Modder's Guide

[Psientist]

Having played and modded a couple of other schrapnel games, I REALLY came to rely upon modmakers' guides and tutorials. I hope this isn't a newb question, but is there a tutorial out there for making Dominions 3 mods?

To start with, I thought it might be fun to make a few new Pretenders... like a giant spider (Lolth) for Marignon.

Thanks in advance.

[Ighalli]

Well, in your dominions 3 folder there is a docs folder that has a manual about modding. After skimming through that, try downloading one of the other mods on here and trying to just change what you need. There is already a shape shifting spider god mod floating around here somewhere.

[Endoperez]

I made my Anansi mod as a simple example mod. It creates two new units (two forms of the same shapesifter creature) and makes Anansi the Shapeshifter a new pretender available for Machaka.

The mod documentation is a necessary read, but just going through some existing mods should show most things you might want to do.

[Psientist]

Good advice on the mod guide... thanks. And the Anansi mod was a great idea.

[Jack_Trowell]

Note that on the dom3 cdrom there is an exemple mod from illwinter : a Late Age nation of vaettis (the gobelins thatwere allies to the Jotun in middle age), with Wyverns and sacred gobelin cavalry.

(in dom2, the exemple mod was a nation of hoburgs, and this mod had been expended, and recently adapted to dom3, you can find it in this forum)

For the dom3 exemple mod, I think that instead of wyverns it would be a good idea to change it to have trolls as vaetti allies : a nation of trolls and gobelins is just too good an idea to miss. ^_^

[Endoperez]

Various spell modding commands have been tested and posted to at least two different threads. Also, every now and then one of the developers mentions an interesting detail about the inner workings of the commands (such as #aoe 666 and #aoe 665 affecting whole / 25% of the battlefield).

[Psientist]

When I was making mods for Wierd Worlds (same company), I could crack open the game application and look at all of the weapon / ship / planet / race definitions and graphics. Replacing them with revised (modded) graphics was then a snap, and it was easy to "borrow" an existing graphic or item for a modded one.

I've gone through the provided modder's guide for Doms3, and successfully made a couple of Pretender mods (I'll release them here eventually). However, it would be nice if there was a nice library -- or I was made aware of an existing library -- of graphics, monsters, items, etc. for modmaking. For example, the modders guide shows you how to use an existing sprite for a new monster - but you have to know the number of the sprite you want already.

Any clues on how we can find those?

[Turin]

The easiest way to view all monsters until edi finishes his exceldatabase is to use the allunitsview map, which should be somewhere here in the modding forum.

[Gandalf Parker]

Browsing thru them all in one game lets you
A) capture the image if you want to create a new version
or
B) use the "I" button to see things like its numeric designator

[Psientist]

Thanks!

While we're at it (aren't I demanding?), is there any way to give special (e.g. spell) attributes to monsters and items?

For example, certain deities summon allies over time, and lots of magic items duplicate effects of spells. But there doesn't appear to be a documented way to create a new pretender or item that has spell attributes of the Modder's choosing...