Anton's Banner, Visual and Clan-swapping Overhaul [v1.7] - Include's seven new clans (Nagao, Nanbu, Sanada, Akechi, Shiina, Red Devils, Suwa), ROTS minor clans added to custom battles, loading screens, historical battle map and more!

[Date-san]

It is in no way annoying(well,for me)I like that you inform people what you are doing,are you working on the mod,and more.That' really nice.

[Ranmaru~Mori]

Went through the topic and...Maybe I'm none too bright, but I didn't find the answer to my question. So:
Is it possible to keep the Uesugi and Date the same, but change the others? I ask because the Date are pretty important (moreso than Nanbu afaik) and I just prefer "Uesugi" to "Nagao", personally.

[Akaie]

It is in no way annoying(well,for me)I like that you inform people what you are doing,are you working on the mod,and more.That' really nice.

Sweet!

Went through the topic and...Maybe I'm none too bright, but I didn't find the answer to my question. So:
Is it possible to keep the Uesugi and Date the same, but change the others? I ask because the Date are pretty important (moreso than Nanbu afaik) and I just prefer "Uesugi" to "Nagao", personally.

With a bit of editing it is certainly possible. The problem is that I don't really have the time to make custom versions of this mod for everyone. I will, however, encourage people to look at what files are changed in PFM and trying making those customizations yourselves .

[Ranmaru~Mori]

With a bit of editing it is certainly possible. The problem is that I don't really have the time to make custom versions of this mod for everyone. I will, however, encourage people to look at what files are changed in PFM and trying making those customizations yourselves .

Of course, of course. As long as it's possible to change myself, great, I'd just have to figure out how to do it.

Also, as per suggestions for loading screens...

What about a dragon? They feature heavily in Japanese mythology and architecture, the horses in the game do have dragon-themed armor, and many Japanese warlords and generals had dragon themed names- for example, Uesugi Kenshin was known as the Dragon of Echigo, Date Masamune was known as the One-Eyed Dragon, and there was even a clan called the Ryuzoji (龍造寺), with the "Ryu" (龍) meaning dragon.

Picture, sized up and cropped to your specifications, still looks great:
http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/3253/dragonsh.png

Source of art:
http://publicdomainclip-art.blogspot...hool-19th.html

[Akaie]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Genpei_kassen.jpg - The Gempei war.http://architectureofauthority.files...iji-castle.jpg - Himeji castle.Now I don't know if these sizes are nice,but I like them really much.Nice idea,about the loading screens.How is V 2.0?Oh yeah-source wikipedia and the internet.

The Gempei depiction is awesome! With Himeji castle, very nice image. Do you have a woodblock version? I did find a few myself, but they bore a pretty low resolution. Maybe I'll look at editing a high-res image of the castle to make it look a bit like a woodblock print.

I really should have known you would help . Also, I think it's pretty cool you sourced "the internet" . I'll express my thanks in the form of a +rep. I think that's twice now .

Ah! Almost forgot! V2 is somewhat slow in its progression. One of the major things I will be doing in the next few days is making some dirty-looking banners. I might look at how material degrades over time when it is subject to general weather conditions as well as stuff like dirt and mud. I'll upload an example once I make some head-way there.

Of course, of course. As long as it's possible to change myself, great, I'd just have to figure out how to do it.

Also, as per suggestions for loading screens...

What about a dragon? They feature heavily in Japanese mythology and architecture, the horses in the game do have dragon-themed armor, and many Japanese warlords and generals had dragon themed names- for example, Uesugi Kenshin was known as the Dragon of Echigo, Date Masamune was known as the One-Eyed Dragon, and there was even a clan called the Ryuzoji (龍造寺), with the "Ryu" (龍) meaning dragon.

Picture, sized up and cropped to your specifications, still looks great:
http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/3253/dragonsh.png

Source of art:
http://publicdomainclip-art.blogspot...hool-19th.html

This is a great idea. If the image you link from imageshack is yours, do you mind if I use it? I won't have to worry about the original creation as that image is now in the public domain, but credit where credit is due for the find .



Now to the de clan-swapping! I'll push you in the right direction by referring to specific files/folders.

-The "factions" table. The 15th column (entitled "Flag") refers to the crests folder. The file path is shown; most crests are found in "data.pack".
-The "faction_banners" table. Cross-check with the latest vanilla table and re-place RGB values. Also, the 9th column refers to sashimono crest folders. The file path for these is "models2.pack > mons".
-The file path "rigidmodels > flags > textures" leads you to the larger banners. You may need to edit the .dds files, which is a whole other topic that I plan to make a tutorial for, but you can change the reference to the banners in "banners.tai". Just use a text editor; I use wordpad.
-I have made a fair few text-based changes covering but not limited to the Date and Uesugi. To revert them, you should be able to delete "startpos_jap_shogun.loc" and "units.loc", but there more changes than just those for the Uesugi and Date in "factions.loc" and "names.loc", so flick through them and revert any changes.

