Vanilla faction symbols: How to make one yourself

[Glowbal]

Hi there!
There wasn't a tutorial on how do make your own vanilla style faction symbols, so I decided to make one myself.

To make a new faction symbol in the same style as the original game has, is a very simple process, and only requiers some basic skill and knowledge with GIMP or photoshop. You can make one in a few minutes, but to get a nice result, it will take a bit longer.

So, before you read on, I will show you a few final results of the symbols I made, so you can see how your symbol will look after using this tutorial.

Faction symbol of VoC/Dutch, for Siam Total War mod.


Faction symbol of France, also for Siam Total War mod.


Faction symbol of Illian, The Wheel of Time Total War mod.


Faction Symbol of Mayene, also WoT Total War.

You will notice 2 differend sizes here. The first size, is for the campaign map. The second one has the size from symbol_48. It is always a good idea to use the larger size, since making a symbol smaller is no problem, but making it bigger will make it blury.

What do you need:
- Photoshop or GIMP
- A symbol or flag of the faction

___

Part 1; Clean symbol
The first part is making a clean symbol. This will be the basic for every faction symbol you will be making using this tutorial.


Ok, to make a new symbol, from scratch. First we take an existing one, this can be a vanilla one, or perhaps this one. It really doesn't matter.


Now we select the inside of the shield. Use the tool I have selected, called free select tool. Not every single pixel on the side has to be selected, but make sure you do not select the edge of the shield.


I still had no green symbol, so I decided to make one. Fill the whole shield up with the colour you wish to use.


Now, we are going to add shine and shadows on it. Darker colours on the left, lighter on the right. For the right cornor on top, pick one close to the white, but make sure you can still see it is the colour used for the faction symbol.


Use the smudge tool to even the colours. Keep light colours right, dark left. You can use this one as an example. It will take a bit of trail to get it right.


Once you zoom out, this is the result. Now, on the previouse picture, you saw we still had some blue pixels on the sides. You can see it a tiny bit here, and it shouldn't be there.


So we zoom in again, to fix this. Select pencil, turn down the scale so you only draw 1 pixel at a time. Also, Opacity should be lowered. I suggest to set it at 50 or 60%.
Now, take the colour near the edge, for the right it is lighter as on the left. Click on each wrong coloured pixel, to make it turn green. If it doesn't work in 1 click, do another.
After this, you are done with a clean version of a faction symbol. I attache this one and a few others to this, for those who wish to use them.

___

Part 2; Lines, multipel colours and symbols

So now you know how to make a clean version, as I like to call them. This is very simple.
Now, to continue, I will show you how I made to put symbols and multipel colours on it.
First, I had to decide what flag I was going to use as an example.
I found this flag:


Now it really shows the colours I have to use, but the symbol on it, is not good enough. That's why I use this symbol:


Big enough to be used. Size doesn't matter, as long it is larger as the faction symbol itself.
I picked a clean version symbol I already had made. I had the options for blue, red, or white. I picked red. It doesn't matter which one you pick.


So we open our clean red.


I will start drawing the white on it. First, select the part you wish to have a new colour.


Now we draw it in. Remember to go from dark to light (left to right)


Once again, use the smugde tool to get the result you like. It might be possible to add a little bit light or
dark to either side, but never do to much.


Now we do the same for the blue part.


Again smudge tool.


Open up the symbol we are going to add.


Most symbols you will find do not have a transparant back ground. Therefore, we need to click on
create new image: File > New
Be sure to set the background color to transparancy.


Now copy and past the symbol to the new one, and click on the fuzzy select tool. Click on the back ground, like shown in the picture.


Now we press delete. Delete any large white spot, and if needed, do some by hand with the free select tool. This will be needed to get some symbols out on a harder background as the one I have here.
There are still some white pixels on this, but those will disappear in the next step.


Resize the symbol. It is way to large for what we need. In GIMP, click on image > scale image. Mostly, it will take a few try outs before you get a nice looking size. I decided to go for 20 pixels here. Though, there is almost no symbol that will be used in a size over 100 pixels high.


Now make a new layer, and past the symbol on it. Move it around a bit if necessery.


To finish it, we will get ourself a new layer. On this one we will be using 2 colors; black and white. I recommend you use a brush or spray tool, but not a pencil.


Play a bit with the shades with the smudge tool. Sometimes it is better to keep the shade and highlight too just the symbol it self. You can also chose to give the faction symbol as a whole more dept and variation. See it as a finishing touch.
____

I hope this helped someone. And for those who want, I attached some clean symbols you are free to use for your mod.

Resize for use as symbol_48.

