How to create new techs

I don't think someone has made a tutorial for this yet, and SoG wants some help on this topic, so I'll make one. It won't be very long, and I even circled stuff in red so it's easier, so we should have a lot more tech-makers out there. (I have chosen to do a "Pikmin" tech)

Now, the first thing you want to do is to go to Google and pick your ideal picture, if you have not done so already.



Then, copy it into paint:



After that, close up as much of the image as possible wihout taking away the core image:



Then, go to "edit" then "select all", then shrink up the image to 128x128 and 32x32:



Then, go to "Image" then "Attributes" to change the size to 128x128 pixels:


Now, do the same thing, but make the image 32x32. Then, import it into a program that reads pcx's (I use Wally) or paintshop pro, save it as a pcx, put them both into a zip or rar format, and post. It may seem a lot to do, but you'll get used to it. It takes me only two minutes to do a tech now. See how easy it will be.

PART 2 PALETTES

Ok, people have been doing techs and have questions about pallets. Here we go.

The easiest way is to paste the image into a tech with similar colors and save it as a new tech. It usually works. But, if you want perfect quality, or your image has way too many colors, you have to change the palette of the image to 256 colors. Depending on the program, there are different ways to do it. In GIMP for example, you go to Image>Mode>Indexed and put 256 colors. Usually fiddle around with the tabs and you'll find "Reduce colors" or something. We're not done yet, though. We have to change the last two colors to bright green and pink. (Or other colors you are sure are not in your picture. Pink and green are usually used. If you get a color that is in your picture, it will look funky in game.) If you don't do this, the colors in the last two slots will show up weird in game. So you find some way to edit the palette (Again, different in every program) just change the last two colors. If you overwrote another color in those slots, and parts of the tech are green and pink, just select the nearest color and fill them in manually. Have fun, .

Edit: Check Plotinus' posts for palette, in-game and other issues concerning techs.

Hmmmm, how come my pics aren't showing up?

You need to make sure to add .JPG or whatever kind of pic it is at the end of it in the image link.

Good tutorial.
Edit: Like http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/pikimintutorial.JPG

Thanks!!!!

So, do you need to screw with the pallettes to make it work, or does the Civ pedia not use pallettes?

I have no clue, that's why I said to tell me if anything goes wrong.

great tutorial i always thought it was hard to add techs but now i see its pretty easy.

Sorry but im a newb. It looks like this tut is just for adding the techs picture.....How do you make it work??? Like maybe it gives you one happy face in the city built or whatever.

Can you point me to a complete tutorial please?

I should say that tech images, like pretty much all custom Civ images, need to be 256 colours or they won't work. I couldn't work out how to convert from other colour formats to 256 colours in my paint program, so I devised a cheaty shortcut way of doing it. First get your 128x128 tech picture as described above. Then load up the unit icons pcx, resize it to 128x128, and copy and paste the tech picture into that picture. Voila! You now have a 128x128 256-colour icon. You can use any Civ image for this, but I find that the unit icons one is good because it contains a wide range of colours and will probably "translate" your picture quite well without too much loss of quality. You can now save this under the correct name, and then shrink to 32x32 and save that as the small version. Whatever you do, don't accidentally overwrite the unit icons pcx file with it, though. Note that if you're doing lots of tech icons, you can use each one to "recolour" the next without having to reload and resize the unit icons file all the time and risk accidentally wiping it.

[techbota] You need to do something like this...

First open the editor and go to Rules and Civilization Advances. Choose the one you want to change, or add a new one. You can specify which age the tech appears in, which techs are prerequisites for it, where on the tech chooser screen it will appear, and so on. Pull up the "help" screen to find out what all the options on this screen do. Under "Civilopedia Entry" you need to give it a flag name like TECH_yourtech.

Now pull up the dreaded PediaIcons file in the "Text" folder. Scroll to fairly near the end until you see "Small Tech Icons". You can see the format there: you need to add a line like #TECH_yourtech, and then on the next line give the location of the small icon. Now go down to "Large Tech Icons", and add #TECH_yourtech_LARGE and the location of the large icon.