I'm not sure if I have everything, but just look around the .pack file in PFM and you should be able to understand what changes I have been making .

[Akaie]

Yet again I would not mind some community participation here .

Earlier today I committed a few minutes to the mod. What precipitated this was me noticing the "loading_screens" table. The contents led me to believe more than four standard loading screens and more than one naval and one land screen could be used in the game. Upon testing, I was right.

Parts of the game suffer from a lack of variety, and loading screens is one of those parts. Now, don't get me wrong, the artwork CA made and the six images I have added to this mod look absolutely great, but still, having them show up numerous times in a one hour session with that multiplied by how many hours you play, even a mod that is meant to introduce diversity starts to get boring.

So, with my noticing that db table, I intend to add lots of new loading screens to my mod. Some of us may eventually get bored with them, but considering there will be a whole lot more loading screens, it will take much longer to get to that boredom. Wooo.

I have three images locked down for new loading screens directly meant for this mod. They depict:
-An alternate section of the Siege of Osaka Castle screens.
-A Namban Ship
-Yamamoto Kansuke fighting with his wife... I mean a giant boar (no metaphor intended).

I am also going to put together a mod for the 'Fugaku Sanjurokkei' set. All that stuff is in the public domain now, so no worries there. I will also make it with this mod in mind, meaning they will be compatible. It won't take long, just re-sizing and cropping to the appropriate size and all that semantics, so expect it to pop up in a few days. I'll start work on that tomorrow.

Back to the original point. I wouldn't mind suggestions for images you'd like to see as loading screens. Do note that I'm going to be pretty picky. While I can justify 1600x900pxl's, anything less is just letting things get out of hand. After all, I intend this to be of solid quality. But... if you can reference an image (I'd like to know where you found it so as to make sure it is in the public domain) that you think would be good in the mod, then that will be awesome!

[Date-san]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Genpei_kassen.jpg - The Gempei war.http://architectureofauthority.files...iji-castle.jpg - Himeji castle.Now I don't know if these sizes are nice,but I like them really much.Nice idea,about the loading screens.How is V 2.0?Oh yeah-source wikipedia and the internet.

[Date-san]

Thank you for the +rep.I am awlays ready to help you,if you need.I just wanted to ask you-are the RoTS loading screens different from Shogun 2(you place some loading sceens only for Shogun,others for RoTS)?About Himeji castle-I chose it because I really liked it and remembered about your Takeda Shingen vs Uesugi Kenshin picture http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XGZQqr5NuI....Japan+267.JPG source - Tour of Japan and China picture.http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XGZQqr5NuI....Japan+069.JPG - Matsumoto Castle in Nagano province-same source.http://odorunara.files.wordpress.com...2/img_6052.jpg http://odorunara.files.wordpress.com...2/img_6067.jpg - Graves of Takeda Shingen,Oda Nobunaga and Uesugi Kenshin in the Koyasan(I think)monastery.About the woodblocks-it is really hard to find woodblock art with high quality.http://ajl6.files.wordpress.com/2008..._province1.jpg - Kai province.Sorry if some of the pictures are not what you need.

[Akaie]

Thank you for the +rep.I am awlays ready to help you,if you need.I just wanted to ask you-are the RoTS loading screens different from Shogun 2(you place some loading sceens only for Shogun,others for RoTS)?About Himeji castle-I chose it because I really liked it and remembered about your Takeda Shingen vs Uesugi Kenshin picture http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XGZQqr5NuI....Japan+267.JPG source - Tour of Japan and China picture.http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XGZQqr5NuI....Japan+069.JPG - Matsumoto Castle in Nagano province-same source.http://odorunara.files.wordpress.com...2/img_6052.jpg http://odorunara.files.wordpress.com...2/img_6067.jpg - Graves of Takeda Shingen,Oda Nobunaga and Uesugi Kenshin in the Koyasan(I think)monastery.About the woodblocks-it is really hard to find woodblock art with high quality.http://ajl6.files.wordpress.com/2008..._province1.jpg - Kai province.Sorry if some of the pictures are not what you need.

Thanks for the help. If you ever think of something that you believe would work well with my mod or something that should be modded then let me know, mate .

There are no new loading screens for Rise of the Samurai.

Castles are a great focus point for loading screens, a notion I'm sure you'll agree with. Regarding that woodblock print from the fugaku sanjūrokkei set, I just uploaded a loading screen mod that has that in it (as well as the rest from the set).

These images are great. With photographs taken in the past few years I have to be careful that they are declared to be in the public domain. I'll be sure to dig into those images you've linked and hopefully add them (or a similar image) to the upcoming v2.0 of this overhaul mod . Be sure to let me know if you think of something else.