- Yellow
- Red
- Blue
- Green
- Dutch flag
- VoC flag


For tutorials on other aspects of faction symbols or other styles, use these:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Alletun's Eyecandy Tutorial - by Alletun (at the end, a differend style, or for symbol_80)

How to make faction symbols ala Stephan - by Stephan A round design.

Everything you ever wanted to know about banners! - by Bwian (Second post mainly)

- Glow

[Polpolgio]

Great tutorial make, I think you deserve +rep.

[Hector Barbossa]

Very nice tutorial +Rep

[Stephan]

nice one
thx for mentioning my tutorial

[el Cid]

Very good tutorial!

[Goofy]

Yeah, indeed! This is the result of reading this thread:


!

[My 2nd one.]

PS. Nooo, 1,500 posts (I hate raising that number)!!!

[Parable Bael]

This is very nice, but where do I save it in order to use it in the game?

[IZob]

This is very nice, but where do I save it in order to use it in the game?

Well Da Goofy Glowbal (sorry I ment Glowbal ) didnt mention this as his just explaining how to make new 2d graphics. But theres more important information you should know:


1. All the faction shields (Coat of Arms shields) are within the \data\menu\symbols folder. You will need to unpack medieval II total war to find this folder, or you can find the folder within in most mods. (It deppends if the mod has its own CoA shields).

To create new CoA shields its as easy as replacing the file image or creating a new file.

Within the symbols folder you should find 3 other folders:

2. fe_buttons_24 are the small CoA shields used in the campaign scrolls, battle fields symbols.
3. fe_buttons_48 are used in the game main menu, campagin scrolls and campaign display hud.
4. fe_symbols_80 are used as the large shields on the battle display hud.

5. All files need to be saved as .tga file types.

6. Files inside the fe_buttons_24, fe_buttons_48, fe_symbols_80 folders have specific dimensions. Make sure when you create or edit files for the purpose of CoA's that they are the same width and height as the default versions (other wise your images will appear off centered).

7. Within the buttons folders (except fe_symbols_80) you will notice there is:
- symbolxx_*faction_name*
- symbolxx_*faction_name*_grey
- symbolxx_*faction_name*_roll
- symbolxx_*faction_name*_select

The "xx" represents either 24 or 48. It deppends on the file your editng in the folders.
"symbolxx_*faction_name*" is the base CoA shield symbol used all the time.
"grey" represents the file greyed out. I don't recall seeing it being used in the game but I have a theory its used when a faction is destroyed.
"roll" used used in combination with "select". "roll" is used by medieval to highlight the CoA shield. "Select" is used to surround the CoA sheild with a glow effect.

Togther the files work by flashing on and off. You will notice this if you only edit the first file.

You can be creative and think up your own roll, select and grey effects. You dont need to follow the same medieval trend (highlight and glow) as most mods do. So long as the files are named correctly (..._grey, ..._roll & ..._select) it dosnt matter whats inside the file.

[Goofy]

Da Goofy didnt mention this

It was Glowbal.

.tag

.tga

Good post, IZob.

[E.K]

Great tutorial
I have some awesome looking symbols now
+rep

[Musculus Maximus]

All templates for Banner you can download here

[Goofy]

Hi Musculus,

that's very cool. You should add a link into your sig or something.
I probably won't use it myself but, I can say, it's a very useful thing if one wants to make a mod with Vanilla-style symbols.

[TheShadow13]

program to open files?
i've heard photoshop works for the shields, but im not sure this is my first time modding and banners seemed like the simplest thing
thanks.

[Goofy]

GIMP or Photoshop.

These files are .TGA files, which Photoshop and GIMP automatically support, but M2TW includes a few .DDS files for which you need a DDS-plugin (at least for GIMP).

If you have Photoshop already, then it's just enough. If you don't, download GIMP. Type "GIMP download" (I guess 2.6.8 is the newest version, I have 2.6.7 myself) in Google. GIMP is a totally free program.

I hope I could help you.

[Chocolate]

I'm confused. I edited all of them, but in the Campaign on your faction button at the bottom right it's still the old flag. What did I do wrong?

[Ishan]

@ Chocolate
Screenshot plz.

[Chocolate]

@ Chocolate
Screenshot plz.

Here is the ss.

[Ishan]

I think u are using a mod which is modfoldered so go in this path:-
mods\your mod\data\ui\southern_european\interface
Inside it u will find a file called stratpage_02.tga here u have to replace or overlap the your new faction logo over the Sicilian one.

[Chocolate]

Thanks
+rep

[Ishan]

It worked Yeehah.