Custom Graphics Questions

Sorry in advance if this is the incorrect forum for this question and please move accordingly if need be.

Hopefully someone will offer some advice and knowledge on creating a custom mod so that more time can be spent creating instead of searching for answers. So far everything is going well and I have reached the point of including custom artwork into the mod. I have Flic files for each of the custom civilizations but most of them don’t have much more than that. It seems that custom art should include Advisors, Civilopedia, Flics and Leaderheads so I was wondering what the importance of each is in regards to the stability of running a mod. If a Flic is included but the rest of the art is missing will there be any negative effects or will the missing files be filled in with the generic question mark art? Also, it is rather obvious where most of the art comes into play but I am somewhat confused as to where the files in the Leaderheads folder fits in. Lastly, concerning the civilopedia it appears that when any changes are made to the text or to the name of the section referencing a particular civ that the graphics automatically turn to the generic question mark heads. How can this be corrected if at all? Thanks for any help offered.

Originally posted by couriers
Sorry in advance if this is the incorrect forum for this question and please move accordingly if need be.

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It is, as you have discovered with the wrath of Zulu Movement would be handled by the moderators. Comments and questions regarding a specific posted file should be placed in that thread (unless directed otherwise.) All other questions should go in the main Creation&Customization Forum. New threads in the files forums should only be for the posting of new, completed files of that type. Oh, and welcome to CFC

Hopefully someone will offer some advice and knowledge on creating a custom mod so that more time can be spent creating instead of searching for answers. So far everything is going well and I have reached the point of including custom artwork into the mod. I have Flic files for each of the custom civilizations but most of them don’t have much more than that. It seems that custom art should include Advisors, Civilopedia, Flics and Leaderheads so I was wondering what the importance of each is in regards to the stability of running a mod. If a Flic is included but the rest of the art is missing will there be any negative effects or will the missing files be filled in with the generic question mark art?

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My rule of thumb, is never leave a file missing. Use PediaIcons.txt to point to already existing files if possible, use a copy of them if necessary in testing, but don't leave them out. While you may be lucky and just get a question-mark type graphic, Civ3 (in particular this latest PTW patch) is very angry about missing files and intentionally leaving something out is just asking for a crash IMHO.

Also, it is rather obvious where most of the art comes into play but I am somewhat confused as to where the files in the Leaderheads folder fits in. Lastly, concerning the civilopedia it appears that when any changes are made to the text or to the name of the section referencing a particular civ that the graphics automatically turn to the generic question mark heads. How can this be corrected if at all? Thanks for any help offered.

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As for the leaderhead art, name the files you have questions about. I believe everything in that folder is for the pictures displayed when the game is over for various victory/loss conditions. For the civilopedia, everything is based upon the "Civilopedia Entry" key specified in the scenario. PediaIcons.txt (amongst other things) links these keys to graphics files. Anytime you change a key, you have to change PediaIcons.txt as well if you want to have the proper graphic displayed.

Zulu:

Give the guy a break, he already mentioned that he might be in the wrong forum. Or are you more concerned with your post count than actually reading what someone has to say.

The "etiquette" standards around this forum are becoming ridiculous. If some people don't start laying off the nagging, others will just just stop coming around, and hanging out at Apolyton instead. They don't pester people over there about newbie questions or wrong forums. It's becoming a much more relaxing place to hang out.

The fact that he said he might be in the wrong section suggests that he thought he probably was, i.e. he couldn't be bothered to find out.

Thanks for the rude comments zulu but the reality is that I spend some time in deciding which forum to post this thread in and this seemed like the best solution at the time. Sorry if I missed someing that is so obvious to you. Besides, is it really that hard for someone to move the thread without such negative remarks being made?

Might = tentative possibility

Probably = In all likelihood, most likely

The use of the word Might was used to reflect that I could not come up with a definitive answer by myself and realizing the possibility of being wrong I therefore asked for clarification. Thanks again for your lack of help in the matter.

Edit: actually upon rereading my original post I didn't even use the word might so why was I even wasting my time in defending it to someone that clearly has a bad attitude.

pdescobar,

Thank you for the kind response. I havent had the opportunity to absorb the information as of yet but I have a good idea that your advice will help in my situation.

Thanks to the moderator for kindly moving my thread to the correct forum without any negative backlash.

Thanks for the information Padma. To be completely honest I didn't even notice that there was a main forum but rather only noticed the subforums listed and didn't even think twice about it. My personal experience with forum boards is somewhat limited and the one that I frequent most often uses the same software but only has the list of subforums without including an actual forum inside that list. In other words, I didn't even think to scroll down the main page to notice that I was already inside a main forum. This was from a lack of knowledge and not a lace of ambition to figure out how things were structure. I had hoped that my disclaimer was enough to express my willingness to uphold the order. I hope that makes sense. Sorry again for causing a problem.

So it would appear that as long as the PediaIcons.txt was updated to reflect the custom art files for each civ and is properly setup to reflect the custom Civilopedia entries then most everything else should be ok. I have looked at the other text files and it seems that this is the only one that would need to be updated other than the civilopedia.txt file.

Essentially all that I hope to accomplish is to customize the rules for each civ, which will include renaming several, to fit in with a custom made map of the world as it currently looks. This will include custom art for each civ even if it ends up being something very basic for the sake of being able to play soon. Other than that the plan includes a brief custom civilopedia entry for each civ and that should be about it. The goal is to have a custom mod loosely based on today’s world that can be completed relatively easily and hopefully sooner rather than later. I really don't have any intentions of releasing anything to the public so that several corners can be cut whenever possible. Any further information or advice along these lines would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again pdescobar for the help.

You didn't cause a problem, couriers. You simply made a fairly common mistake, and I fixed it.