@everyone: the loading screen mod I mentioned before works with this overhaul mod.

----------

A follow-up. It doesn't seem too easy to create a woodblock effect. I did, however, have a go at editing the Shingen vs Kenshin loading screen image. I pumped a fair bit of yellow into the image so it would fit better with worn woodblock prints and applied an effect that made it look less like a photograph. Here is a small version to exemplify:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It would be horribly time consuming to make something more relative to japanese art, but it doesn't look all that bad .

[Date-san]

No problem-just tell me what to search for-castles,wood blocks(great new mod BTW),or other.Size too-are those in my other post ok(size wise)?I think you won't have problems with those pictures-they are all from Google,wikipedia,publicly displayed photographs(tours,historical texts...) and something like that.And that Shingen vs Kenshin picture is so cool-and you made that incredible colour by yourself.Oh my...

[Erwin Rommel]

To Anton93 for new loading screens.

place this "site:www.fujiarts.com" at the google image search and maybe like this

"site:www.fujiarts.com taira"

And come back with awesome screens like this....

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If that is too small. then they can always be cut dow to size for event pictures or even replace the beloved KOEI character image mods out there to at least have consistency.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Akaie]

No problem-just tell me what to search for-castles,wood blocks(great new mod BTW),or other.Size too-are those in my other post ok(size wise)?I think you won't have problems with those pictures-they are all from Google,wikipedia,publicly displayed photographs(tours,historical texts...) and something like that.And that Shingen vs Kenshin picture is so cool-and you made that incredible colour by yourself.Oh my...

Well Ranmaru~Mori put forth a great focus point: dragons. I'd have to say I'm really wanting to have more woodblock prints or those big screens (similar to the battles of sekigahara and osaka screens for which I already have loading screens).

It would be handy if you could not only reference the image but the link to a specific place on a website you saw it. That'll help me to determine whether I can use it. Woodblock prints are good in this manner as a huge amount of them are now in the public domain.

Regarding the Shingen vs. Kenshin image, it turned out pretty good. The effect managed to fashion interpretive falling leaves from the sky's light. Cool, eh?

To Anton93 for new loading screens.

place this "site:www.fujiarts.com" at the google image search and maybe like this

"site:www.fujiarts.com taira"

And come back with awesome screens like this....

Awesome site. I could use that first image for a custom "Marriage Annulled" event .

[Erwin Rommel]

Careful on what you search though, placing the name of an artist can surely bring out his works, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut.

Theres a good chance he does porn as well.

Like Kuniyoshi. Metsuke on Geisha scenes. But hey. You can just cut to their faces and replace the ugly wife pictures on Shogun 2



Would this make an awesome Coming of Age pic event.

[Date-san]

Well,I will tell you now.All of the pictures are from google.http://www.google.com/search?hl=bg&b...og&sa=N&tab=wi
I will continue searching.

[Akaie]

Would this make an awesome Coming of Age pic event.

Bahahaha.

Well,I will tell you now.All of the pictures are from google.http://www.google.com/search?hl=bg&b...og&sa=N&tab=wi
I will continue searching.

I was referring to the specific page of a site that shows the image. For example, using your link, the second image I see is a woodblock print of a tree. The image is shown on this site: http://www.ukiyoe-gallery.com/doubleseal.htm

The URL I just posted was of the specific page of a site that shows the particular image. From there, I get details of the image so I can get more information about it. You can get a specific URL by clicking on whatever image you like from google and hitting that 'x' button to the top-right of the image. That will take you to the specific site that has the image.

This would help me as I can't add an image to the mod until I know:
-the creator is very well dead and any possible copyright is null and void, or,
-the image is in the public domain.

This would be much appreciated, mate .

[Akaie]

One of the new loading screens will depict a namban ship. The image I am using looks to be remastered, a part of which applies horrible contrast levels. With that little tweak and some cropping to provide a focus on the ship and to make sure the image had the appropriate resolution, I got this (the following image is smaller and more compressed than the one that will be used in the mod):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This provides enough clarity to see the ship in detail, but not too bright that it draws away from the mysterious nature that is these weird-looking foreigners.

I have also noticed I am leaning towards Edo-period works. I will look into getting some high quality imagery from the Heian, late Muromachi, and Azuchi-Momoyama periods.

Regarding banners: I quite like the banner backgrounds. I am going to make use of them, even though their quality will be somewhat low. The key part of the banners are the crests. Some crests, like that of the Date-shi, have huge amounts of detail. If you look on the campaign banner, the detail of the Date crest is horrible. So, the main part of my huge banner revolution will still be higher quality crests. The other part will make use of the light-grey banner background. I will do something similar to what I did with the Kiso banner: use a green crest, and tinge the banner background with green. The result is a very light-green banner background. So, using the Ito-shi as an example, they will have a high quality crest with a more light-purple banner background. Screenshots will help to exemplify exactly what I mean by this, so be sure to frequent the thread for updates. I will do this sort of thing for the Rise of the Samurai campaign eventually, but for v2.0 I will just deal with the major clans.

