Hoplite Shield Pattern tutorial

[Gyrosmeister]

Hello everyone

This is a little tutorial to show you how to create a custom shield pattern for Hoplite units.

Tools required (they don't have to be exactly these, if you have a different application that does the same job then feel free to use that instead)
HxD Editor: https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/
MS Paint (optional)
GIMP
Notepad++
PFM

0. Samples
Before you start I highly recommend you to open models3_rome2.pack, go to patterns > hellenic and extract that directory (both .dds and .texture_array files are needed), we are going to use them as the basis, the vanilla shield patterns are good for messing around with because their resolution of 256x256 is already laid and we won't have to potentially mess around with the pattern

1. The Shield Pattern

Let's assume you found some really cool shield pattern on the internet, or perhaps you are a skilled artist and drew one yourself and want to get it into Rome II.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

let's assume you want to add this one.

Alternatively, open with something like GIMP the .dds file and modify it to your liking. Even if you have trouble at exporting it as a .dds you can simply export it as a .png, copy it and rename it and modify the extension to .dds. If you have found the pattern on the internet, make sure to resize it (I find paint to be much faster in that regard) to 256x256 and then add an alpha channel with GIMP on the edges.

2. The .texture_array file

We now have our shield pattern, but what next? This is where the hxd editor comes into play. Open the texture_array file with the HxD editor, it should look something like this.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The only thing you need to do here is to modify the last part to replace the "hellenic_circular_1_normal" with the name of your .dds file

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Save, and make sure that this file has the same name as the .dds file

3. The Shield Pattern on the Shield

We are now done with all the texture work, now it is time to assign it to a shield.
For that, go again to the same pack file from where you extracted the pattern related stuff and extract the hellenic_hoplon_painted_hoplite.variantmeshdefinition file (You can extract a different one, but for the sake of this demonstration I will go with that one)

Open it with Notepad ++, it should look like this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

For now delete 4 out of 5 of these <variantmesh> [...] rows, so that we only have only one row to work with. This is where the magic happens:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

replace whatever you have there with the name of your .dds file

If you want to put your shield on the larger Wrath of Sparta Hoplons replace the "hellenic_shield_hoplon_painted2.rigid_model_v2" with
"gre_hellenic_shield_hoplon_painted2.rigid_model_v2" for example

Once done, save that file and rename it (I would recommend to give the .variantmeshdefinition file the same name as the other files to avoid confusion.


4. Adding it to the pack and giving it to a unit

This is the final part. If you paid close attention you saw that the directory for our shield pattern is variantmeshes/_variantmodels/man/patterns/hellenic. This is where the .dds and the .texture_array files will go. The .variantmeshdefinition will go under man/shield

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Now find the unit you want to give that shield to

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What's next? Launch the game with the .pack file enabled and check it out

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Congratulations, you have added a custom Hoplite shield pattern into the game!

(P.S.: Needless to say that you can name the files as you want, make sure that all the references are correct)

[Jake Armitage]

nice