Unit Cards

[Kolwen]

This is a tutorial about how to create unit cards from scratch and step by step.
You will need Milkshape3D, Adobe Photoshop, Gimp and at least one hand.
Enjoy it and let me know if you had problems. By the way, my English is terrible, so I will be grateful for corrections.
Regards!

Step 1 - Open your model with MS3D. Go to the Joints tab and check the "Show Skeleton" and "Draw Vertices With Bone Colors". The second one is not necessary, but you may need to check that all the vertex have been assigned to some joint.

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Step 2 - Click on the Anim button. It is on the right-bottom corner.

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Step 3 - Go back to the Model tab and press the "Select" and then the "Joint" button. Now you should be able to select the joints in all the views excepting the 3D one. For this Unit Card we will move the arms and the neck. We won't move the legs because they won't be shown in the card. So first chose the right shoulder joint.

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Step 4 - Use the rotate tool in order to give your model a more natural pose.

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Step 5 - Repeat this for the right forearm, left shoulder and left forearm.

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Step 6 - I did the same in the left side of the body and this is the result. Now let's move the head a bit. Select the two head bones in the pic.

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Step 7 - Use the rotation tool again. You can also use the Move tool if some part of the body looks weird when rotating.

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Step 8 - Now go to the "Joints" tab and uncheck the "Show Skeleton" and "Draw Vertices with Bone colors" checkboxes. It's time to take a screenshot. I have just used the PrintScreen button in my keyboard.

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Step 9 - Open your Photoshop and paste your clipboard into the main frame. I'm sorry but mine is in Spanish. Anyways you shouldn't have problems to find out what I am doing.

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Step 10 - Now let's remove the blue background. Use your magic wand and select the background.

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Step 11 - Remove the selected background and everything excepting the model.

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Step 12 - Save the pic with PSD extension.

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Step 13 - Open the file again, but this time with Gimp instead of Photoshop.

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Step 14 - Open a vanilla M2TW unit card with Gimp.

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Step 15 - Now you should have both pics in your screen.

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Step 16 - Select and remove the content on the vanilla one.

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Step 17 - Copy and paste your pic from one window to other. Use the "Resize" tool to make your picture fit to the small area. Do not forget to click on the small chains so your image will keep the proportions. Note the small circle in the middle of the image. It will allow you to move it.

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Step 18 - When everything is ready click on "Scale".

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Step 19 - Save your pic now in the correct faction folder. It must be a ".tga" file, the name of the unit must be preceded by a sharp and the name of the faction. If the unit has the mercenary_unit attribute make sure you save it also in the "mercs" folder. Otherwise it won't be shown ingame.

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