Hello future modders,
I’ve been modding Total War for 3 years which is a long time for someone with such a short attention span. My speciality is units and I have created over 1,000 individual units for Rome 2 and Attila in 3 major modifications and dozens of standalone unit mods. But that’s nothing special because modding isn’t actually that difficult, in fact contrary to what most people would have you believe it’s damn easy! You don’t need to have any kind of technical skills or know how things work or really be very clever at all (god knows I’m not). All you need is to have a little bit of creativity and the ability to click a mouse and press a few buttons on your keyboard. Come on man, they can train chimps to do that, are you dumber than a chimp?!
Learning how to mod can be a little daunting at first, it seems like there is so much to it. But there isn’t, it’s all in your mind man. It’s only difficult because you think it is. Remember when Yoda lifted the X-Wing out of the swamp on Dagoba in Empire Strikes Back? He’s a 1 foot tall goblin looking thing and he lifted a starfigher out of the mud after Luke couldn’t. It’s all the same with modding and if you don’t believe me then, to quote Master Yoda, “That is why you fail.”
So buckle up buttercup, strap yourself in and hold onto your butt because I’m going to learn you how to mod so hard that you’re probably going to unlearn something else, like how to drive or your name or whatever.
For this tutorial I am going to make the Altdorf Company of Honour and will guide you through the process step by step.
Read on and you’ll be churning out unit mods in no time!
What you Need
To make units you are going to need some basic programs:
Pack File Manager (PFM) – The latest Warhammer version is on Total War Centre.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...hammer-support
GIMP – This is a free photoshop type program. Not as good as photoshop but you’ll pick it up quick.
https://www.gimp.org/downloads/
If you want to retexture you will also need:
GIMP DDS plugin
http://gimp-dds-plugin.software.informer.com/2.0/
A hex editor.
http://download.cnet.com/HxD-Hex-Edi...-10891068.html
This tutorial also comes with a unit mod template which you can download from steam. It has all the basic tables in it already and is a good starting point. I’ll teach you how to fill all the parts in. Get it here!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=879515657
Table of Contents
- Pack File Manager Basics and Opening the template.
- Getting your unit into the game (small db tables).
- Complex tables (land, main, equipment tables).
- Text (name and descriptions).
- Unit Variant Editing.
- Retexturing, Hex Editing and Importing textures.
- Uniform colours and Cross-culture animations.
- Unit Cards.
- Unit Recruitment, Unit UI Bullet Points and Officers.
- Modding Tips.
- Bug List and FAQ.
Pack File Manager and pack file basics
Pack File Manager or PFM is a database editing tool and is the program that you will be using for almost every part of this process. A pack file is a file in the Warhammer data folder which contains data in the game, everything from unit stats, keys, icons variants, texts and pretty much everything else. Some pack files only contain assets such as models and textures but the one you will be using most, data, contains tables which are spreadsheets made up of rows (horizontal), columns (vertical) and entries containing numerical values and keys for various in-game things such as units and weapons. All of the different tables interact with each other and combine to make units or buildings or what have you.
When make a new pack file and change a table it will overwrite that table in data. You can delete the rows you don’t need and then rename the table so that you don’t mess with the compatibilites of other mods.
That’s pretty much all you need to know about pack files. You might think I’m simplifying it and dumbing it down for your benefit but I’m really not. That’s all there is to it.
If you feel you need the basics of modding explained in more detail then you should check out Caligula the Mad's tutorial: Getting Started - Modding for Newbies.
Opening and Resaving the template packfile
First of all you are going to have to download the template. To do that go to the steam workshop page and hit subscribe. You don’t actually download the file at this stage, instead you have to launch Warhammer, the file will then download when launcher is on screen.
To open the pack file launch PFM, press file and open. You will then need to navigate to your Warhammer data folder which follows this pathway:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Total War WARHAMMER\data
The template is named zsebidee_unit_template so it’s probably at the bottom. Select it and click open.
When you open it you will be greeted by this, these are all of the tables used in the template. You won’t have to use all of them but they are there ready for you to exert your creative genius upon them. If you click on the tables in the left field they will open and appear in the right field. You will need to rename each of the tables with your own personal tags. For Warhammer I usually name them seb_wh_nameofmod so you may as well do something similar. You can rename them now or wait until you have edited the table, the latter is easier just so you can keep track of what you have done. Just don’t use any spaces, underscores only.
Now you’ve got to rename the packfile to the name of your mod. I’m saving my Altdorf Company of Honour mod as seb_wh_altdorf_co_honour.
Now hit file and save as. Save it in your data folder so that it will work in game.