Also, regarding support for the Rise of the Samurai! Regarding the bug a few people noted above, I will release v2.0 with a few more pack files. One of those will contain an official fix for those of you with lower resolutions (I am referring here to the bug people mentioned some time ago where unlocking all clans in custom battles spanning both Sengoku and Gempei clans would disable them from choosing a clan). Basically, there will a pack file you can use that unlocks the ROTS clans in custom battles. If you use a lower resolution, simply don't use it.

Furthermore, I'm not sure if adding Rise of the Samurai content to the main mod pack will cause some issues, so I'm isolating that content into a pack file too.

So, with the added complexity of the mod, it is very important that, upon release, you read my description of what each pack file does. This way, you won't need to make a post detailing a problem, the fix for which is already available . But of course, there may very well be problems, so if you read everything in my original post and still haven't fixed your problem, do make a post. Just make sure you've read everything you can first .

I'm not in a rush to release v2.0, as I'd rather make it as expansive as possible. I'm thinking I'll release it at the end of the month. That will give me plenty of time to throw in lots of neat stuff.

----------------------

An Addendum
I committed some time to looking through Turnbull's Samurai Heraldry book after noticing a crest that Hattori Hanzo used. This struck me as a bit odd, as the crest that CA used does not seem to be the most applicable if you were to elevate the Hattori to daimyo status. So, after looking at the Hattori-specific units in the game files, it hit me: despite the fact that their ahistorical presence in Shogun 2, they are hardly unique! Here, I am creating an initiative. I will create a sub-mod for ABVOM that twists and turns the Hattori into a unique clan. I'll go with the whole 'ninja' theme, but I figured I shouldn't be limited here.

Part of the sub-mod will include:
-Tweaking the pre-existing Hattori units.
-Adding new warrior monk units with the name "Wandering <unit name>". I will hammer out the finer details soon.
-a greater presence of ronin units in your campaign.
-Adding unit caps to ashigaru and samurai. This is somewhat ahistorical of me, but I intend to curb unit recruitment away from the common ashigaru/samurai combinations and towards a more unique sohei/ronin combo with a hint of ashigaru/samurai.
-Tweaking the game files so the player feels more inclined to use ninja agents, and less inclined to use others. Again, finer details to come.

There are many other things I could do. As I noted before, it will be a completely optional sub-mod. The new Hattori banner will be implemented regardless of whether you use the sub-mod or not. The basis for this faction specific sub-mod could easily be applied to other clans. If this sub-mod works the way I am envisioning it now, this will be another element of the ever-growing mod that is ABVOM!

Some of you may know my Red Devils unit pack mod. It is really only one unit (and another joke-esque unit). Most of my modding time has been applied to other mods, so progress over there looks pretty snail-like. My point in mentioning it is that I will look to make that compatible with the Red Devils custom clan I made for ABVOM.

[Akaie]

Two-part update. V2.0 is starting to come together very nicely.

First thing: I have put together the very simple version of the Hattori sub-mod. The units do not have unique stats yet, but they are fully functional units and should already provide diversity to a Hattori campaign. It is attached below in the "ABVOM_Hattori_units.rar" file.

Second thing: I have put together an isolated events pack file. It only has ~10 event images so far, which will most likely be expanded upon for v2.0, but I'm providing this beta for the sake of a sneak peek. The events pack file is in "ABVOM_Events_1.rar" attached below.

Input and ideas for the unit pack will be much obliged .

[yoshisuke]

here are a few pics.

Taira-no-Kyomori

Attachment 185279

Takeda Nobushige

Attachment 185280

Uesugi Kenshin at Kawanakajima

Attachment 185281

Samurai of the meiji restoration war

Attachment 185282

Beautiful armor

Attachment 185283

Tokugawa Ieyasu

Attachment 185284

Kenshin's armor

Attachment 185286

Armor

Attachment 185285

And a samurai

Attachment 185287

[Akaie]

Taira-no-Kyomori

Attachment 185279

This one is great. Its resolution is well within my standards and since it has the landscape page orientation it will sit very well with the mod.

The other images are great, but the portrait page orientation is far less relative to the resolution of monitors (even those close to a 4:3 resolution). Even so, I can make some sort of background and have those portrait images over the top. I'll test that out and see if it looks good .

[Akaie]

Two new instances of Hattori Hanzo's crest (I don't think he's the actual Hattori daimyo, though):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I will create new custom buttons for not only the Hattori but also for the clans I have already done. The work that went into them could be of a higher standard of quality.