MSMD: How to Create a Mod (video demo)

[j.civ]

ooo! nevermind! yes i can play vanilla bts (sorry about my lack of experience)

 

[j.civ]

hmmm.... i don't know how i would have deleted them. if it makes a difference, i didnt use a disk, i bought the download of civ4 and bts online

 

[Flying Pig]

Strange - can you search your entire civ iv folder for great_spy, and tell me the location of the first file without text in its name that comes up? Mind you, it could just have been a wierd, packed up download - do you have any compressed files in your folder?

 

[j.civ]

will do... just one sec

 

[j.civ]

i cant find anything containing "great_spy".

 

[Flying Pig]

It's compressed somewhere, then. If you have a file with a name like xml, or assets (ie, not a folder) or an unusual file extension, try and unpack it or post it here

 

[j.civ]

well, the weird assets folders i was telling you about, their extension is .fpk. wait... i just found (in the logs folder) an xml file, a resmgr file and an init file. they are all text docs. how do i unpack them?

 

[Flying Pig]

The fpk files need this to be unpacked - but I think they're art only. Are you 100% sure you dont have an assets\XML folder?

 

[j.civ]

i have a custom assets/xml folder. but my assets folder just leads to the .fpk's

 

[Flying Pig]

Does your BTS have a Great Spy in the vanilla version? BTW, are you loooking in the original folder, as opposed to a mod folder?

 

[j.civ]

yes. my vanilla version is perfect except for the weird black blotches i was talking about. and no, im in beyond the sword. not a mod folder.

 

[Flying Pig]

Very strange - unless someone else has a downloaded version, I think you're stuck

 

[j.civ]

thank you so much, kael! i only had to watch a couple of your vids and then i got the hang of it! they are great! however, i am really close to finishing my mod scenario of the Haitian Revolution but i don't now how to do one thing... i'd like an ability in the game where if the haitians pillage a plantation, they turn the slaves working there into units. if someone could teach me that, i would really appreciate it, and then i could upload my mod!
thanks
- j.civ

(also, flying pig, i found the files, i was looking in "my games" vs "program files". i felt so dumb. thanks for the assistance!)

 

[Flying Pig]

That would explain it!

 

[snicklesnack36]

Okay... i love the vid, but when i get into my civilpedia its just a pink screen instead of my leader head, i have the leaderhead in 512x512 and the button 64x64... i just dont know whats wrong. can you help???

 

[j.civ]

same thing happened to me. not sure why. i asked my friend to create the lh and button on photoshop, convert to dds and send it to me. he did and i got pink. so i just made my own with gimp and downloaded the dds converter plug-in for it. it worked fine

 

[Texpatriate]

Any ideas what might cause certain civs within a mod not to load a technology tree when selected to play. E.g., the Greeks play as normal when the AI selects them, but not when I do. This is the case for a handful of original civs to which I have added Leaders (but no other changes).

 

[chrissifniotis]

Kael, I need a little help;
It seems that Vista doesn't like to create a Civ4 shortcut in the same way as you did it on your videos. I need to ask, is the shortcut to the mod necessary or is it just a quicker way to get into the mod?

 

[ScavengerType]

Kael. Please look into this toolkit.
http://www.swf-kit.com/
SWF or FLV are not good for streaming. you could likely get these onto youtube as long as you meet their compression requirements or host them here as AVI or as torrents if necessary. If the AVIs this program creates are too big I may be able to help.

As it is I currently can't use them so even a grainy version or audio to a series of screen-shots would be better.

is there any way I could download the SWF file directly?

edit:
I've found that by going into the page source I can find the SWF file but when I try to go to it as an HTML link it puts it in the browser rather than downloading it. Thus choking my connection.

anyone wanting it smaller will be happy to know that doing this causes it to re-size to fit your browser. for example:
http://kael.civfanatics.net/MSMD/AddALeader1/How to Add a Leader1_skin.swf

 

[1BRASS1]

I have followed the video above, however, whenever I load my mod, as it shows up in the right of the game, I can never see my leader. Now that being said, I did not create my own, I borrowed from within the game using Julius Caesar, using the same links as needed, but nothing shows up. Is this because I borrowed it? Is it possible to use this information without making a whole new artwork etc.?

Thanks ahead of time,
B.C.