ADukes, and other modders. I need to pick your brains please.

[bedbug]

yes, mikesla, god help you, you might be on the edge of being sucked into the modding vortex. :laugh:

[tim]

You are certainly not stepping on my toes. Sounds cool what you are doing!

Modding is how I started. Originally with Close Combat and lastly TC2M with other games in between.

Gimp is a great program. Bedbug is talking about using levels - literally you have one layer above another and how it effects the layer below depends on the settings you use. Think of it like layers of transparent paper and you paint on them - like it hand drawn animations the bottom layer doesn't change but ones above can. The added advantage its you can delete the top layer(s) and the bottom one is unaffected - or copy layers.

Hope that helps! Explore and read the help files etc. Layers are a very powerful tool.

[Michael Slaunwhite]

tim wrote:

You are certainly not stepping on my toes. Sounds cool what you are doing!

Modding is how I started. Originally with Close Combat and lastly TC2M with other games in between.

Gimp is a great program. Bedbug is talking about using levels - literally you have one layer above another and how it effects the layer below depends on the settings you use. Think of it like layers of transparent paper and you paint on them - like it hand drawn animations the bottom layer doesn't change but ones above can. The added advantage its you can delete the top layer(s) and the bottom one is unaffected - or copy layers.

Hope that helps! Explore and read the help files etc. Layers are a very powerful tool.

Hi Tim.

I understand Tim thanks.

I have edited some files, and when in battle the blood spurts do look cool, but when the men begin to fall in great numbers the fps drops to a crawl. I am even wondering if this is possible.
If the troops are involved in a small skirmish it works, but I would rather good fps than cool (be great if I can get both though).

One of the great things about this game is the sheer numbers of troops on the battlefield, but to have blood spurts for every death scene, and not have it effect the fps is simply insane. I'm wondering how you guys were even able to do this without hugh fps hits.

Love this game, and it's actually the first game I want to edit. (Thanks allot guys, the wife doesn't see me already, now with wanting to edit the game, she may see me once every 6 hours when I crawl out of my cave) .


I am open to suggestions...

Cheers...

[tim]

Are you painting direct onto the unit graphics sheets? And saving them as dds files with an alpha? If so there should be absolutely no effect on fps as the doesn't amtter what you piant on the sheet they are always the same memory size provided they are the same pixel by pixel size. i.e. a 1024 x 1024 sheet will always be the same byte size even if you painted psychedelic dragons on them! It maybe the fact that a lot of them are shooting and dying that causes the slow down.

[Michael Slaunwhite]

Oh, Okay Tim thanks allot. I just finished my first edition for my blood mod. Its small, and my eyeballs hurt.

I'll be reading a bit more to make sure how to do this. Is there going to be a PDF file with you full SDK, or is that something different I must get?

Thanks Tim, your a good resource.