How to convert your custom building and add it ingame

[Mr.Jox]

Six months have passed and now we can finally have our 100% unique battlemaps for TW: ATTILA.
After Assembly Kit for ATTILA was firstly released we couldn't convert our building but thanks to Darren now CA fixed convertion bug and let us have completively new epic maps!
I started with testing how to get custom building in-game and faced seriously troubles 'coz of lack of info and examples.
I used to open .cs2 files in order to understand what's wrong and for unknown reasons I found quick solution and now I'm here to share it.

First off got to notice, you can attach multi-materials to your model(matching by ID group). Each multi-material is consisted of DirectX shaders(similar to units).

Each building is consisted of few things: Model(Undamaged and Damaged-Optional), Collision, Animation(optional), Textures etc.
I consider at this point you already have all these things completed.

Step 1. Set up our material and assign it to our building.

Create Multi/Sub-Object material (in case you need more than one texture group assigned) or single DirectX Shader. Move to DirectX parameters and add all textures like shown on pic. Add Custom Attribute "rigid_material". For buildings it's "ship_ambientmap" value. TIP: How to add rigid_material to the shader: Drag your material onto your model in viewport. Be sure you have attached all needed textures(Diffuse, Normal, Gloss, Level, Specular, Mask1, Mask2, Mask3, AO-Ambient Occlusion).

Step 2. Set up model parameters.

Be sure your model name has damage level(destruct01, destruct02 etc) and lod value(lod01, lod02, lod03 etc). Be sure your collision object has exact the same damage level(destruct01, destruct02 etc) as your model and has postfix "_collision3d". Go to modify panel and add "Attribute Holder" modifier. The most important parameters of your model are Custom Attributes. They are added to "Attribute Holder" modifier. I've found 20 parameters need to be included in Attribute Holder: 1. "metadata_versionNO" - version of metadata. Default value is "Metadata Version 1.9". 2. "rigid_TYPE" - default value "STAND_RIGID" 3. "class_TYPE" - meaning it's either visible or not. Defines collision/model. Default value for model is "DISPLAY". Default value for collision is "TECH". 4. "piece_INFO" - your model name without damage level and lod value(example, for "piece01_damaged01_lod01" - full name, "piece01" value for "piece_INFO" parameter). 5. "destruct_ID" - damage level of your model. For "piece01_damaged01_lod01" model name use "damaged01" value, for "piece01_damaged02_lod01" use "damaged02" value and so on. 6. "graphics_OPTION" - "GRAPHICS_HIGH" value for model and "NOT_GRAPHICS" for collision. 7. "class_rigidINFO" - postfix from full name.(example, for "piece01_damaged01_lod01", you should type "lod01" value; for "piece01_destruct01_collision3d" you should write "collision3d"; for "piece01b_damaged02_lod03" use "lod03" etc.) 8. "assigned_object" - type of object. By default we use "building" value. 9. "rigid_OBJECT" - no info, empty by default. 10. "metadata_rigidTYPE" - boolean. True by default(checked the checkbox). 11. "metadata_classTYPE" - boolean. True by default(checked the checkbox). 12. "metadata_pieceINFO" - boolean. True by default(checked the checkbox). 13. "metadata_idNUM" - boolean. True by default(checked the checkbox). 14. "metadata_idNUM2" - boolean. True by default(checked the checkbox). 15. "metadata_destructID" - boolean. True by default(checked the checkbox). 16. "metadata_desNUM" - boolean. True by default(checked the checkbox). 17. "metadata_graphicsOPTION" - boolean. True by default(checked the checkbox). 18. "metadata_INFO" - boolean. True by default(checked the checkbox). 19. "metadata_infoNUM" - boolean. True by default(checked the checkbox). 20. "metadata_assignedOBJECT" - boolean. True by default(checked the checkbox). I would love if someone will discover 10 undiscovered metadata values. I suppose there's just numbers or such. TIP: How to add these parameters to "Attribute Holder"? I recommend you to write the parameters only once and next time just copy "Attribute Holder" modifier as shown in the video.

Step 3. Export as .cs2 and convert to gamedata.

Once you exported all to .cs2, be sure you have correct rules.bob file in your folder together with .cs2 Example of rules.bob file [Building] TexturePath = RigidModels\Buildings\Textures\ AnimationFPS = 20 animation_type = building AudioMaterial = wood Capacity = 500 Category = generic HitPoints = 500 MultipleBuildings = true IncendiaryRadius = 9.0

Step 4. Adding custom model to your battlemap.

To add your model to TeD go to "Create" tab and select either "Building"(in case you added your working data to the game) or "Insert Rigid Model" -> Click on load and select your building in working_data. To be done...

Note: I may have missed some interesting information so if you are looking for something additional, go to Total War Attila\assembly_kit\raw_data\art\battle\land\models\architecture\eastern\eastern_new_1.cs2, open it using Notepad++. Select all(CTRL+A), copy(CTRL+C), create new document(CTRL+N) and pastle(Ctrl+V). Now you can read some strings and get some more info about buildings modding.

[Stealth4Health]

Great work! This will be very helpful!

[Mr.Jox]

Thank you. I really hope it will help for more interesting settlements.

[The Wandering Storyteller]

Cannot wait to see what you come up with!

[Gyan-Avspar]

Great,thanks.

[Leonardo]

This tutorial are no longer relevant and if you want to ask about this tutorial then go here.

Earlier I have created another similar tutorial which is obsolete and no longer relevant.