Yet More Mod Questions

[tinkthank]

Thanks much.
I tried reposting, but the boards were down.

My problem is this: I have found the right combination of starting sites with the right number of units, but I cannot find out how to change the #spr1 and the #spr2 command for these units.
I mean this:
Let's say I take the Keep of Ulm -- it gives me 2 units, one a commander and one not, as capital only recruitables and no gems, great. So I take their numbers, mod them, and I'm all set.
BUT: I cannot find the .tgas for the units I want to replace them with!! I wanted just fairly simple horseman types, so I took the Red Guard as an example, because I REALLY CANNOT make new unit graphics, it will look just so crappy. So I cannot find where to have the #spr1 and #spr2 commands lead to. So the mod will work, but instead of mounted horsemen, I get Guardian-looking units.
Do you see my problem?
Since I cannot actually change the graphics, I thought I would use the game's existing ones. This works fine as long as I can select a monster which looks all right to me. This works well -- except for the nation's capital-only units.
So where can I find the .tgas? I searched the whole folder, but I dont see them!

[Boron]

tinkthank said:
Thanks much.
I tried reposting, but the boards were down.

My problem is this: I have found the right combination of starting sites with the right number of units, but I cannot find out how to change the #spr1 and the #spr2 command for these units.
I mean this:
Let's say I take the Keep of Ulm -- it gives me 2 units, one a commander and one not, as capital only recruitables and no gems, great. So I take their numbers, mod them, and I'm all set.
BUT: I cannot find the .tgas for the units I want to replace them with!! I wanted just fairly simple horseman types, so I took the Red Guard as an example, because I REALLY CANNOT make new unit graphics, it will look just so crappy. So I cannot find where to have the #spr1 and #spr2 commands lead to. So the mod will work, but instead of mounted horsemen, I get Guardian-looking units.
Do you see my problem?
Since I cannot actually change the graphics, I thought I would use the game's existing ones. This works fine as long as I can select a monster which looks all right to me. This works well -- except for the nation's capital-only units.
So where can I find the .tgas? I searched the whole folder, but I dont see them!

You have to make screenshots and copy+paste .

Or you wait for Gandalf he had somewhere all units from Dominions saved .


I would rather recommend though to use Gimp or something like this .
It takes time but i just made my first unit graphic today

[Endoperez]

EDIT: I came late. New post follows soon.


- They will look wrong. (I was hoping to mod only existing monsters since I cannot draw worth dung.)

Neither can I. But I can copy a shield of Black Forest Ulmian, then paste it over general Infantry of Ulm's shield. And paste the bright crescent symbol over Black Knight's shield. And for Pangaea, you can probably use some of the Oceania pictures: they already are of the correct size and filetype.

Oh and one last thing I forgot: Can I mod a command "summons allies" and then specify the monster which it summons? (I hope so.)

Sorry, nope. If you could replace Mictlan, you would get their slaves and slave-animators. Their starting sites don't match with your gem income, however. And the pretender selection would be wrong, and on the other hand the "blood must be sacrificed" cannot be removed.

- I dont want this nation to have Pan's gem income, but rather a completey different one (namely: 2N 1a1f1e).
#clearsites, and many #startsite s. It might be hard to get both three capitol-only units and that gem income, so you probably have to change it a little. Forest of Avalon would give 3 nature gems and allow recruitment of one commander and two units, as an example.

[Endoperez]

I used Redguard in my Nation Replica. It was in the banner, but I easily extracted it, changed background and shadow and zipped it. Check this post's attachment. Only #spr1, but that should be enough for most purposes.

To get unit's Spr1:

Run Dominions II in window. Alt-Tab if it is already running and is not windowed. From visual options, put Filter off and Opacity to 100. Then choose the unit which image you want. Take screenshot (Prt Scr key after F12 in my keyboard) and paste it into graphics program. Remove DomII around the unit. Remove background. Recolor shadow. Save as targa.

If you use MS Paint, the following is the easiest way to remove the background and recolor the shadow:

Choose eraser. Choose "color chooser", and click on the black background of the image. The second color can be anything, white goes well. Use eraser with right mouse button. It should only replace the main color with the second color, that is, background's black to white. You have to use this twice because background has two types (hues?) of black. Do the same for shadow, but use magenta as the second color. Its in lower line of colors, in about middle. Now recolor all white to pure black. The image looks almost the same, only the shadow is now magenta, but it works in the game.

Change picture's size from Ctrl-E. Save as bmp, use IrfanView or similar to convert to tga.

If the game used filter or the opaque wasn't 100, you will have many more blacks in the background. Take a new screen capture.
You could try to recolor the almost-black background to black without going white between, but might miss some almost-black pixels.

[tinkthank]

Hey thanks -- I just saved that text and will try it out at home.
One question: When you say, choose the unit, you mean select it like you were recruiting it? I ask because I think the spr1 is the "normal" pose, and spr2 is when it attacks, but to get the spr2 I would have to make a screen shot of it on the battlefield in action, and I am not sure I knew how to do that.
Well anyhow thanks so much for all your help!

[Endoperez]

I meant that you have to have the info screen with stats, item slots, special abilities etc. open. This can be opened from recruitment, battle orders, battle etc.

[Endoperez]

Oh, and about spr2: you have to take the screenshot in battle, without background and without grid ('w' and 'g'). Be sure you are as close to the earth level as you can go, and compare the battle sprite to the general sprite you should have open in a graph. edit program. That makes it much easier to get the picture close to the right size.

[tinkthank]

OK thank you very much.
After doing some more tests, it looks like I actually cannot do more than half the things I wanted -- my mod will end up making a fairly vanilla-flavored nation without other forms of modding capabilities (castle defense bonus, terrain-coupled abilities, summon allies, etc.); I will work on it, but quietly, and without pretense of finishing it for a while. But thanks for the help until then!

[Gandalf Parker]

http://www.dom2minions.com/~minion/icons/
They are there individually and as a complete zip at the end of the list.

Those are only spr1 since no one has figured out how to mass-grab spr2. Its also abit out of date without some of the latest editions. For spr2 the difference is usually very minor so since you are editing changes anyway its usually easier just to edit the attack-move for spr2 also

[Endoperez]

Tinkthank, I think I know how you can get units with Summon Allies! In Dom:PPP, most pretenders that now get automatic units had "Summon ally". Those units still exist, they just aren't available in the pretender choosing screen. If you find few that summon units that are not used anymore, you can easily mod those two and add the former to your nation's recruitables (#reccom).

Atleast Moloch (120, devil), Father of the Serpents (Horned Serpent).
Many uniques also had this ability, atleast Arch Devils and all Elemental Royalties, but I believe all those have been replaced.
Also, you could replace unit(s) that are rarely used, like Draconians and Draconians Chiefs.

Replacing Ermor would give you many summoning spells, and unholy priests without unholy spells might be a possibility if they reanimate Ermorian undead. And you might just change some unit and everything that uses it, like Wolf, Call of the Wild, Howl, Werewolf and Wolfherds. Call of the Wild and/or Howl could either be changed, removed or made national spells, Werewolf and Wolfherd would be two units that can summon the unit that would replace Wolf.

I'm sorry I can't come up with anything else, it might help if I knew what you were doing...