Dominions Skin browser

[Leif_-]

I have thrown together a small Java utility, the Dominions Skins Browser. It is a GUI tool that makes it quick and easy to change the graphical skin of Dominions 3.

You need to have a Java 1.4 runtime installed to use this. To run it, simply download the jar-file and either double-click on it or start it from the command-line with "java -jar DominionsSkinBrowser.jar". Source code is included in the jar, and is released into the public domain.

On startup, it tries to locate your dominions3 directory -- it should be able to find it on most Linux and Windows installations, don't know about Mac. (If it doesn't find it automatically, you can locate it manually though the "Browse" button.)

Once it has found the dominions3 directory, it looks for a subdirectory skins. If it doesn't already exists the program will create it.

You can now choose from the skins in the dominions3/skins/ directory on a list on the left side of the screen. On the right, you can see any description or screenshots of the skin (more about those in a bit.)

The first time you run it, there will probably be only one choice, "Illwinter default" -- an automatic backup of the current graphics that the program made when it created the skins/ directory.

There are a couple of old skins I made available here. Unzip this file into the skins directory and restart the Skins browser. You should now have a few skins to choose between.

Select the skin you like and press "Activate." The skin is now installed and you can start Dominions 3.

Skins, as this program understands it, are subdirectories under dominions3/skins which contains three things: variants of the tga image files read by Dominions, screenshots (any file with names like Screenshot_XX.jpg where XX is a number) and a file skin_description.dsc which contains the version number, the name of the author and a description of the skin. Look to the example skins for the format of this file.

(Right now the program is not all that useful, really: it's not that difficult to copy a set of tga files into the dominions3 directory by hand, but I hope to add support for an online repository at a later stage.)

[Ballbarian]

Great idea Leif.

WinXP here, but I use a non standard location for dom3. When I use browse to locate the dom3 directory, it properly creates the skin folder and creates the Illwinter_Default backup of original image files, but nothing appears in the skin browser. No skins appear ready for activation.

I am afraid that I have broken it.

[Leif_-]

Ballbarian said:
I am afraid that I have broken it.

Already?! -- Do you get the "Illwinter_Default" choice in the list? Have you tried browsing for the Dominions 3 directory again? (I'm afraid the program doesn't remember where it found it the last time.)

[Ballbarian]

"C:\Games\dominions3" shows in the Dom3 dir field after I have used the browse button to locate it, but the "Illwinter_Default" choice does not appear in the list. I have tried several restarts and pointing to various levels of the directory tree including pointing to the Skins and the Illwinter_Default directory as well. (Using Java 1.5)

[Leif_-]

Could you open a CMD window, cd to the directory where you have the DominionsSkinBrowser.jar and run the comman "java -jar DominionsSkinBrowser.jar > DSB.txt" Browse to your Dom3 directory, then close the DominionsSkinBrowser. Send me the DSB.txt file

[Ballbarian]

Done and sent to the address in your profile.

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmm multiple skins leads me to think about setting my icons so that I swap the skins for each nation I play. I would be fun to swap a leafy green forest skin when playing Pangaea for more of a stone skin playing Ulm.

[Leif_-]

Ballbarian said:
Done and sent to the address in your profile.

Huh. The program has actually found the Illwinter_Default skin; so it has to be a display problem, but everything looks right here.

Try to download the example skins I linked to in my first post, and put those in the skins directory. Then, if nothing happens, try to resize the application window.

[Leif_-]

Gandalf Parker said:
Hmmm multiple skins leads me to think about setting my icons so that I swap the skins for each nation I play. I would be fun to swap a leafy green forest skin when playing Pangaea for more of a stone skin playing Ulm.

Good point. I'll add some comman-line switches so it can run in batch-mode without the GUI.

[Gandalf Parker]

Glad to see you back Leif. Id love to see some of your Dom2 stuff regenerated.