In the past, when we wanted to make a new mounted hero, Gamling say, that used Eomer's model we were stuck. We either had to make him an on-foot only hero and use the UpgradeTexture or RandomTexture codes for the new skin or we had to make a new model that refrenced our new skin due to the fact that when mounting or unmounting the model always went back to it's original skin.
But not anymore. Zimoo and I have found a way to make new models that refrence the skins without modelling. Using Sy's old AssetBuilder and the "Edit W3D" function, we have been able to make a copy of Eomer's model that refrences a new skin and that uses a new name. Here I will go through the steps required to make the new models.
For this tutorial I am going to assume you know all the basics of modelling and coding and can get a new or edited model working in-game. I am also going to assume that you can get your own skins working in-game as that saves me alot of time in the tutorial
I also assume that you are using the -mod .big way of modding... I won't help you figure it out the other way.
I used the following tools when writing this tutorial:
-FinalBig
-Sy's Asset Builder
-The official EA Games AssetBuilder (comes with the game/patches, located in the main bfme folder in the "tools" folder. More information below)
-W3D Viewer
-DDS Converter2
-Hex Editor (not necessary)
I'll spare a minute here to give a brief bit of information on the two assetbuilders. Sy's AssetBuilder was the first one we used (either cause it was the only one or we didn't know about the EA one...can't recall), but Sy's Assetbuilder has always been tempermental... sometimes for no reason at all you'd get invisible models or other errors. The EA one is much more reliable, but doesn't have some of the interesting features that Sy's had. So, for adding the new models/skins ingame I recommend using the EA AssetBuilder. For editing the models we will be using Sy's AssetBuilder. EA's Asset Builder also has the nice feature of telling us if there is an error in the model.
For this tutorial I'll show you how to add a new Gamling model in-game as that is what I'm doing right now
So get out the following models and skins and keep them all in a folder somewhere:
rueomer_skn.w3d
rueomer_skl.w3d
rueomer.tga (we'll convert this to .dds later, tga are easier to edit)
rueomrhrs_skn.w3d
ruhhs_theo_skl.w3d (horse skl)
rutheohorsem.tga (or .dds... you can convert it if need be)
Ok, now you are going to want to make a copy of all the skins and rename them to whatever you want... for me this means: rugamling.tga , rugamlinghrs.tga , ect. And for the purposes of this tutorial, I have made mine Neon Green for easy spotting in-game. If you do the same you can always replace the texture with a new one later. NOTE: if you can't edit DDS files with your image editor you can use the DDS Converter to convert them to TGA files which most editors can read.
Now we need to open up Sy's AssetBuilder. Click on the "Edit W3D" button... find your unmounted model (rueomer_skn.w3d) and open it up. It should then show you atleast one, but possibly more, tga files. For Eomer it shows rueomer.tga as well as rueowyn.tga (for his spear power). Select rueomer.tga and click the "replace" button. Now find your new skin (rugamling.tga) and click open. You can do this for any and all textures listed, but for this tutorial I'm just changing the hero skin so I'm done here.
Now click "ok"... it's going to ask you for the new model's name and save location... select the spot you want to save it to and change the name BUT KEEP THE SAME NUMBER OF LETTERS IN THE NAME. So if the old model name was "RUEOMER_SKN" then the new name should be "RUGAMLI_SKN".
Now do the same thing for the mounted model. (which btw I recolored the horse skin blue for easy viewing in-game)
Ok, now we have our new models and they refrence the new skins... next, view the models in W3D Viewer to make sure that they look ok (aka make sure that the new skins show up). Ok, mine look good, I've got a green hero and a blue horse. we are now done with Sy's AssetBuilder and can close it.
Now we need to add the files to our mod in the Art\Textures and Art\W3D folders. I went ahead and stuck the SKL in with the models just to be sure that everything works right. You might not want to or need to, but I'm going to be careful with mine as I don't want to have any errors.
Now go back out of the art folder and open up the EA AssetBuilder folder, but don't run it yet. Now make a copy of your Art folder (and any other assets) and stick them in the EA AssetBUilder folder. Once that's done run the "AssetCacheBuilder" (aka the EA AssetBuilder)...
Now you should have three new files: Asset.dat , Asseterrors.txt , and AssetCacheBuilder.exe-YourComputerName
Open up the asseterrors.txt file and look for anything related to your new hero... Particularly we don't want to see this infront of our hero: "Internal box" or "Internal hierarchy" like so:
Internal box is named GOUGBLNPKMN2_SK.BOUNDINGBOX; Could not get info for art\w3d\gblnpkmn_skn.w3d
Internal hierarchy is named GC; Could not get info for art\w3d\gobcit.w3d
Those are very bad errors... they tell us that the game won't be reading those models. Usually caused by two things refering to the same name. So if you have two meshes that both are named aragorn there might be a problem.
But if it has this infront:
Asset RUGAMLI_SKN.SPEAR in file rugamli_skn.w3d depends on unknown asset rueowyn.tga.
That's probably ok, it's just telling us we didn't include an image called rueowyn.tga but in this case it is in the original game and we don't need to worry about it. It will still work either way... it may just show up pink if you don't have the image in your game or mod.
If you get the first error, go back and try the thing with Sy's Asset Builder again and make sure that the file name is the same. You might be able to fix this error with the HEX Editor if you know what you're doing... at the top and bottom of the model are the mesh names and you can edit them with the hex editor... no promises on it working though. Your best bet is to start over.
Ok, next drag your new Asset.dat file into your mod folder. Now add your new model name to your hero's code. I am going to assume that you know how to do that and that you know how to refrence the animations correctly.
Now our hero is all set. Create your new .big file for the mod and try out the hero in-game.
If your hero shows up invisible in-game make sure you refrenced the model names correctly in his code. If you did that correctly and he still doesn't work you may have to try making him again.
Once again, credit to zimoo for suggesting that I use Sy's AssetBuilder and help with getting it working.
Thus concludes this tutorial.
-GothmogtheOrc
