Has anybody managed to get new religion icons working?

OK, first off, my self-imposed challange is to add an additional religion to the game. NOT mod an existing religion mind you, but add a new one, so that there is a total of 8 religions in the game.

I have accomplished many significant steps of this goal, like adding additional buttons to the button atlas graphics and putting the correct coding coordinates for the new icons into the .xml files.

I have managed to expand the Religion Advisor screen so that there is room for an additional religion to appear. It does, in fact, appear.

My religion founds and spreads properly. The buttons for the buildings and missionaries show up in the build menu just fine.

But I can't get the little religion icons to appear above my city bar letting me know which cities have it.

I presume it grabs those images from the font files, which I've edited (with correct alpha channels) to have my new religion's symbols (one for regular city, one for holy city). I was HOPING that the game would simply read these icons in the order in which they appear in the religion .xml file, but having additional icons in the file just seems to screw everything up.

If I add my new icons, then ALL the religion icons above the city bar get messed up, and start displaying seemingly random icons. Once the symbol for Judaism was replaced by the icon for copper, and once the icon for Taoism was replaced by the icon for fish.

I don't know why the addition of new icons in the font files is throwing everything off, but it is.

Does anybody know how to correct this?

I am no modder but just an idea..

Where did you add the new icon? After the old religion icons or as the very last icon in the file? The order is most likely important so it is better not to mess up the original configuration, just expand it, so that the original order is maintained.

Or if you can replace other icons then just take a look at the xisting ones and use some unused slot for graphics. There are probably several icons that are not used.. I have read from other modders about graphics they have found that are not in use.

Sorry if these seem too 'simple' solutions. Only things that came to my mind and you probably already tried them.

I stuck the new icons at the end of the line of regular religion icons. My presumption - obviously false - is that the game would simply read down that row and automatically figure out what icon goes with what religion. The reason I thought this is that the icons appear in the same order as the religions in the .xml file. There is noplace in the .xml code to designate a number or coordinate for which icon to use.

But, to add confusion to the mix, when I click the religion advisor tab and then click on the large icon for my religion, it correctly lists the cities that have my new religion - with the correct icon next to them!! This is the exact same small icon I'm trying to get to show up above the city bar, and it's reading it correctly on the religion screen, but incorrectly on the main screen!

In Civ III for a while, the programmers had hard-coded how far the program reads the graphics file for certain things in the game. Maybe this is the same issue?

I don't know about that, I just added my resource to the res/fonts files and they showed up in game for me just fine. Note there are two font files that need changed. Did you make sure to alter the alpha channel mask on those two files? If you didn't it won't show the image

Still working on the same problem, so I can't answer that question (yet).

Out of curiousity, how did you edit the Religion Advisor? I haven't gotten to that yet.

DSChapin said:

Still working on the same problem, so I can't answer that question (yet).

Out of curiousity, how did you edit the Religion Advisor? I haven't gotten to that yet.

Click to expand...

Somebody in this post gave me the .py script I needed to do so.

I've still been unable to mod the religion display in the city screen. The icon for my new religion is there, but it's just cut off by the edge of the screen (I can see the tooltip when I mouse over the very edge of the screen, so at least 1 pixel of the image on the screen).

phalzyr said:

I don't know about that, I just added my resource to the res/fonts files and they showed up in game for me just fine. Note there are two font files that need changed. Did you make sure to alter the alpha channel mask on those two files? If you didn't it won't show the image

Click to expand...

Yes, I got the alpha channels. I can't figure it out.

It has to be in the .py code somewhere... some indication of how many religions the game is expecting to exist.

What I can't figure out is why adding new ones screws up the other religions, too. You'd think that, since the file is identical up to the point where I added the new icons, that the only places the game would display the wrong icon would be AFTER the new ones.

Hmm. I got my alpha channels working, and the new religions seem to show up fine now...

DSChapin said:

Hmm. I got my alpha channels working, and the new religions seem to show up fine now...

Click to expand...

