Reskinning Map Resources

[Werety]

Hi!

I reskin some resources of vanilla in my mod of americas, I reskin some of them and looks cool, but seems Im blocked in a few resources that I cant reskin.

The resources I cant reskin are the Marble and Textiles.



The files need to be .dds format



the files are in their folders



and the descr_sm_resources

type                marble
trade_value            10
item                data/models_strat/resource_marble.CAS
icon                data/ui/resources/resource_marble.tga
has_mine

I dont know what is wrong, the other resources can be reskinned easily, I miss something?

[Gigantus]

Open the CAS file in Note pad and check the tga path\file name at the bottom of it. In this case it's 'textures\resources_marble.tga' so reskinning that file and saving in TGA format (instead of TGA.DDS) should do the trick. Or do both.

But it does seem you have done so already...

The screenshot of the TGA file certainly doesn't look like anything I would expect when looking at the original. I see a distinct sub division where the original is a mess of grey.

[Nordlaender]

Does anyone know how to reskin the campaign map coal icon to make it look like copper?

I tried it and it didn't work for me using Paint.net. Maybe I did something wrong, but I don't know much about 3d objects and how to recolor them or change them.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated as I hate the coal icons. There was no coal mining during the middle ages, but there was substantial copper mining and I would like to have that instead of the ridiculous coal mines.

Thanks!

[Gigantus]

Which texture (name) did you recolor?

[Nordlaender]

data/models_strat/resource_copper.CAS

I think the problem is that I do not have a unique CAS file for copper, and no way to create one. I don't know how to change 3d images.

Is there a way to do this? I recolored the TGA file, but I cannot open the CAS file.

I notice that each of the new resources in Stainless Steel have their own unique CAS file, but I cannot find one for copper in the original vanilla files, although I did find the pips for copper.

I really want to change this weird mistake made by Creative Vision. Coal mining was not a medieval activity on the same level as copper mining -- assuming coal mining even existed at all.

[Gigantus]

You can open the CAS file with Notepad - but that would only be useful to look up the file and path name of the texture used in resource_coal.cas, at the very bottom of the file.

Which will reveal that the file used is textures\resource_coal.TGA - hence that's the file name that you will need to give your texture.
If you rename the cas file then you will also need to edit the reference for it in descr_sm_resources. But you will still need to name the texture file resource_coal.

So stick with the old cas name (resource_coal) and simply rename your edited texture to resource_coal.

[Nordlaender]

Oh cool! It finally actually showed up as the color that I wanted it to be! I can't believe it!



Now I just need to change the name of the resource. I assume that will be in one of the text files. I hope I can change it without having to link it to a file named copper. I am amazed that worked.

Thank you so much for helping me with this. You just saved me a ton of trouble!

[Gigantus]

.

One is glad to be of service

There are actually two files: text\strat and text\tooltips - you edit the TXT files and the string.bin files will update at the next start. Search for coal. Do not edit stuff inside the curly brackets!

{SMT_RESOURCE_COAL}Coal

{TMT_COAL_TOOLTIP}Coal - a mining resource
{TMT_COAL_MINE_TOOLTIP}Coal Mines increase the profit

[Nordlaender]

Yes! I found the text files and made the changes, although I may not have changed this one:

{TMT_COAL_MINE_TOOLTIP}Coal Mines increase the profit

I'll go check again on that one. I also had to change the name of the pip from copper to coal, and now it shows up correctly in the settlement trade survey. The pip for copper is actually in the UI folder in the vanilla game, but they never made a copper CAS file and chose coal instead. How weird!

Anyway, thanks again for helping me solve a big problem on my mod of Stainless Steel. I greatly appreciate it.

[Gigantus]

The above is the text you will get if a mine has been build on he resource, eg when you move the cursor over it. The reason why you found a copper pip is because the resource as such existed in RTW. As did olive oil, pottery and slaves. It's known as 'RTW leftovers'.

[Nordlaender]

Hey,

Again, thanks so much for rescuing what I believed to be a failed attempt to create copper!

Since you bring it up, I was wondering about whether resources could be imported from games like Rome Total War in addition to the Kingdoms mods. I plan to use olive oil, weapons, and pitch from the kingdoms mods, but I don't know if something from RTW would transfer the same way. Have people done that? Do you know?

I hope I can add resources and that there is no hard-code limit on them beyond say 15-20. I also suspect that "type" is linked somewhere to a file that is a list of resources in the game, and I may need to find that to add the new ones. Not sure.

It took me forever to recolor that coal... 3d... image...(?) in TGA format using Paint.net, and then it sat on my desktop for several months because it wouldn't work. It's so great that it works now.

Thanks!

[Gigantus]

Most of the CAS files work - certainly the resources as well as strat map characters.

If you import resources then I would suggest to edit their entry in descr_sm_resources to avoid confusion instead of renaming the file.

type                gold
trade_value            20
item                data/models_strat/resource_gold.CAS
icon                data/ui/resources/resource_gold.tga
has_mine

item - the cas file used
icon - the pip used

[Undead Martyr]

I am trying to replace a vanilla SM resource- specifically, chocolate- with a reskinned sulphur (salt) resource; I want to keep sulfur, but reuse its .cas file. Can I edit said file to rename it and point it toward the new texture?

[Callistonian]

Yes, the model is referenced in descr_sm_resources.txt and its texture is specified in the model itself. To change which texture a .cas file uses, you can either 'hack' the file by opening it in a text editor and changing the texture name (search ".tga"), or you can do it the proper way and convert it with IWTE/Toolbox/GOAT, open in Blender/Milkshape, edit the texture reference, and export back to .cas.