Modding tips and tricks

[Endoperez]

You don't need a ritual to get a cloud effect. The value of #effect just needs to be over nine thousand, like in Twan's "Mists of Deception" fix:

#selectspell "Mists of Deception"
#effect 9043
#damage 695
#nreff 2
#nextspell "Phantasmal Warrior"
#end


Seriously speaking, adding x*1000 to #effect value will make a cloud that lasts for x rounds.

[lch]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

The value of #effect just needs to be over nine thousand

... trying to resist the urge to comment ...

Come on, that was on purpose!

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by lch

Come on, that was on purpose!

I actually wrote it that way before I noticed the meme. But I chose to leave it in and to emphasize it.



Here are some modding-related tricks:


Sprites. Download an AllView map, download the sprite compilations, try out the different nations. When you have an idea about what you want, go through the game and try to find a sprite that has something you want.

Let's say you want a forest ranger. Tir Na Nog and Tuatha have green-garbed infantry sprites (some of them are units, some commanders) who start all battles with glamour. As long as your rangers don't have glamour, you're fine.

Take a cavalry unit and make it infantry. You'll only have to remove the horse, and do a bit of trickery with the legs. My furman avatar is a Horse Brother.

On the other hand, you can also take an infantry unit and give it a mount. Attach anything on a Wyvern and most people will see a wyvern-rider instead of Tuatha-commander-on-a-wyvern.

Mage sprites follow a formula. There's the robe, hands down and up, bearded or beardless face, and perhaps some ornaments. You don't have to follow the formula, but it's not hard.

Similar sprites are interchangeable. In my Kaleva mod, I used sprites from both Vaetti (MA Jotunheim) and Bakemono (MA Shinuyama). They are small and wear furs, and that's close enough.

Use attack sprite for base sprite, and base sprite for attack sprite. Easy way to make a "new" unit, especially if the original sprite is from a unit that's not too unique.

Changing colors is easy, and will make a huge difference. As an example, if you need to create a female sprite, look through the three ages of Arcoscephale (Priestess, Oreiad, Sibyl), LA Pythium, LA Ulm (Fortune Teller), MA Ashdod and LA Gath (it's easy to resize giant sprite to human-size), MA Machaka (Sorceress), the amazon tribes... The chances are that one of those sprites is close enough, and then you can edit and recolor it and (because Kristoffer is really good at sprites) it will look good.

[pyg]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

Changing colors is easy, and will make a huge difference. As an example, if you need to create a female sprite, look through the three ages of Arcoscephale (Priestess, Oreiad, Sibyl), LA Pythium, LA Ulm (Fortune Teller), MA Ashdod and LA Gath (it's easy to resize giant sprite to human-size), MA Machaka (Sorceress), the amazon tribes... The chances are that one of those sprites is close enough, and then you can edit and recolor it and (because Kristoffer is really good at sprites) it will look good.

So this is might be a FAQ, but how do you get a copy of one of the in game sprites to edit. I haven't figured it out yet.

[Psientist]

Sombre -

Re: Modding tips and tricks
Might be interesting for Skaven to have a cloud that spawned vermin every turn as a onebattlespell of a hero or something.

AFAIK you can't #onebattlespell a custom spell, it has to already be in the game. Maybe you can #selectspell mod an existing one to assign to a commander unit in-combat.

Burn - thanks for the notes. I had discovered most of those, and I think most are scattered in pieces throughout the forums... but I learned a couple and it's nice to have them in one place.

Here's a couple tips I've found...

1. I have confirmed that my little trick of assigning boots of the planes to an Indy commander CAN work, and have that commander show up in a random other Indy province during game play.

2. If you create a unit with NO magic paths, and give it a magic leadership, it will still not be able to lead magic units. However, if you give it a #magicpath X 0 (a level of zero in that path), it will then be available for leading magic units in the Army Setup menu.

3. You can assign a #watershape (and probably a #forestshape, etc) to a unit in addition to a #secondshape... but the #secondshape must be the last item listed in the series inside the mode file, and the #watershape only is activated when the unit changes provinces.

I have several other observations in an "item modding" thread somewhere regarding some of the things you can, and can't seem to get away with for crafting custom items.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Psientist

AFAIK you can't #onebattlespell a custom spell, it has to already be in the game. Maybe you can #selectspell mod an existing one to assign to a commander unit in-combat.

Sure and copyspell it first so the original remains in the game. I believe that's the standard method.

I don't actually know for sure that #onebattlespell doesn't work perfectly so long as you /define your newspell first/. Someone should test that ;]

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by pyg

So this is might be a FAQ, but how do you get a copy of one of the in game sprites to edit. I haven't figured it out yet.

There's a complicated way to get the base sprite I came up for DomII, and then there's the easy way EricM used to extract all the sprites (with permission). Here's all sprites up to 3.17, and I think few others have done small updates to accomodate for later patches.

AllView maps are also great. There are few different versions floating around. Basically, it's a five-province map where EA Ermor starts with units 1-1000 in the first province, 1001-1500 in the second, etc. It's the easiest way to look for sprites if you know e.g. that you want a swordsman, but don't know what kind of swordsman.