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An Introduction to Modding
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| Author |
File Description |
| Stephen Caines |
Posted on 10/15/04 @ 09:01 AM (updated 10/17/04)
| File Details |
|---|
| Version: |
AoM: The Titans |
This is basically a dump of most of what I've learnt over the last 6-7 months and hopefully it will help a lot of people avoid some of the many hours of frustration I spent trying to figure things out.
It is written for both Age of Mythology and The Titans Expansion.
It's a tad longer than the usual guide at 124 pages, but the first 80 of these are a quite detailed intro to the basics (where most of the frustrations occurs).
The Guide covers the following topics.
1. INTRODUCTION
2. GETTING STARTED
2.1 SETTING UP A WORK AREA
2.2 EXTRACTING THE SOURCE FILES
3. CHARACTER PROTO DEFINITIONS
3.1 CONVERTING THE PROTO(X) FILE
3.2 UNDERSTANDING CHARACTER DEFINITIONS
3.3 DEFINING DIFFERENT CHARACTER ACTIONS
3.4 CREATING A NEW CHARACTER
4. THE ROLE OF MODELS
5. ANIMATIONS
5.1 ANIM FILE SYNTAX
5.2 DETAIL OF AN ANIM FILE
5.3 MODIFYING AN ANIM FILE
5.4 MORE ADVANCED ANIM FEATURES
6. TEXTURES
6.1 CONVERTING TEXTURES TO BITMAPS
6.2 CREATING A NEW BODY TEXTURE
6.3 CREATING A NEW HEAD TEXTURE
6.4 CREATING A NEW SHIELD TEXTURE
6.5 ICONS
7. IN-GAME TEXT
7.1 ADDING NEW IN-GAME TEXT
8. HISTORIES
9. SOUNDS
10. CHECKING OUR NEW UNIT
11. BUILDINGS
11.1 ENABLING AN EXISTING BUILDING TO TRAIN A NEW CHARACTER
11.2 USING BULDING TO TRAIN UNITS
11.3 MODIFYING A BUILDING'S PROTO DEFINITION
11.4 CREATING A NEW BUILDING PROTO DEFINITION
11.5 CREATING A NEW BUILDING ANIM
11.6 CUSTOMISING THE BUILDING
11.7 ADDING THE BUILDING'S IN-GAME TEXT.
11.8 ADDING THE BUILDINGS HISTORY
11.9 CHECK THE NEW BUILDING
12. ENABLING PROTO UNITS
12.1 CONVERTING THE TECHTREE(X) FILE
12.2 ENABLING NEW PROTOUNITS
12.3 TESTING THE COMPLETED MOD
13. MAKING MORE NEW UNITS
14. TECHNOLOGIES
14.1 WHAT ARE TECHNOLOGIES?
14.2 GENERAL DETAILS
14.3 PREREQUISITES
14.4 EFFECTS
14.4.1 Type Effects
14.4.2 Amount Effects
14.4.3 Action Effects
14.4.4 Status Effects
14.4.5 Generator Effects
14.4.6 Culture Effects
14.5 EXCLUSIONS
14.6 CREATING A NEW TECHNOLOGY
14.6.1 Making the Technology Accessible.
14.6.2 Adding the In-Game Text
14.6.3 Technology Icons
14.7 TESTING THE TECHNOLOGY
14.8 CREATING MORE TECHNOLOGIES
15. RELICS
16. CIVILISATIONS
17. MINOR GODS
18. GOD POWERS
18.1 PLACEMENT GOD POWERS
18.2 UNIT SWAP GOD POWERS
18.3 EPIC GOD POWERS
18.4 CREATING YOUR OWN GOD POWERS
19. RANDOM MAPS
19.1 ENABLING A RANDOM MAP FOR NEW CIVILIZATIONS
20. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
21. WHERE TO NEXT?
As a first draft I expect that it will need some corrections, but rather than getting them ad hoc via postings I would appreciate it if you could do a full review and post (or even better email) me the corrections (I promise to credit the editors in the next release).
The Guide also is lacking a section on Modelling (for non rocket scientists) (come of FlipBizCut just write a chapter or three) and the AI section is pretty weak, because to explain all the AI files I used for the LOTR stuff would add a couple of hundred pages and be irrelevant to another civilization.
Any way hope someone finds its useful.
Amended 17Oct04 15:25 - Word file replaced with .PDF.
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| Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 » Last » | | Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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| Dnas |
Posted on 10/16/04 @ 08:05 AM
By looking at the table of contents, this is not an introduction.
This is a very detailed guide to many many aspects of modding.
I'm downloading it.
[w]Darn, you beat me to writing one. ;)[/w]
(Yes, I know BBCode doesn't work here) |
| Dnas |
Posted on 10/16/04 @ 08:25 AM
It's a GREAT guide. Perfect for newbies at modding.
But there are a few minor inaccuracies:
- You do not need to restrat AOM to reload texture. Just hit Alt-Tab and edit the texture, then reopen AOM. You can only do this with texture files. Not model files and anim files have a problem with ReplaceTexture when you hit Reload in the Anim Viewer
- The building texture section is also inaccurate. A lot fo the features are in textures like building n shared06 or something like that. To see a list of all the textures a model uses, open it with a hex-editor and scroll to the bottom in hex mode.
Other than that, it's great. (Well, maybe there are more, I just skimmed through it, but whatever.)
Good job!
:D
Oh yeah. I forgot.
I would suggest converting this thing to a pdf.
Download PDFCreator.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=57796&package_id=53473&release_id=228013
PDFCreator-0_8_0_GNUGhostscript.exe
and
Patch02-PDFCreator-0_8_0.exe
Install it. It will set itself up as a printer. To make a pdf, print the files, but select PDFCreator for your printer.[Edited on 10/16/04 @ 08:27 AM]
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Stephen Caines
File Author |
Posted on 10/17/04 @ 12:21 AM |
| kilopoli |
Posted on 10/17/04 @ 02:38 AM
where can i download vachu's text editor and ykkrosh's AOM data file converter?
Thanks in advance. |
| antisback |
Posted on 10/17/04 @ 03:02 AM
kilopoli: there is a serch funtion up the top of the page, use it! |
| Ankhareon |
Posted on 10/17/04 @ 03:24 AM |
| kilopoli |
Posted on 10/17/04 @ 04:32 AM |
Gr�n
(id: AoMPlayer000) |
Posted on 10/17/04 @ 06:07 AM
A sidenote: Have you included the BAR installation in the guide? Because it's one of Ykkrosh's big accomplishments IMO... |
Stephen Caines
File Author |
Posted on 10/17/04 @ 07:33 PM |
Stephen Caines
File Author |
Posted on 10/17/04 @ 07:53 PM
http://ageofmythology.filefront.com/file/;8503
and
Ykkrosh's Editor at:
http://ageofmythology.filefront.com/file/AoMED_BAR_Extractor_Reviewed;15647
For the default in-game text file for AoM:TTgo to the Text Editor - Updated data.vdf for Titans posting by Mr_Sardonicus on this site. |
| Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 » Last » |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
| Statistics |
| Downloads: | 7,025 |
| Favorites: [] | 7 |
| Size: | 1.23 MB |
| Added: | 10/15/04 |
| Updated: | 10/17/04 |
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