Interesting... I notice you didn't duplicate the little blue dots that are next to all of the original images. I did, assuming these designated cells that are to be "read" or something. I'll try taking the blue dots away...

DSChapin said:

Hmm. I got my alpha channels working, and the new religions seem to show up fine now...

Click to expand...

That's just weird...

My file is, as far as I can tell, identical to yours, except the icons are different for my religion. Every thing else seems exactly the same. Yet when I use my file, it reads the file incorrectly and displays the wrong icons, but if I stick your file in my file's place, your icons load up just fine.

I just copied and pasted my icons into your file, and it still works fine. So problem solved I guess... I wish I knew what was different in my files though.

MerakSpielman said:

That's just weird...

My file is, as far as I can tell, identical to yours, except the icons are different for my religion. Every thing else seems exactly the same. Yet when I use my file, it reads the file incorrectly and displays the wrong icons, but if I stick your file in my file's place, your icons load up just fine.

I just copied and pasted my icons into your file, and it still works fine. So problem solved I guess... I wish I knew what was different in my files though.

Click to expand...

I had the same problem when I tried to add new religion tags. My solution: just rename relgions the religions not the tags.

MerakSpielman said:

I wish I knew what was different in my files though.

Click to expand...

Yeah, beats me. Glad my file worked for you, though.

If anybody's still following this, I have another slightly related question.

I changed the graphics for the technology required to get my religion. The buttons all look correct in the Civilopedia, but the mini-button at the top of the screen, and the mini-icon in the list of religions in the "next research" pop-up menu, are both pink squares.

Anybody know which file is linked to those icons? I want to check it out a bit more closely, but since some work and some don't, I'm not sure where to start.

Sorry, I don't have any help for you, just interest in your mod. I have been thinking of adding an 8th religion as well, and it was nice to see that someone had already done that. Have you posted your mod anywhere yet? Do you have plans to? Out of curiosity, which religion are you adding?

I'm adding Neopaganism, available with Ecology. I wanted a late-game religion.

I wasn't planning on posting it until I got everything working. I have a number of issues to polish up.

First was the pink button, which I haven't had time to investigate, but I can probably solve on my own.

Second is my new graphics for my temple/cathedral/monastery/shrine. Since I can't create skins, I was trying to just steal the Hindu ones and redo the graphics a bit. But any time I make a change, the entire building turns pink. This is strange because I modded the Taoist missionary and it works fine.

Third, and probably most difficult, is the religion display in the city screen. It has a little image for each religion telling you which are present in the city. But there's not enough room there for 8 icons. My icon is automatically being added to the right edge of the list - I can see a tooltip when I mouse over the extreme right edge of the screen - but I can't see it. This is probably handled in .py code somewhere.

Just remeber, there are always a few dds files containing the icons. the tech icons exist in different sizen and in different files. look through all the dds. convert to tga add icon, load alpha, alter alpha, save and convert back (with alpha channel). i got the same prob, when i added a new ressource (like cow) to the game. but i managed to solbve all of the little issues.

MerakSpielman said:

I'm adding Neopaganism, available with Ecology. I wanted a late-game religion.

I wasn't planning on posting it until I got everything working. I have a number of issues to polish up.

First was the pink button, which I haven't had time to investigate, but I can probably solve on my own.

Second is my new graphics for my temple/cathedral/monastery/shrine. Since I can't create skins, I was trying to just steal the Hindu ones and redo the graphics a bit. But any time I make a change, the entire building turns pink. This is strange because I modded the Taoist missionary and it works fine.

Third, and probably most difficult, is the religion display in the city screen. It has a little image for each religion telling you which are present in the city. But there's not enough room there for 8 icons. My icon is automatically being added to the right edge of the list - I can see a tooltip when I mouse over the extreme right edge of the screen - but I can't see it. This is probably handled in .py code somewhere.

Click to expand...

The Pink means that it can't find the skin map. Check for typo's in the art definitions file for buildings.

Here is my religious screen: