need some help with my 1st mod

Foodstamp · #1 April 30th, 2007, 12:36 AM

Here is your banner!

Xietor · #2 April 30th, 2007, 12:47 AM

And I will proudly fly and credit Foodstamp for the banner!

Xietor · #3 April 30th, 2007, 01:36 AM

i asked Foodstamp in a pm, how to get the banner he made me into the text document that contains the mod. here is his reply:

"Let's take this one step at a time.

Let me explain what a mod really is first of all.

A mod is a text file that gives specific commands to Dominions 3. Those commands include pointing to where a picture is stored, or assigning stats to units, things of that nature. All it does is give the game commands to carry out.

The best way to dive into modding is to look at mods created by other people. Feel free to grab one of my mods and use it as a template to start your mod.

The graphics do not actually go into the text document. You can either dump them directly into the mods directory in your dominions folder, or you create a subdirectory and store all your graphics there (the preferred way). In the text document you are actually going to point to the graphic file. For instance, to do a banner you might say....

#icon "./beofwulf/beowulfbanner.tga"

The banner is actually in a folder in your mod directory called "beowulf" that you create by right clicking and choosing new folder and naming it to that. Then you just dump the graphic in there."

Thanks again Foodstamp. I did borrow many ideas from the black steel ulm mod with respect to formatting the text part, but the reference to the image was a bit confusing. And I was curious as to why he did not just cut and paste it all into one document, which may not be possible. I had no clue.

Foodstamp · #4 April 30th, 2007, 01:45 AM

NP at all. I am sure you will have more questions along the way. Feel free to ask here, all the modders are super helpful and always willing to answer questions.

If we can get Bandarlover going on modding, I am sure we can get you going as well. JK bandar

Xietor · #5 April 30th, 2007, 01:54 AM

I only need one image for this mod, that of the starting hero Beowulf. After some thought, I was thinking the lord of war graphic may be cool.

I looked at the sprite library, and it appears to be locked(password protected).

Is there any way i could get the 2 Lord of War sprites out of it?

other burning questions:

1. The mod is presently a word document. I am assuming that is a text file. How do i turn a word doc into a dm file?

2. As a penalty(small i know) for starting with a hero, I wanted to start man with only 100 gold instead of 400.

I have looked in the mod manual and do not see the command for setting the starting gold.

Foodstamp · #6 April 30th, 2007, 02:27 AM

Adding the Lord of War as your graphic is a bit easier than you might expect. All you need to do is add a command to the Beowulf unit...

#copyspr 1340

In game this command will assign the Lord of War graphics to the new unit.

Concerning weapons. I got bad news for you. Alot of the weapons that are listed with the same names as magical artifacts do not work properly. In game, it will show him as having the weapons and armor on his person (not in the item slots), but they will not have the same properties as the real items. I am not sure this is the case with 100% of the items that share names with craftable magic items, but at the very least it was like that with the ones I tried.

That being said, you may be able to create new weapons and armor and assign some of the effects you want to those.

I use notepad to create mods. Normally I go through the routine of saving as a .dm file that you seem to have looked at already. Also, I would suggest picking up ParadoxHarbinger's unit creator. It can save a lot of time creating new units, and it cuts down on the initial typos that are normally game crashing.

Xietor · #7 April 30th, 2007, 02:46 AM

thanks.

I made a game and just made the items, so i have their numbers. Since he is a starting hero, i can see right off if he has the right weapons and armor.

Once i make sure the mod works, I will adjust his weapons/armor if they are not up to snuff.

BandarLover · #8 April 30th, 2007, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Foodstamp said:
If we can get Bandarlover going on modding, I am sure we can get you going as well. JK bandar

lol Foodstamp is correct, if they can help me, they can help anyone. Just take a look at my 'Mod Help' thread to see the numerous innane questions I had.

All the modders in this community are gracious in their advice and help to new modders. And as soon as work stops making us work 13 days with one day off, I plan on doing more extensive work on my barbarian mod. Just gonna take some time. You're talking to the right people Xietor.

BandarLover · #9 April 30th, 2007, 08:46 AM

Here is Foodstamps reply when I couldn't save my text file to a DM file. Worked perfectly.

I believe I can help you with this issue.

When you are ready to save your work, you need to click file ----> save as.

This will bring up the save as box showing the directory you intend to save the file in. Here is the part to pay attention to .

Towards the bottom, you will see a field labeled "Save as type:". This field needs to be changed to "all files"

Once you have selected all files. Save your work as filename.dm .

This will save the file as an actual dm file instead of filename.dm.txt like you are doing currently.

I hope this helps!

P.S.- Super Jealous Moment: I never got Johan to give me advise on my mod.

Sombre · #10 April 30th, 2007, 08:52 AM

I am actually really looking forward to you continuing with your mod Bandar. The idea of it is very appealing to me and it fits in well with the NI maps, which lack recruitable animal tribe barbs.

With the new sprite extraction method you should have a much easier time with the graphics too. I'll help as much as I can (as you know I have a lot on the go).