What is UTF-8 and how do you change it?

When u save ur files using notepad, there are 3 fields

the filename

the second one is type of file - .txt or all files, u have to change it to all files

the third is type of coding, from drop-down box select UTF-
8 (default is ASCII)

If u dont see that option...maybe try to save normally and see if it works

I will post screens on how-to-do later

I had a hunch on that quite a while back, but I naver tried playing around with it.

This is great!

One problem, though, is that to use background images, the file must be is in .ddt format. (The bar program supports a .bdt not .ddt )

Alex, the bar extractor does DDT's, not BDTs. Maybe you found a typo or something.

AOMEd used to vaguely understand BDTs from the alpha/beta versions of AOM, so the option is still there but doesn't tend to work. DDTs ought to work fine, though - use Direct File Conversion, convert a DDT to BMP, edit it, then convert back into a new DDT.

UPDATE:

I found what the numbers for the backgrounds are. The screen is divided into 12 squares in a 4 columns, 3 rows fashion:
[image1] [image2] [image3] [image4]
[image5] [image6] [image7] [image8]
[image9] [image10] [image11] [image12]
These are files in the texture folder of AoM and they are apparently scaled to fit the screen resolution of the user. I think ES did it this way instead of using just one big file to make it easier to have maps "inbetween" two regions, for example using the top part of Egypt and the bottom part of Greece in one map, though I've never seen this in their custom campaign.

I also found the positioning for overlays: The "offset" is of the form "x y" assumes that the screen is 1024x768 even though for some users it might not be so (the coordinates are scaled in that case). The "size" must be the size of the image file in pixels, of the form "x y". You can "resize" images by putting in a larger or smaller size than the real picture's size. You should design your images for the 1024x768 resolution since they will get scaled automatically for other resolutions. The scaling of images is smooth so they will look OK on any resolution. The code <Overlay offset = "400 500" size = "64 64">ui\overlay_red_09</Overlay>, for example, will place the image ui\overlay_red_09 (a small red circle image that was originally 32x32) at position (x=400, y=500) and scale it two times so it's 64x64 on the 1024x768 resolution, and will keep things in that same proportion on smaller or larger resolutions.

You can use any background/overlay images defined in the main campaign. Maybe you can make your own DDT image files too.

I heard in another post (here) that TGA (Targa) files are also recognized by AoM instead of DDT textures. I can't find any TGA editor though. Someone will have to try this out.

[This message has been edited by Matei (edited 01-25-2003 @ 09:39 AM).]

Well, I must say that I'm suprised...

Why ? Because I thought that this way to make a campaign would be known by everyone but thought as too hard. I know it for myself since about one and a half month !
Sorry for this, but if I had posted it earlier, I would have got the honor...

And about the image-tiles: This was not because they want to use e.g. the bottom of greece and the top of egypt, but because they use the tiles for the tranlations. You might notice that the tiles with the text on it are a couple of times more than the others - each with another language on it.

About the tga-Files: Yes, AoM recignizes tga-Files as textures. So you do not have to convert them back to ddt's. I think Photoshop can edit tga-files.

Well, looks like many people had found this before and nobody posted it. And all this time we were in the dark. Next time you find something interesting please post .

I knew, trouble is when people discover somthing they think everyone must already know, like me with the campaigns I opened up the file ages ago and edited it for the Middle Earth Mod not even thinking that other people didnt know how to do it.

What/where is learntoplay.cpn ???

learn to play.cpn is in the data folder under your Age of Mythology folder (probably C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Mythology\data).

That's really nice,thanks !
Too bad i can't try right away cause of the ancient laptop that i have for the weekend.

One thing, which I am not sure about yet, everytime u make changes to .cpn u may need to delete the .xmb file there so a new one with the current changes is created

I am gonna verify that, but working on something else at the moment...

@Matei: My problem is that this happens to me not the first time. With the Hotkey-changing (the game.con article) it was the same - I knew it for a long time, but didn't think that other people might not know it. Then Cheesy posted it, and got all the honor. Next time I'll post at once

@Kumar: Yes, I think that it works in this way. Everytime the game starts, it creates the xmb-Files, and uses them then. So you might have to do it in the way you mentioned. But what I think about is, that in this case you only had to give the xmb-File to the player - this would be easy.

And something other - I have noticed, that AoM searches for the campaign scenarios inside the scenarios.bar - so it might be possible to create your own bar-File with the Scn's in it (I don't think so, but I'll try tommorow).

U dont need to create a .bar.

U can have individual scns, but .bar is easier to download

Yes, I know that I don't have to create it, but it would be nice, because as you said it's easier to download. But I don't know if AoM searches in other bar-files except scenarios.bar ?!

Quote:

Yes, and then when they see the post, they throw in a reply saying they knew to try and grab any bit of credit they can. I think about 3-5 people have done that in this thread alone so far.

On the flip-side, nice discovery guys, I can't wait to try it out.

But I did know ask my mod team for proof, or look in my team forums....which you can't do.

Okay the point is that it works and now everybody knows.

I finally managed to convert some images to TGA and try them. I used uncompressed 24-bit (RGB) images. They can be in the textures folder under Age of Mythology or under any subfolder there (if you specify the path to one of those). They can be used for both the 12 background images (256x256 pixels each) and for overlays (any size you want, though I think powers of 2 are preffered by the system for proper mipmapping to occur). When AoM starts, it creates a BDT file and a BTX file for each TGA file in the textures directory. After this you can delete your TGAs and just distribute the BDT and BTX. These are slightly smaller in filesize but together they may be more than the TGA alone, so you might just stick with the TGA.

I still haven't been able to use alpha transparency though. Kallo Mathar, did you manage to make overlays with some transparent pixels? What file format do you use for your TGAs to do that?

[This message has been edited by Matei (edited 01-25-2003 @ 07:11 PM).]

I havn't looked at them much yet, I have been mostly putting in all of the mod scenario names/paths/descriptions etc. I will take a look at that now.

I am not sure what you mean about the TGA. I converted an overlay dtt to bmp then edited it with photoshop set the transparency area and then converted it back into dtt and placed into the textures dir.

And it ended up like this Transparent overlay

[This message has been edited by Kallo Mahtar (edited 01-25-2003 @ 08:14 PM).]

I am using Targa (TGA) image files. Maybe someone else knows.

But why are you using this file type?

He uses it, because he doesn't have to convert them back to ddt's - he can just put the tga-file into the folder and use it.

[edit]And @Byzantine_Warrior: Well, think what you like, I can't prove that I already knew... But I'm not the kind of human, who tries to grab others credit and I have discovered many things in my AoM-life which were not found by others. I just said it because I was wondering why you all didn't know it.[/edit]

[This message has been edited by Fire Giant (edited 01-26-2003 @ 08:17 AM).]