Then, if you want, you can open up the Civilopedia file, go down to "ADVANCES", and add a civilopedia entry for it as well, following the format that is there.

If you have added a new tech rather than replaced or modified an old one, it will appear in the tech chooser screen but there won't be an arrow pointing to it. You have to add that in yourself by loading the relevant tech chooser screen into a paint program and drawing the arrow in. I think there are some tutorials somewhere here about how to do that.

TY

Then if you want to distribute it what files do you zip???

Is there a civ installer you can put it with?

I edit all UT series games so im used to having to uscript stuff mostly and only have the editor for maps and models really.

As for what files you would need to zip, it depends on how much you've altered. Basically, anything you have altered. So this would include the BIC file itself, the PediaIcons file, and the icon graphics themselves, plus the folders they are found in. If your extra tech is part of a mod or scenario you would obviously need to include any other files involved as well.

Presumably if you are adding a tech you are not changing the Epic game. That is, you are in effect creating a mod, even if they only thing that's different about it is the new tech. Therefore, you need to "recreate" the file structure that the main game uses. You need to create a new folder and put it in the Scenarios folder, and called it "mymod" or whatever. Within that, you need to create a subfolder called "Art" and another called "Text". Then you copy the PediaIcons.txt file over to the Text folder, and it is this copy that you fiddle with. Similarly, your new graphics need to go in the Art folder - nestled within various other subfolders. See the original file structure to see how it's meant to go. Now, in the editor you need to open up the "Scenario properties" box and find the bit where you specify folders for it to look for graphics, text etc. Type in "mymod" or whatever you called your folder.

Then you can play your mod, complete with new techs or whatever, in the Civ Content section of the game's main menu. And you distribute it by zipping the BIC file and the "mymod" folder with all its contents. Other people can unzip it directly into their Scenarios folder.

Ha, ha! This works great. At first I had a little trouble figuring out the resizing functions on Jasc (still a newbie to the program) but now I've tested it in my mod and it's all good! thanks for the tut, odin, and the add-ons, plotinus! Now i can have new techs for all my new units and buildings!! Yee-haw!


Cheers!!!

This'll make things much much easier. Thnx

techbota said:

TY

Then if you want to distribute it what files do you zip???

Is there a civ installer you can put it with?

I edit all UT series games so im used to having to uscript stuff mostly and only have the editor for maps and models really.

Click to expand...

You can place all the files included the folders they are in in a zip file. The right click its icon and select 'create self extracting file'

ok, I got the making of icons/txt down, but is there something Im missing?

I have deleted all old techs...starting new mod, but new techs dont appear on the tech chooser screen...is there anything other than just adding them to pedia file?

[edit] all techs appear in the civilipedia, just not on the tree, so I cant select any of them

I have no idea. I only know how to make techs, not implement them in mods,

Spacer One said:

ok, I got the making of icons/txt down, but is there something Im missing?

I have deleted all old techs...starting new mod, but new techs dont appear on the tech chooser screen...is there anything other than just adding them to pedia file?

[edit] all techs appear in the civilipedia, just not on the tree, so I cant select any of them

Click to expand...

Haven't done this yet, but I think I know basically what to do. Put the icons in the right folder, put the entry and graphic names in the pedia icons and civpedia file, have correct references. For gov techs, the government icon is the same as the tech icon.

What you should do is basically copy Civ III's text files, and replace the text/pictures with what you want. Then, after you get a hang of it, start experimenting with creating your own entries.

EDIT: After reading your edit, is it because you didn't specify which age they are? In other words, are they in age "none"?

Spacer One said:

ok, I got the making of icons/txt down, but is there something Im missing?

I have deleted all old techs...starting new mod, but new techs dont appear on the tech chooser screen...is there anything other than just adding them to pedia file?

[edit] all techs appear in the civilipedia, just not on the tree, so I cant select any of them

Click to expand...

They also need to be added in the editor and given an X , Y coordinate for where you want them to appear on the screen.

Yahoo! I'm so stupid... I haven't got problems with pictures!!!