though, I've use it often with few problems..

There's a tutorial for making sprites in the tutorials forum..