Zagaroth
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2009
- Messages
- 60
OK, back after my mod building was interrupted by life. Anyway, I seem to be having trouble finding a guide that explains this part in the way I get, so let me break down what I have and what I am looking for. skipping unit graphics for now, will come back to that later.
I have .dds images that should be formatted properly, and I can import them into my project just fine. And if I need others, I can make them (though honestly with help from my wife, she is more the graphic artist than I). Have GIMP for that work. It's all flat 2D images, I am not doing any moving or 3D stuff.
Now, to put this in steps for the way I need to sort everything in my head:
1) What file do I need to use for attaching the art & icons to my civ & leader?
Part of my memory from when I tried to do this before says that I need to identify what art needs to be loaded via a .artdef file, and then assigning that art via Leader_config or such. I do not currently have any .artdef file in the civilization mod.
2) What is the exact relationship between art labels and the art we see? Like, Fallback suggests to me that this is the scene used when the game can't find a more specifically labelled scene. But is it also used for specific specific scenes?
3) I need to understand the structure of the relationships between the different parts to adding the art. I'm not sure how to explain this better, just that I hate doing stuff when I don't understand why it works this way.
4) I have a file from the template I am building off of called Mod_Name.Art.xml. Going through it, it looks like it just exists for loading all the default art libraries? Do I need to touch this at all?
5) I've seen some mods seem to use multiple sizes of certain images like icons, do I really need to do that?
I can probably attempt to tackle a guide when I get stuff straightened in my head, just trying to jump back in to something half done makes it harder find a starting point, since this is my first real mod. So I'm trying to get a better grasp on what it is I need to actually do before I try a guide again.
Sorry if all this is explained somewhere I should have been able to find it, I'm trying to work around part of my brain that is not cooperating, and I can only spend so much energy on searching.
I have .dds images that should be formatted properly, and I can import them into my project just fine. And if I need others, I can make them (though honestly with help from my wife, she is more the graphic artist than I). Have GIMP for that work. It's all flat 2D images, I am not doing any moving or 3D stuff.
Now, to put this in steps for the way I need to sort everything in my head:
1) What file do I need to use for attaching the art & icons to my civ & leader?
Part of my memory from when I tried to do this before says that I need to identify what art needs to be loaded via a .artdef file, and then assigning that art via Leader_config or such. I do not currently have any .artdef file in the civilization mod.
2) What is the exact relationship between art labels and the art we see? Like, Fallback suggests to me that this is the scene used when the game can't find a more specifically labelled scene. But is it also used for specific specific scenes?
3) I need to understand the structure of the relationships between the different parts to adding the art. I'm not sure how to explain this better, just that I hate doing stuff when I don't understand why it works this way.
4) I have a file from the template I am building off of called Mod_Name.Art.xml. Going through it, it looks like it just exists for loading all the default art libraries? Do I need to touch this at all?
5) I've seen some mods seem to use multiple sizes of certain images like icons, do I really need to do that?
I can probably attempt to tackle a guide when I get stuff straightened in my head, just trying to jump back in to something half done makes it harder find a starting point, since this is my first real mod. So I'm trying to get a better grasp on what it is I need to actually do before I try a guide again.
Sorry if all this is explained somewhere I should have been able to find it, I'm trying to work around part of my brain that is not cooperating, and I can only spend so much energy on searching.