How-To Edit unit textures.

[blur!]

MANY THANKS,now i can edit the skins,you are great,thanks again+rep.

[Gigantus]

The way I understand it, is that the textures are simply a resource for the color that is then kind of randomly applied over the wound area.
Not sure if you would have any luck applying only certain shapes to the texture.
In general the larger the size of the texture, the more detail is available at close ups.

But that's what modding is all about, isn't it? Trying out something new and telling others about the results.

[Gigantus]

Compression: BC3/DXT5
Format: Default (will be grayed out after choosing that compression)

You need to work with the descr_geography.txt and then use this setting in the cfg file (at least I think so)

[misc]
rebuild_geography_db = 1

[RubiconDecision]

delete

[Gigantus]

I am not 100% sure, but afaik you simply modify the txt version and delete the db version of the descr_geography_new file. With the entry in the CFG file a new DB file should be created.
After the creation of the DB file you then remove\rename the TXT file as it is only this one that will create a battle crash - not the DB file.

To save you a long winded unpacking, simply make a copy of the unpack_all.bat file, right click it to edit and change it as follows:

unpacker.exe --source=..\..\packs\*.pack --destination=c:\packs\ --filter=*.txt

You will now find all TXT files in the C:\packs directory on your hard drive. Otherwise download my attachment, unzip it in the tools\unpacker directory and run it.

[Gigantus]

I usually advise people to extract into a different folder (like in the batch file I attached).
That way you always have a back up - simply copy the file(s) needed into your mod.

The attached batch file looks like this and will extract the main game to C\:Unpack -

unpacker.exe --source=..\..\packs\*.pack --destination=C:\Unpack --verbosity=1

[Scorpius Centaurus]

I have made my own blood and dirt textures that I use and they work fine in game, but I never changed anything in the geography.txt file. I do know the creator of crimson tide edited that file so he could create blood and sand overlays for desert battlefields.

@RubiconDecision Blood textures only go on units, not the ground. The blood overlays come in three sets. One for light blood splatter, then one for medium and then one for heavy. A fatal attack on a unit will give it a blood level three overlay, while a first hit might only give the first level blood overlay.

You have to remember that the blood and dirt, and blood and snow overlays are used in place of the normal blood overlays when the need calls for it. So for example, you can have a unit with a level two blood overlay at one moment in the battle, then the dirt overlay might kick in. So this means that whatever pattern you use for the blood overlays, with each one increasing in the amount of blood, has to match perfectly with the dirt and blood overlays. (otherwise in battle blood and dirt will appear and disappear in different places on the unit throughout a battle)

Also you can't position blood splatters in specific positions to fit all units, as most units don't have the same UV mapping layout. If they did, then it would be easy to make a blood overlay set that fits perfect for all. You have no choice but to make your blood splatters randomly.

[Scorpius Centaurus]

You would only see sand in a desert battlefield, never snow and vice versa, so the two of them shouldn't clash.

I don't think you can get rid of the dirtnblood textures, but you can hide their visual appearance with the alpha channels. But if you want to keep dirt, (but not progressive dirt) then you simply use the same overlay for all three layers, and you have to keep the dirtnblood overlays otherwise the blood layers in game will disappear and reappear throughout battles.

And yes, if you have the time and patience to remap every unit in-game with a unified approach to the layout, then you can make it so that blood does not appear on shields and have specific wounds/cuts at whatever place you like..ie.. torso. Open up and have a look at some of the unit textures, (I use photoshop with a dds plugin) and you will see the layout of them...ie.. where the head, arms and torso are. Then for comparison put the blood overlay beside it and then compare where you would need to position wounds and cuts and blood splatter.

Another thing you should know is that the blood overlays are rectangle in shape. The unit textures files are square in shape. When the blood overlays are applied onto units, they are stretched to fit over them. So to have them fit perfectly, you should change the dimensions of the blood overlays. For example, unit textures are 1024x1024. So if you make a blood overlay of that dimension, then it will fit perfectly on units. Of course being that large will cause lag, so making them 512x512 or 256x256 would be better.

If you are interested, here is a great blood mod that I based my blood overlays on... http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1078

For my personal use I made the overlays larger and gave the blood a darker richer colour. The look turned out quite well.

[Ishan]

Yes! The blood texture file dimensions should be the same as the the unit model texture size.

It's not necessary check the default blood textures of vanilla they are way smaller around 170 KB per file.

[Ishan]

Bigger the dimension of a texture bigger is the amount of graphical detail coz of the increase in number of pixels. 2.7 MB is totally ridiculous imo as it adds a lot of stress on the GPU so no need for that i have optimized my blood textures upto 600KB but anyways my rig can take the heavy ones also it's not a big deal for me.

[Gigantus]

Re unpacking:
1. Did you extract that batch file into the ...\Medieval II Total War\tools\unpacker folder?
2. Did you get an error message when running the batch file from that folder?
3. If you have an error message concerning a missing file, simply copy that file form the M2TW root folder into the unpacker folder

[T&D]

Hey people where are tutorial for making new battle banners (in gimp 2.6)???

[Ishan]

Everything you ever wanted to know about banners!
Guide for editing Army Banners
Battle Banners Template
That's all we have in workshop for banners.

[T&D]

Everything you ever wanted to know about banners!
Guide for editing Army Banners
Battle Banners Template
That's all we have in workshop for banners.

Yes i checked bwian tut already.
+rep

[Scorpius Centaurus]

I like your blood mod by the way. The speckled blood on the white tunic looks good and realistic. You used very little dotting their armor versus a bucket of blood poured over their heads.

That isn't my blood mod, that was made by Burrek. I used his mod and modified it for my own personal use.

[Gigantus]

Unzipped it to the wrong directory.Thanks Gigantus for the thousandth time. This little batch file should be the first thing a modder does so that there's a pristine copy of the MTW2 somewhere to revert to. It would have helped me more than once.

I hope it will help you still.

[Ishan]

That isn't my blood mod, that was made by Burrek. I used his mod and modified it for my own personal use.

You did take permission from burrek first to redistribute it with your modification on it didn't you?

[Scorpius Centaurus]

You did take permission from burrek first to redistribute it with your modification on it didn't you?

I haven't uploaded any mods, I just altered Burreks for my own personal use and was explaining how the blood overlays work to RubiconDecision.

[Legio XV Apollinaris]

Hi all!

i just started to re-texture the teutonic knights for ss6.4 but i got a little problem. is there any other way to create the bump textures? i mean without the nvidia ps plugin? i downloaded the nvidia photoshop plugin and installed it in the right way, but it didn't appear under the filters!

the installation from the plugin were correct and my system specs are: winxp sp3, adope photoshop cs3 extended! anyone knows a solution for this, or any other way to create the "bump" textures without the plugin?

thanx in advance!

...

[Ishan]

@Legio XV Apollinaris
You be using a 64-bit version of Photoshop the plugin works only on 32-bit type so launch that.
Otherwise use CrazyBump to make normal maps for you units.