42 replies to this topic

[krystall]

Update!!!!
MightyBob and I have been working this over yahoo, there are a few glitches and only one color setting at this moment but here is a preview of my green to purple/blue to black recolor. Oh and the giant glacers are recolored as well.

Current KNOWN errors
The smaller havestable tiberium pieces on glacers are still green
Single tiberium recolor mods will not be stackable for a while
Harvester and refinery and silo details are green
The inside walls of the holes tiberium spawns from are green (we cant figure out why)
Troops with tiberium infusion have green clouds around them
As most modders know this mod DOES NOT WORK ON KANES WRATH! We are waiting for mod SKD to come out for Kanes wrath to make this mod work for it.

The mod changes BOTH tiberium colors, work will be done to change only one after all bugs are worked out so that you can recolor only one if you dont like it.

The new "green" http://www.zshare.ne...310306454c9511/
The new "blue" http://www.zshare.ne...310299d1b35e6b/

Update end
________________________________________________________________________________



The first post!!!!
IS there a way you can recolor the tiberium? Make the green purple and the blue gold or something like that? IF its possible how do you do it and what do I need to do it? IF its allready been done any one know where I can look and download it? I looked here and didnt see anything.

Edited by krystall, 27 August 2008 - 07:54.

[Sgt. Rho]

You will need photoshop, 3ds max 7, 8 or 9 (both are very expensive progams) and the CnC3 Mod SDK, which is free for this. And skills in photoshop and 3ds max too.

[krystall]

Yay for college discounts then lol.I have photoshop, its not a NEW verson but it works I hope, 3Ds Max I will be getting to use for my college class, As far as mod SDK I have that allready and it SHOULD be loaded but I will have to cheak. So what is the process I need to go though to mod the coloring? I need a detailed step by step instruction... last time I think I tried this some guy said "add alpha channels" and Im like "Well which one there is 40 to pick from >.<" but he wouldnt tell me or he didnt know.

[Hobbesy]

Master_Chief, on 8 Aug 2008, 17:49, said:

You will need photoshop, 3ds max 7, 8 or 9 (both are very expensive progams) and the CnC3 Mod SDK, which is free for this. And skills in photoshop and 3ds max too.

Or you could stop being a pessimist and use GIMP.

[Mighty BOB!]

How many colors do you want? If you only want 2 colors of Tiberium then you only need to edit a couple of textures. If you want more than 2 colors you'll have to delve into coding.

[krystall]

Well I was thinking I want a bunch of files, like one that will change green and one that will change blue and what ever I feel like changing the tiberium to that day just change the files but all I want to do is recolor the tiberium, maybe make it a two color or rainbowie look but keep it to two main colors, no reason to add a 3rd in my eyes.

The major colors im looking for is

Green to purple
Green to black
Green to gold
Green to silver
Green to blue/purple (Mixed in one texture)
Blue to a darker blue
Blue to black
Blue to gold
Blue to silver
Blue to red/black (Mixed in one texture.)

Edited by krystall, 09 August 2008 - 15:33.

[Mighty BOB!]

That's going to be a lot of different mods.

But for starters, contained in this .zip file are all the textures for the harvestable Tiberium and their 'craters' (and their .xml files, how nice of me.)

 TiberiumCrystal01.zip (805.39K)
Number of downloads: 5

All you need to do is change their color and then make a mod.xml like for any other mod (see the SDK documentation) for each combination of colors you want.

After that there's the matter of particle effects for the little gas clouds and selection icons (and a couple of map props), but let's cover the harvestable textures first since they're a bit easier.

[krystall]

Do you know what SKD documentation file its in?

[krystall]

I edited all the textures so the green is purple and blue is black, I Have Mod SDK installed but every time I try and start the program I believe I should be using, Modbiulder or something liek that seeing as I cant find the program binary asset biulder for some reason, it says binary asset biulder started when I start modbiulder but it crashes, saying it cant find a file.

[Mighty BOB!]

Documentation is in your Tiberium Wars\MOD SDK\Documentation folder. index.html

Which file does it say it can't find? What is the error message?

[krystall]

Here is a screenshot of the error message and the little MS dos window that pops up.

http://www.zshare.ne...94974190863e70/

[Mighty BOB!]

It said it couldn't find mvp.xml.dll which leads me to suspect you don't have the required 3rd-party applications installed that are mentioned in the setup part of the documentation.

You can get a quick installer that will install everything you need from here.

[krystall]

Error 2
http://www.zshare.ne...970097ace4b539/

I went to the site you linked me and downloaded the only thing I could there and installed it so maybe this is another error?

[Mighty BOB!]

You have no mod.xml, your mod has no name (your folder structure is wrong), or you're trying to build the mod wrong.

It's probably the last one but I'll go over all of them.

#1. As discussed in the documentation, Mod.xml is the file that tells the compiler everything in your mod that needs to be built for it to work. In Mod.xml you list the files that should be built into your mod. In your case you want the .xml files that correspond to the different Tiberium textures (documentation also talks about textures in the sample mod section).

and/or

#2. Your mod has no name (meaning the folder structure is wrong.) In the MOD SDK\Mods folder you make a new folder for every different mod you create. The name of the folder is the name of the mod. It can't be longer than 15 letters/numbers. Inside the "yourmod" (or whatever name it is) folder you need to make a data folder. So that's MOD SDK\Mods\yourmodname\data

Mod.xml and all your other .xml code files go in here (yourmodname/data) except for art files. Art files usually go in the MOD SDK\Art folder inside another folder that is named after the first 2 letters of the art file. So for example, all of the textures you're working with start with tiberium so they (and their .xml files with the same name) would go in MOD SDK\Art\ti

and/or

Which brings me to #3. If I had to guess, you're double clicking on the buildmod.bat file which isn't the correct way to start the compiler. You need to open a command prompt and navigate to the MOD SDK folder (Again, all of this rudimentary stuff is explained in the documentation so read all of it).
Then type "buildmod.bat yourmodname" only without the quotes and hit enter. Then if everything is right (you have a mod.xml in the correct folder, everything else is in the right folder, and there are no errors in the code) it will build your mod and copy it to your My Documents\Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars\Mods folder inside another folder with the same name as your mod.

Now of course it can be a pain in the butt to navigate manually to the MOD SDK folder every time you want to compile the mod, so you can download this little "Power Toy" from Microsoft (only if you want to) that will let you right click on your MOD SDK folder and "Open Command Window Here." Or you could set up a shortcut that will automatically compile your mod when you double click on it but I don't know how to do that. Or finally you could download an altered buildmod.bat or a simple graphical buildmod to make it easier for the command line impaired.

Finally you need to make a .skudef file (Just make a new .txt file and rename the extension to .skudef)(You need to turn off "Hide file extensions for known file types" in your Windows Folder Options) named YourMod_1.0.skudef (where of course YourMod is whatever your mod name is, and _1.0 is whatever version of the mod you want it to be) Inside the Skudef file, you will put the following text:

mod-game 1.9
add-big YourMod.big

This tells the game to launch the patch 1.09 version of the game, and to add the data from Your Mod into the game.

And then you launch it from the C&C3 Control Center.

[krystall]

Im kinda lost here... I though what im trying to do was make the mod.sml or what ever it is to get to the next step not that I needed to have it for this step, I missed a step or I didnt read right. The documentation I looked at told me I had to make the mod file with the program im trying to use and said nothing about going there manualy, I will make a folder and put all the files in it like you said and try again this time manualy.

I downloaded the tool thing you linked me but I cant figure out how to make the mod file.... Im not a scripter/programmer so thats kina not my area. I looked all over the documentation and the only thing I could find is whats suppost to go in one not how to make or modify one.

Edited by krystall, 13 August 2008 - 22:20.

[Mighty BOB!]

Mod.xml is just a text file. You can make/edit it with Notepad or Word or any program that can save as text files. (Personally I use "Programmer's Notepad" which is like an upgraded Notepad that can show color-coded xml formatting which is nice.)

You can look at the mod.xml file that comes with the Sample Mod as an example of the basic principles of how one works.

So to reiterate, 1st you changed the textures' colors, then you put them in the right folders, then you make a mod.xml that tells the compiler what it is supposed to add to your mod, and then finally you run the buildmod.bat and it compiles everything your mod.xml tells it to into a mod you can play.

I'm not a coder either. I'm on the art production side of the pipeline.

[krystall]

Ok. I tryed to do the buildmod thing using the manual way, got all the way to the Mod SDK folder and typed buildmod.bat GTP BTB (GTP BTB) is mod name.
I keep getting the error
'buildmod.bat' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

This is what I got so far
C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Command & Conquer 3>Buildmod.bat GTP BTB

The .XML file is called Mod

Inside it is

<Include type="reference" source="DATA:static.xml" />
<Include type="reference" source="DATA:global.xml" />
<Include type="all" source="GTP BTB\data\tiberiumcracks01" />
<Include type="all" source="GTP BTB\data\tiberiumcracksblue01" />
<Include type="all" source="GTP BTB\data\tiberiumcrysblue01" />
<Include type="all" source="GTP BTB\data\tiberiumcrystal01" />
<Include type="all" source="GTP BTB\data\tibfields01" />

folder structure is Command & Conquer 3\MOD SDK\Mods\GTP BTB\data

The XML file is in the GTP BTB file not the data folder.


I am so sorry about asking all of this but once get it to work ONCE I should be able to do it with out error again.

Edited by krystall, 14 August 2008 - 04:13.

[Mighty BOB!]

krystall, on 13 Aug 2008, 20:52, said:

This is what I got so far
C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Command & Conquer 3>Buildmod.bat GTP BTB

Go one more:
C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Command & Conquer 3\MOD SDK>Buildmod.bat GTP BTB

krystall, on 13 Aug 2008, 20:52, said:

Inside it is

<Include type="reference" source="DATA:static.xml" />
<Include type="reference" source="DATA:global.xml" />
<Include type="all" source="GTP BTB\data\tiberiumcracks01" />
<Include type="all" source="GTP BTB\data\tiberiumcracksblue01" />
<Include type="all" source="GTP BTB\data\tiberiumcrysblue01" />
<Include type="all" source="GTP BTB\data\tiberiumcrystal01" />
<Include type="all" source="GTP BTB\data\tibfields01" />

The skins' art xml files are actually in the Art folder instead of in the mod's folder (also the compiler reads everything it should do from the .xml files so you have to include the .xml extension at the end) so that should be:

<Include type="reference" source="DATA:static.xml" />
<Include type="reference" source="DATA:global.xml" />
<Include type="all" source="Art:ti\data\tiberiumcracks01.xml" />
<Include type="all" source="Art:ti\data\tiberiumcracksblue01.xml" />
<Include type="all" source="Art:ti\data\tiberiumcrysblue01.xml" />
<Include type="all" source="Art:ti\data\tiberiumcrystal01.xml" />
<Include type="all" source="Art:ti\data\tibfields01.xml" />



Mod.xml should go inside the data folder: Command & Conquer 3\MOD SDK\Mods\GTP BTB\data

[krystall]

SOOO far it has worked. the compiler worked this time, no errors and in the biuld mod folder is alot of new stuff with simular names so it seems to have worked. If it does work as I hope will this work on Kanes wrath? If not thats ok im happy with this much. Also you spoke earlier of gas clouds and what not, how hard is that to mod compaired to this?

[Mighty BOB!]

Well the particle effects of the gas clouds coming off the crystals and the holes in the ground are (IMO) only a little bit harder (or instead of harder I should say more of a pain in the butt) because there are more of them and because they're code and not textures there's a little more "guess and check" instead of knowing immediately if you've achieved the desired result. Although on the other hand they're pretty much all contained in a single file so that's less different files to deal with.

Oh and unfortunately no it won't work for Kane's Wrath. If (hopefully when, not if) EA releases a Mod SDK for KW then it should probably be a simple thing to just compile the mod again with KW's buildmod.

-edit- Spelling

Edited by Mighty BOB!, 14 August 2008 - 23:55.

[krystall]

Well..... I got it to show in the mod tab of the autoplay and for the game to load and go into the game but...... no changes.....
I made a .SKUDEF like the documentation said, it even says in my browser

GTP_1.9.skudef
SKUDef file



Inside is

mod-game 1.9
add-big GTP.big

So unless I messed that up or some how my textures went back to normal colors thats the only thing I could see thats wrong. Im not getting errors or anything. unless having KW installed will stop mods from working. I am playing on C&C3 TW's

Edited by krystall, 15 August 2008 - 00:25.

[Mighty BOB!]

Hmm, sounds like everything "worked."

While the buildmod is compiling could you maximize it (well it won't fully maximize) and take a screenshot of what all the code says?

[JJ]

Mighty BOB!, on 15 Aug 2008, 13:45, said:

Hmm, sounds like everything "worked."

While the buildmod is compiling could you maximize it (well it won't fully maximize) and take a screenshot of what all the code says?

No need for that. Just type

> output.txt

or something like that behind the command and all the code will be written into a txt file in your BuildMod.bat directory.

[krystall]

Heres a screenshot, Easier to do for me I donno if its harder to read but it looks easier then posting it and possibly messing up the text some how.... anyway.....

http://www.zshare.ne...071152bd204de7/

anyway I noticed it says there was a few files missing but I have no idea why they are all in the data part of my mod folder.

[Slye_Fox]

it says mod.xml not found.

what folder is it in?

MOD SDK/Mods/?/Data